Computer Science is centred around the study of information. It is concerned with the nature and properties of information, its structure and classification, its storage and retrieval, and the various types of processing to which it can be subjected. It is also concerned with the physical machines that perform these operations, with the elemental units of which these machines are composed, with the organization of these units into efficient information processing systems, and with the exploration of the limits of the abilities of these machines.
Computer Science is recognized as an independent discipline with an inherently mathematical nature. Its activity ranges from theoretical areas such as the theory of automata, system organization and logic design, formal languages and computability theory to applied areas such as scientific computing, programming languages, bioinformatics, software management, and computer systems.
The advent of the computer has facilitated a systems approach to solving many problems in science, business, and industry. There is currently a great demand for information analysts to define how systems will perform these functions and for programmers to implement production systems on computers.
Effective July 1, 1997, regular and co-operative Honours BMath (Computer Science) plans, including the Information Systems, Digital Hardware, and Software Engineering Options and double honours plans involving Computer Science, have been accredited by the Computer Science Accreditation Council. The Council is sponsored by the Canadian Information Processing Society (www.cips.ca/).
This accreditation recognizes that the quality of these plans meets published, generally accepted criteria for sound education in the discipline. A student who graduates from an accredited plan is eligible to be designated as an Information Systems Professional (www.cips.ca/standards) after two years of professional level experience.
The Bioinformatics plan and the Bachelor of Computer Science plans are not yet accredited because students in these plans had not yet graduated at the time of the last accreditation review. The David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science expects the plans to be accredited shortly. Plans involving Joint Honours Computer Science, however, will not be accredited because they do not include enough Computer Science content.