In computer science, an expected outcome of a student's education is programming skill. This working group investigated the programming competency students have as they complete their first one or two courses in computer science. In order to explore options for assessing students, the working group developed a trial assessment of whether students can program. The underlying goal of this work was to initiate dialog in the Computer Science community on how to develop these types of assessments. Several universities participated in our trial assessment and the disappointing results suggest that many students do not know how to program at the conclusion of their introductory courses. For a combined sample of 216 students from four universities, the average score was 22.89 out of 110 points on the general evaluation criteria developed for this study. From this trial assessment we developed a framework of expectations for first-year courses and suggestions for further work to develop more comprehensive assessments.

In computer science, an expected outcome of a student's education is programming skill. This working group investigated the programming competency students have as they complete their first one or two courses in computer science. In order to explore options for assessing students, the working group developed a trial assessment of whether students can program. The underlying goal of this work was to initiate dialog in the Computer Science community on how to develop these types of assessments. Several universities participated in our trial assessment and the disappointing results suggest that many students do not know how to program at the conclusion of their introductory courses. For a combined sample of 216 students from four universities, the average score was 22.89 out of 110 points on the general evaluation criteria developed for this study. From this trial assessment we developed a framework of expectations for first-year courses and suggestions for further work to develop more comprehensive assessments.

In computer science, an expected outcome of a student's education is programming skill. This working group investigated the programming competency students have as they complete their first one or two courses in computer science. In order to explore options for assessing students, the working group developed a trial assessment of whether students can program. The underlying goal of this work was to initiate dialog in the Computer Science community on how to develop these types of assessments. Several universities participated in our trial assessment and the disappointing results suggest that many students do not know how to program at the conclusion of their introductory courses. For a combined sample of 216 students from four universities, the average score was 22.89 out of 110 points on the general evaluation criteria developed for this study. From this trial assessment we developed a framework of expectations for first-year courses and suggestions for further work to develop more comprehensive assessments.

We present seven case-studies of undergraduate recruitment to Computer Science courses together with analysis of students' success during the early part of their study. We focus particularly upon qualification on entry, the subjects studied in the early university curriculum, and student grades.We find that while university admissions are complex processes, there exists sufficient commonality to permit some useful comparisons. These suggest that predicting undergraduate performance on the basis of entry qualifications is fraught. Nevertheless, it seems that students who arrive at university with a record of success in earlier studies may be more likely to succeed than otherwise. In particular, good grades in pre-university study may indicate that they are more likely to do well in the mathematical part of the university curriculum. Conversely, we find nothing in entry qualifications to indicate which students will be successful in the study of programming.

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Computer science is inherently international but its effective application depends on an understanding of the local culture in which it is being used. Students and faculty need to be prepared to operate in this global environment. This ITiCSE working group report discusses why an international dimension is an important component of a computer science student's education. It describes ways to add an international dimension to student learning and provides several case studies as examples. Barriers to international study are identified, and recommendations for how to do more to expand the international opportunities of computer science students are discussed.

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