A Unified Approach to Quantitatively Measure the Similarity of Computer Science Units in Australia

Research Full paper - Computer Science (CS) education is increasingly becoming popular across the globe. With the increased popularity of CS and Information and Communications Technology (ICT) courses, the ability to measure the similarity/distance between units can aid the decision-making process of education providers during learning path recommendations, evaluating unit exemptions/advanced standings, etc. The ability to quantitatively measure the similarity of two units will assist decision-making processes which are otherwise likely to be tedious and time-consuming. Therefore, in this work, we explore how to quantitatively measure the similarity/distance between two CS/ICT units, in an Australian setting. In this study, we utilize data from multiple CS/ICT courses offered by two Australian education providers. The data is generated as a result of the Australian Computer Society's (ACS) course accreditation process during which each unit of a course is mapped into multiple knowledge areas. We measured the similarity between units in terms of their coverage of the knowledge areas using multiple distance measures. Our work is novel in examining a quantitative measure of unit similarity, by introducing a unified approach across education providers that follow the ACS course accreditation process.