Talk given at SIGCSE'19. Web development continues to grow as an essential skill and knowledge area for employed computer science graduates. Yet within the ACM CS2013 curriculum recommendation and within computing education research in general, web development has been shrinking or even disappearing all together. This paper uses an informal systematic literature review methodology to answer three research questions: what approaches are being advocated in existing web development education research, what are current trends in industry practice, and how should web development be taught in light of these current trends. Results showed a significant mismatch between the type of web development typically taught in higher education settings in comparison to web development in industry practice. Consequences for the pedagogy of web development courses, computer science curriculum in general, and for computing education research are also discussed.

1. FACING BACKWARDS
WHILE STUMBLING FORWARDS:
THE FUTURE
OF TEACHING
WEB
DEVELOPMENT
RANDY CONNOLLY
MOUNT ROYAL UNIVERSITY
CALGARY, CANADA

2. WEB DEVELOPMENT
CONTINUES TO GROW
AS AN ESSENTIAL SKILL
AND KNOWLEDGE AREA
FOR EMPLOYED
COMPUTER SCIENCE
GRADUATES.

3. JOB POSTING RESEARCH CONTINUES TO
SHOW WEB DEV SKILLS ARE BY FAR THE
MOST FREQUENTLY REQUESTED
TECHNOLOGY COMPENTENCY OF
COMPUTING GRADUATES

4. YET WITHIN THE ACM CS2013
CURRICULUM RECOMMENDATION
AND WITHIN COMPUTING
EDUCATION RESEARCH IN
GENERAL, …
WEB DEVELOPMENT
HAS BEEN
SHRINKING OR EVEN
DISAPPEARING
ALL TOGETHER.

5. IN ACM
CS2013
NONE CONTAIN
ANY
TOPICS
FROM
THE
WEB
PLATFORM
SUBAREA
OF THE 84 COURSE EXEMPLARS

6. “YOU CAN SEE WEB DEVELOPMENT
EVERYWHERE EXCEPT IN THE CURRICULA
OF THE VARIOUS COMPUTING
PROGRAMS”
ACM TRANSACTIONS ON
COMPUTING EDUCATION
2015 SPECIAL ISSUE ON WEB DEV

7. I HAVE A VESTED INTEREST IN THIS TOPIC…

8. RESEARCH
METHODOLOGY

9. WHAT APPROACHES
ARE BEING ADVOCATED
WITHIN WEB DEV ED
RESEARCH?
RQ1

10. RQ2
WHAT ARE THE
CURRENT TRENDS IN
INDUSTRY PRACTICE?

11. HOW SHOULD WEB
DEV BE TAUGHT IN
LIGHT OF RQ2?
RQ3

12. 125 PEER-REVIEWED PAPERS
BETWEEN 2000 AND 2018

13. RQ1 – 80 PAPERS
ONLY 18 > 2013

14. A CATEGORIZATION
CONTENT ANALYSIS
EXTRACTED COMMON
REOCCURING THEMES

15. RESULTS

16. WHAT APPROACHES
ARE BEING ADVOCATED
WITHIN WEB DEV ED
RESEARCH?
RQ1

18. SEVERAL STUDIES ARGUED
THAT WEB DEV CAN BE A
CONCEPTUAL LINK …

19. … BETWEEN EARLY STAGES
OF STUDENT’S COMPUTING
EDUCATION AND …

20. … THEIR NORMAL DAY-TO-
DAY USE OF COMPUTERS…

21. … AND THE WIDER RANGE
OF CS CONCEPTS.

22. RQ2
WHAT ARE THE
CURRENT TRENDS IN
INDUSTRY PRACTICE?

23. IN 2008, WEB DEV
REQUIRED LEARNING …

24. FRONT-END BACK-END
HTML
CSS
JAVASCRIPT (MAYBE)
PHP/ASPNET/JSP
MVC (MAYBE)
SQL DATABASE

25. JAVASCRIPT WAS USED SPARINGLY
SMALL NUMBER OF PROTOCOLS
DEVELOPMENT METHODOLOGIES RARE

26. BY 2013, WEB DEV HAD BECOME
MORE COMPLICATED …

27. JAVASCRIPT WAS EVERYWHERE
BACK-ENDS WERE THINNER
NON-SQL DATABASES
AND, MOST IMPORTANTLY, …

28. DEVOPS
CLOUD COMPUTING

29. NOW, IN 2018,
WEB DEV
IS EVEN MORE
COMPLICATED …

30. AVALANCHE OF JAVASCRIPT APIS
CLOUD WORKFLOWS
MICROSERVICES+SERVERLESS+EDGE
FUNCTIONAL/REACTIVE PROGRAMMING

31. UPLOADING A FILE IN 2005

32. UPLOADING A FILE IN 2013

33. UPLOADING A FILE IN 2018

36. 2005 2018

37. HOW SHOULD WEB
DEV BE TAUGHT IN
LIGHT OF RQ2?
RQ3

39. THE OBVIOUS PROBLEM
IS THAT IT IS NOT
AT ALL POSSIBLE
TO COVER THIS
CONTENT
WITHIN
1-2 COURSES

40. CONCLUSIONS

41. THE WEB IS THE COMPUTER PLATFORM
FOR SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT TODAY

42. WHY THEN IS THE ACM CS
CURRICULUM HIDING
FROM IT ?

43. IS IT BECAUSE CS ED
IS ABOUT TEACHING
FOUNDATIONAL
COMPUTATIONAL
CONCEPTS?
CS = TIMELESS

44. THUS CS NOT
INTERESTED IN
TEACHING A
PARTICULAR
TECHNOLOGY
SKILL STACK WEB =
TODAY’S
FASHION

45. THIS CAN BE A TOO-
CONVENIENT EXCUSE
FOR IGNORING THE
NEED TO MAKE
CURRICULAR
CHANGES IN LIGHT
OF A RAPIDLY
TRANSFORMING
COMPUTING WORLD
I LIKE
WHAT I KNOW

46. WEB DEV TODAY IS
CONCEPTUALLY
RICH,
ALGORITHMICALLY
COMPLICATED, AND
INTEGRATES BROAD
ASPECTS OF THE
CS CURRICULUM IN A
USEFUL/EMPLOYABLE WAY

47. WE SHOULD MAKE
THE EFFORT TO
INEGRATE MORE
WEB DEV TECH
INTO THE CS
CURRICULUM

48. WE DON’T
HAVE TO USE
JAVA
WE DON’T
HAVE TO USE
CONSOLE.OUT
WE DON’T
HAVE TO USE
CLIENT-SERVER

49. QUESTIONS