The Cognitive and Information Sciences (CIS) program offers a model undergraduate curriculum designed to expose students to the study of intelligent systems. It is intended as a model for the development of similar programs at other institutions as they begin to move into this emerging field. The core of the newly proposed major concerns formal theories of mind and information that integrate computer science, psychology, philosophy, neuroscience, and mathematics. The curriculum gives students training in the basic skills of this new field (writing, mathematics, experimentation, and computer programming), but also fosters the development of expertise in particular sub-fields such as human cognition, learning and instruction, logic, and computation. Newly designed courses will expose students to both basic scientific theories and to applications of these theories to education, system design, and database retrieval. The program will be assessed internally by pre/post exams within courses and exit interviews upon graduation, and externally by quarterly site visits by expert consultants and a comprehensive third-year review by consultants from Indiana University's School of Education. The tangible products of this proposal will include general information on the CIS degree and its requirements and materials for specific courses in the form of syllabi, lecture notes, slides, bibliographies, assignments, and exams. Most important will be the course software and laboratory software developed for all four of the core CIS courses, and several others; this courseware will emphasize interactive, hands on learning through doing, and will be in a form easily usable by other programs that are beginning or being planned in this area. These products will be disseminated through our existing technical report series and newsletter, through electronic media, web sites, and contacts at other universities, and will be provided upon request of other institutions starting such programs.
