EDUCATION SUPPORT
WDPC provided more than just computer time. Although not a teaching department, it offered many non-credit courses in programming and machine operation. The Center supported educational projects in teaching departments at UCLA and the participating institutions. WDPC facilities were used not only for regular curriculum classes and projects, but also to solve data processing problems for masters' and doctoral theses.
WDPC courses
Some early examples of courses are:
March 30, 1957. One day course in electronic data processing attended by faculty from UCLA and local Participating Institutions.
September 3 -September 13, 1957. Two week course in programming and data processing for business. Attended by 11 faculty from participating institutions, 5 from departments at UCLA and 2 from the IBM-WDPC staff.
WDPC regularly ran courses on FORTRAN and, later, COBOL programming. Some were held at UCLA and some were held at Participating Institutions when a group as large as 10-15 faculty and students indicated a desire for such a course.
Computers in teaching:1959
By 1959, I had developed two approved courses on computing in the Graduate School of Business Administration:
BA 119 Electronic Computers in Businesst dealt with programming and using the computer to solve business problems. FORTRAN was the language of choice at WDPC.
BA 298 Studies in Business Administration in which Dr. Morris Asimow (Engineering) and I were designing a computer-simulated firm with emphasis on the operation of the firm rather than on its competitive position in the market.
Four other courses had also been developed in the School that made extensive use of the computer:
BA 116A-116B Statistical Inference in BusinessBA 118 Introduction to Operations AnalysisBA 210 Seminar in Operations AnalysisBA 217 Quantitative Methods of Business Forecasting
WDPC gave additional support to a newly formed UCLA Computer Club with a membership of nearly 150 undergraduate and graduate students. Members of the Club gave regular lectures and hands-on tutorials on FORTRAN programming. WDPC ran the resulting programs for the Club.
Computers in Teaching:1965
Courses at UCLA and Participating Institutions grew in number and subject matter. Some of the 1965 offerings at UCLA and Participating Institutions are shown in the following pages taken from WDPC Progress Report Number 7.
Note: BA 116A and 116B are listed above as using the computer but they are not listed among the 1965 courses. The reason is that I had given up teaching them in favor of teaching more computer courses and the individual who took them over chose not to use the computer for lab work.