Address

• Mail & Courier:
  1003 LAS,
  Department of Computer Science and Engineering, York University
  4700 Keele Street, Toronto, Ontario, M3J 1P3, Canada
  Telephone for courier deliveries: 416-736-5053
  
  
• Office:
  Room: 2020 LAS
  Tel. (416) 736-2100 ext. 66146, Fax. (416) 736-5872
  Algorithm to reach the office:

     precondition: your are in LAS
     {
        takeElevator("floor 2"); 
        turn("right"); 
        walk("all_the_way");
        turn("left"); 
        walk("halfway"); 
     }
     postcondition: the office is to your right

• Internet:
  E-mail: roumani at cse dot yorku dot ca
  URL: http://www.cse.yorku.ca/~roumani

Courses

• The Introductory Sequence and Algorithms: CSE1020, CSE1030, CSE2011, CSE3101.
• Computer Organization: CSE2021, CSE2021L.
• Scientific Computing: CSE1540, CSE2501.
• Web/XML Programming and eCommerce: CSE2041, CSE4413.
• Computer Security: CSE3481, CSE4481.

Recent Publications & Lectures

• "A Journey into Computer Security"
  March 2013.
  A lecture given to first-year students (CSE1001). Link.
  
  
• "Visual Location-Based URL Screening Tool for Improved WWW Security"
  with A. Naumov and N. Vlajic, June 2012.
  Published in the proceedings of the World Congress of Internet Security, WorldCIS-2012. Link.
  
  
• "Good Teaching & Good Learning"
  Presented at the CSE Departmental Retreat, Kettleby, Ont, Sept 16, 2011. Link.
  
  
• "The iShare System"
  iShare enables an instructor to demonstrate a technique to all students in the lab by actually performing the technique on the instructor's machine and have students watch the process on their screens. Sept. 2009. Link.
  
  
• "How Scientists Teach"
  Society for Teaching and Learning in Higher Education, Number 53, Fall 2009. Link.
  
  
• "Address Based Memory Diagrams"
  with Franck van Breugel, Feb. 2008. Link.
  
  
• "The Science in Computer Science: A Journey Through Abstractions"
  Presented at the Royal Canadian Institute, Macleod Auditorium, Medical Sciences Building, University of Toronto on Sun Oct. 28, 2007. Link, press article, and footage: Optimized for Windows streaming and Cross-Platform Flash.
  
  
• "The ePost System"
  A Secure Web-Based Grade Posting System for CSE@York. The latest version supports impersonation, http authentication over SSL, and automatic production of the course performance summary forms. Sept. 2007 Link.
  
  
• "Separation of Concerns in CS1/CS2"
  Presented at the York/CSE Seminars, March 24, 2006. Slides, Programs.
  
  
• "Practice What You Preach"
  Published in the proceedings of the 37th ACM SIGCSE technical symposium on Computer Science Education, pp 491, 2006. Presented in Houston, TX. PDF
  
  
• "We Don't Need Arrays"
  Presented at the 7th ACSE conference (2005). Link.
  
  
• "Java By Abstraction"
  A textbook published by Pearson Education Canada, Addison-Wesley (2005). Site and press article.
  
  
• "Verimips: A Lab Handbook on Assembly and Hardware Design Languages"
  A series of labs on MIPS and Verilog. Published in August 2004. Link.
  
  
• "A Guided Tour of Unix"
  A hand-on introduction to the Unix/Linux environment @CSE. Intended for newcomers to the department including CSE1020 and transfer students, grads, and new faculty. Published in July 2004. Link.
  
  
• "Fortran@York"
  A comprehensive site on Fortran and the SLATEC library. Includes software downloads, resources, and a set of labs. Published in June 2003. Link.
  
  
• "Design Guidelines for the Lab Component of Objects-First CS1"
  Published in the proceedings of the 33rd ACM SIGCSE technical symposium on Computer Science Education, pp 222, 2002. Presented in Cincinnati, OH. PDF
  
  
• More Publications
  Follow this link .

Biography

Awards

• The Departmental Mildred Baptist Award
  in 2001, 2002, and 2005, Dept of Computer Science & Engineering.
• The Faculty-Wide Excellence in Teaching Award
  in 1995 and 2000, Faculty of Pure and Applied Science.
• The University-Wide Award for Teaching Excellence
  in 1996, York University. Press article.
• The Province-Wide Leadership in Faculty Teaching Award ( LIFT )
  in 2007, Province of Ontario. Link and press article.
• The Canada-Wide 3M Fellowship
  in 2009, Fellowship. Press release: English, French. Media: 3M, York, YFile, Maclean, STLHE.

Teaching Philosophy

It is my belief that concentrating on the general ideas and the Big Picture without worrying about details, will produce an individual who may be computer-literate but certainly not a productive computer professional. At the other extreme, an individual who masters the intricate details of a particular environment without being able to abstract, will be obsolete as soon as the technology that underlies that environment becomes obsolete (which happens quickly in the computing field).

A blend of the two approaches is essential for confronting today's ever-changing state of this field which is nothing short of "evolution in action" with an "adapt or die" paradigm. Luckily, while technological details are changing rapidly and in a revolutionary manner, abstract concepts are evolving slowly and incrementally. Hence by understanding how today's details fit in the general abstract scheme, we should be able to easily adapt and quickly comprehend tomorrow's technologies.

We can achieve this blend by observing two prime directives that tell us how to orchestrate the topics within a course and how to choreograph the discovery of concepts so that students can explore what can be rather than imitate what is. Here are simple yet enlightening depictions of the two directives:

• What is the relation between driving a car and the combustion engine? Do I need to known one in order to learn the other? And more to the point, why did you keep referring to spark plugs when you were showing me how to accelerate?


• Try as you may but I don't think your lectures will ever teach me how to skate. You have explained the techniques really well, even made me an expert in the physics of skating, but I still fall flat on my face every time I set foot in the rink!

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