NAVF/NAVF.Tromsoe.html

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   3 Informatikk: Research and Teaching in Norway, University of Tromsø;
   4 Department of Computer Science
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   8 <H1>Informatikk:<Br>
   9 Research and Teaching in Norway<br>
  10 A Critical Evaluation</H1>
  11
  12 <H4>NAVF: The Council for Natural Science Research 1992, ISBN 82-7216-813-0</H4>
  13 (c) The Norwegian Research Council for Science and the Humanities<br>
  14 <hr>
  15 Page 18-19. Copied with the authorization of NAVF, Rune Dyre, by
  16 <A HREF="/~petterr">Petter Reinholdtsen</A> - petterr@stud.cs.uit.no
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  19 <H1>Department of Computer Science</H1>
  20 <hr>
  21 <DL>
  22 <DT><B>Positions</B><hr>
  23 <DT>Permanent full time scientific positions:
  24 <DD> 12 (3 of these are vacant professor positions and 2 are vacant assoc. prof.)
  25
  26 <DT>Technical positions:
  27 <DD>6
  28
  29 <DT>Administrative positions:
  30 <DD>11 (shared with Departments of Physics, Chemistry and Mathematics)
  31
  32 <DT><B>Theses in 1991:</B><hr>
  33 <DD> 1 Dr.scient.
  34 <DD> 8 Cand.scient.
  35 <DD> 10 Siv.ing.
  36
  37 <DT><B>Number of students, 1991</B><hr>
  38 <DD> 10 Dr. scient.
  39 <DD> 34 Cand.scient.
  40 <DD> 10 Siv.ing.
  41 <DD> 230 undergraduate
  42
  43 <DT><B>From the 1991 accounts:</B><hr>
  44 <DD> 1.675.000 NOK Operational budget
  45 <DD> 543.000 NOK Equipment budget
  46 <DD> 1.150.000 NOK Operational budget (IT-Programme)
  47 <DD> 1.550.000 NOK Equipment budget (IT-Programme)<hr>
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  49
  50 The committee was pleasantly surprised with the direction of the
  51 program at Tromsø. Having a program with a sharp focus for the small
  52 group, namely distributed systems, was an excellent idea and produces
  53 important research results. <P>
  54
  55 Following the ACM curriculum in computer science was also a good idea;
  56 even though Tromsø has the smallest faculty, the curriculum is small
  57 but as well balanced as any in Norway.  <P>
  58
  59 It is very unusual for a doctorate program to have no faculty with
  60 doctorates. This must be corrected soon. It is in the best long term
  61 interest for both the university and for the faculty to offer and
  62 encourage extended leaves of absence to allow faculty to earn
  63 doctorates. Teaching vacancies created by leaves should be filled by
  64 visitors.  <P>
  65
  66 The group has excellent international contacts, but like other groups
  67 it has no national collaborators. It seems wise for the smallest and
  68 youngest faculty to establish links to other Norwegian
  69 universities. <P>
  70
  71 The location of Tromsø and the lack of success in filling positions
  72 suggest that it may be necessary to offer greater incentives to
  73 attract professors to Tromsø. (This is the only department where 100 %
  74 of the faculty graduated from the university where they were working,
  75 which also suggests it is difficult to recruit here.) It is critically
  76 important to fill the three professor positions. Because of the
  77 competitiveness for Computer Science positions, many universities
  78 internationally offer a higher salary for Computer Science faculty. To
  79 combat geographic disadvantages, Canada offers a special salary
  80 incentive to encourage people to work in the northernmost part of the
  81 country. Norway should offer some economic enticement to attract
  82 faculty to Tromsø, the northernmost Computer Science department in the
  83 world. <P>
  84
  85 As long as some of the professorships are not filled, the salary saved
  86 should be utilized for visiting positions and filled with persons
  87 where there is a good chance of later establishing a collaborative
  88 relationship e.g. by converting to Professor II positions. <P>
  89
  90 The research in distributed systems done at Tromsø needs parallel
  91 computing equipment, but they should look for it at Bergen or
  92 Trondheim over the network. It is unrealistic for a small group in
  93 Computer Science to expect a multimillion dollar computer system for
  94 their own use. <P>
  95
  96 <DT><A HREF="NAVF.grp6.html">Group 6, Tromsø: Distributed Operation Systems and Distributed Computations (DOS) -></A>
  97 <DT><A HREF="NAVF.grp7.html">Group 7, Tromsø: Open Distributed Systems (ODS) -></A>
  98  <P>
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