PROFESSIONAL ACTIVITIES UPDATE

Name:     James S. Jones                         Date:  September 25, 1997
Division: Science and Math Division


I.   Teaching Innovations (course development, revisions, instructional 
     strategies implemented, use of technology, etc.)

Continued to upgrade and maintain my course related web pages, 
especially for Intro to Computers and Applications (23:101).

Had mail-lists (Listserv) set up for my classes and used them 
extensively for communication with the class, and to encourage
exchanges between students in the class.

Together with Gary Hasman, facilitated the change of the base programming
language in our curriculum: from Pascal to C++. This was in response
to alumni inputs resulting from the curricular assessment process.

Team taught several courses with Gary Hasman because of the excessive
demands resulting from the large class size (23:101) or the change-over 
to a new programming language (C++ in 23:130 & 23:132). The results
of this experience was particularly rewarding and effective.

Developed JAVA applets for Graceland students to determine when their
final exams are for the Fall and Spring semesters. This exercise 
was part of a familiarization phase that will precede the development of
winterterm and course offerings in Java programming.


II.  Service Provided

     A. Professional Service

        Faculty advisor to 10-15 students
        Inform students of (and post) the many e-mail job notices I receive
        Meet with prospective students at the request of Admissions
        Assisted various faculty with computer/net questions throughout year

     B. College Committees and Assignments

        Academic Computer Services Committee
        Computing Services Committee
        General Education Subcommittee on Info Tech


III. Presentations (title, organization, date)

"Multi-Layered Pipeline Parsing of Phrases from Multi-Axiom Grammars",
University of Iowa, Dissertation Defense on April 10, 1997.


IV.  Publications (bibliographic data)

T. Rus and J.S. Jones. "PHRASE Parsers from Multi-Axiom Grammars". 
Submitted to Theoretical Computer Science in Sept. 1996. Recently
received word of acceptance. Currently formatting the document
to publisher's specifications.


V.   Grant Writing

Participated in committees to provide feedback on past awarded grants:
(1) the Graceland College Computer Engineering/Physics I.L.I. grant, and 
(2) the Consortium (U of Iowa, Graceland, Luther, Cornell) for Parallel
Programming's I.L.I. grant for undergraduate access to high-performance
parallel processors.


VI.  Courses/Workshops/Conferences attended (title, organization, date, place)

"State of the Art in Graphics and Virtual Environments" (22c:297),
Dept. of Computer Science, University of Iowa, Fall 1996.
Three semester hours, graduate credit, grade earned: A.

"Windows 95", one-day SkillPath seminar. July 1997.

"Java and Object-Oriented Programming", University of Oklahoma and
the NCEI (National Computer Educator's Institute), August'97, Edmond, OK.
Four semester hours, graduate credit, grade earned: A.

Maintained enrollment as a Ph D student at the Un. of Iowa, as required, and
continued research, development, and writing toward that end.


VII. Professional Memberships

Member of Association for Computing Machinery (ACM, Comp.Sci. Prof. Society)
Member of ACM Special Interest Group for Programming Languages (SIGPLAN)
Member of Consortium for Computing in Small Colleges
Other profession related subscriptions:
  -  Computer Science Education
  -  Computing Research News
  -  Technological Horizons in Education
  -  College Teaching
  -  MacUser
  -  PC Computing
  -  Claris Works Journal
  -  C/C++ Journal
  -  Inside the Internet
  -  Pure Java Developers Journal


VIII. Other

Coordinator for the Computer Science Department. However, Gary Hasman
took on much of this load.

I am an assistant Scoutmaster for Lamoni Troop 116 (community service).

I was a referee/reviewer for an article by a German researcher that
was submitted to Theoretical Computer Science (TCS), an international 
journal.


IX.  Professional Objectives for 1997-98

Develop proficiency in Java and develop a course in Java. 

To refine the Introduction To Unix course to become a standard 
entry-level course for CS majors.

Take a more intensive course on Windows 95 (incl. system internals).

Take an NCEI (Nat'l Computer Educator's Institute) course if feasible.

Make time to practice using the tools/methods being taught and used
in our current courses. So much has changed, is changing, or doesn't 
quite work as it should, that much time is needed to maintain
one's competence and knowledge base.


X.  Status of professional objectives identified last year for 1996-97

Complete the final 3-hours of Ph D coursework needed at the Un. of Iowa
in Fall 1996.

--DONE (see Section VI above)

To write and defend my Dissertation in January 1997 (if this isn't feasible
then sometime prior to May 1997, perhaps during Graceland's Spring break).

--DONE (graduated with Ph D in Computer Science in May 1997)

To take other continuing education courses (including self study) relevant 
to Computer Science instruction at Graceland College (perhaps on Windows 95,
Java & CGI programming, or on update on certain microcomputer-applications).

--DONE (see Section VI above)