COMP 1000 is an introductory computer science course designed for anyone to start from, especially if you have no prior computing experience.

COMP 1000 is designed to show you the breadth of computer science before embarking on programming. COMP 1000 is intended to satisfy the same learning objectives and outcomes as COMP 1010 and COMP 1020 at the University of Manitoba.

Introductory computer science is currently offered at the University of Manitoba across 5 different courses:

• COMP 1010 and COMP 1020: Introductory Computer Science 1 and 2, designed for students who are intending to declare a major in computer science in their second year of study. Both COMP 1010 and COMP 1020 focus primarily on computer programming as a learning objective.
• COMP 1012: Computer Programming for Scientists and Engineers, designed for students in science and engineering to learn to program with a focus on computing as a utility in conducting and facilitating science.
• COMP 1500: Computing: Ideas and Innovation, designed for non-science students to learn about computer science as an idea, and computer programming as a practice. COMP 1500 is intended for non-CS students, but a student may enrol in other computer science courses after taking the course.
• COMP 1600: Navigating Your Digital World, designed for non-CS students to gain familiarity with and confidence in computing as a general idea, focusing specifically on ideas related to effectively using computers and discussing computing.

COMP 1500 and COMP 1600 are designed to be terminal and self-contained. Students taking COMP 1500 or COMP 1600 are not expected to take any more computer science courses after completing the course.

COMP 1012 is designed to be self-contained, but must satisfy the same learning objectives and outcomes as COMP 1010. Students having taken COMP 1012 may take other computer science courses, starting with COMP 1020, because:

1. Other computer science courses are required for their degree program (e.g., computer engineering), or
2. The student may decide to take computer science as a minor or major after completing the course.

COMP 1010 and COMP 1020 are designed for students wishing to declare computer science as a major or minor for their degree program, and satisfy the learning outcomes for courses offered in the first term of second year (COMP 2140 and COMP 2160). COMP 1020 also satisfies some learning outcomes for courses offered in the second term of second year (COMP 2150 and COMP 2080).

I (me, Franklin Bristow) believe that focusing primarily on programming as a learning objective in COMP 1010 and COMP 1020 is a disservice to students entering the computer science program, whether they have previous programming experience or no previous programming experience. Focusing on programming as a learning objective may give students the false impression that computer science is programming, where programming is one tool that's used in the study of computer science.

I believe that we would be better serving our students by showing them what computer science is before proceeding with programming as a tool to study computer science. I also believe our department would be better served by this strategy, as my idea is that COMP 1010 and COMP 1500 can be offered as a single course, serving both CS and non-CS students, and freeing up resources in our department that can be applied to other courses.

My plan for COMP 1000 is to redesign COMP 1010 to focus more heavily on computer science as a discipline rather than head-first into programming (merging COMP 1500 and COMP 1010), and redesign COMP 1020 to focus primarily on programming to satisfy the needs of second year computer science courses. While some learning outcomes from COMP 1020 may be lost by condensing the courses, I feel that the lost learning outcomes can be strategically selected to not influence second year courses.

One notable example of a course with similar goals is Crash Course Computer Science. The course consists of about 40 videos that start with computing first principles and ending with high-level domain areas in computer science (i.e., computer vision, cryptography, psychology, robots, and more). COMP 1000 will be modelled on and supplemented by Crash Course videos, but tailored to meet the needs of second year courses in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Manitoba.

BBC's Computer Literacy Project and The Computer Programme were released in the 1980s in Britain, and were intended to help normalize computers and computing for an entire generation of people. The entire project (television series, educational material, computers) were designed to be broadly appealing, especially since home computing was an entirely new idea.