1968–2001

The “International Seminars on the Teaching of Computing Science at University Level” were a 34-year long series of annual four-day seminars, all held at Newcastle University, which brought together an invited audience of senior UK and European computing academics to hear a series of presentations from distinguished international speakers. Each seminar concentrated on a particular theme, usually a major computer science research domain, and a small group of speakers each gave one or more lectures reviewing their own and other contributions to its development. The series arose from an initiative by the then Director of the Computing Laboratory, Professor Ewan Page, who had attended a similar, but one-off, event organised by IBM in The Netherlands in 1968.

Professor Randell’s extensive network of contacts, and IBM’s deep pockets, were of enormous value in attracting very eminent speakers. These included a total of twenty-two ACM Turing Award winners — Tim Berners-Lee, Fred Brooks, Vint Cerf, Edsger Dijkstra, Doug Englebart, Richard Hamming, Tony Hoare, John Hopcroft, Ken Iverson, Alan Kay, Don Knuth, Butler Lampson, John McCarthy,Robin Milner, Peter Naur, Kristen Nygaard, Alan Perlis, Amir Pnueli, Michael Rabin, Dennis Ritchie, Dana Scott, and Niklaus Wirth. IBM’s very generous sponsorship of the series lasted for many years, before being followed by that of Amdahl and then ICL.

In addition to the technical content, the seminars had a full social programme and plentiful opportunities for discussion. Senior UK computing professors at that time have since said that the series served two important functions: it enabled them to keep abreast of the developments their younger colleagues were always talking about and, in the days before formal associations of computing professors or heads of department were set up, it provided an opportunity for broader discussion of shared university concerns. Newcastle academics and PhD students were encouraged to attend all presentations of interest to them. Speakers were expected to produce either notes or a paper for the Seminar Proceedings, and one or more Newcastle students and academics were assigned to each speaker as rapporteurs with the responsibility to record end-of-lecture question and answer sessions. Copies of the Seminar Proceedings were distributed to all attendees, and to all recipients of the School’s Technical Report Series.

1. 1968 — Computer Science
D.T. Ross	Data Structure and Storage Management
N. Wirth	Teaching Compiler Design — Outline of a Proposed Course
D.N. Freeman	Chapel Hill ‘Design of Control Programs’ Graduate Course; Asymmetric Multiprocessors; A Study of Stack Architecture in Control Program Design
T.D. Lutz	A Postgraduate Course on Time-Sharing Systems
J. du Masle	Software Teaching and Research at the University of Grenoble
E.S. Page	Constraints on Teaching in Computing Science
2. 1969 — On the Teaching of the Design of Large Software Systems
B.W. Arden	Multi-Processing Systems
A.B. Cleaver	Systems Evaluation
R.M. Needham	Failure Recovery
E.G. Coffman Jr	Formalism in Computer System Design — Models of Parallelism and Concurrency
K.I. McKenzie	The Problem of Debugging the Large On-Line System
W.A. Clarke	Data Management and I/O
C.J. Conti	High Performance Design Technique
C.J. Bell	Information Systems
J.B. Dennis	The Structure of the Information Utility
3. 1970 — The Teaching of Programming at University Level
E.W. Dijkstra	The Art of Programming
A. d’Agapeyeff	The Training Needs of a Software House
J.D. Aron	Formal and On-The-Job Training for Applications System Programmers
D.E. Knuth	The Analysis of Algorithms
K.E. Iverson	The Use of APL in Teaching
A.J. Perlis	Semantics — The Mapping of Programming Languages into Subsets of Themselves; Quality — In What Important Ways do Programming Languages Differ
M.A. Jackson	The Construction of Algorithms in a Commercial Programming Environment
W.C. Lynch	The Creation of Systems Programmers
J. Thow	System Programming with a Computer Manufacturer
4. 1971 — The Teaching of Computer Design
F.H. Sumner and D.J. Kinniment	Computer Engineering and Design
D.W. Davies	The Education of a Designer of Information Systems
C.L. Seitz	Teaching Computer Organization in a Laboratory
D. Aspinall	Computer Technology at the University College of Swansea
Z. Riesel	Some Remarks on the Teaching of Computer Design
R.S. Barton	Considerations for a Course for Future-Oriented Computer Designers
P.D. Atkinson	Education Requirements for Computer Hardware Development
D.J. Wheeler	System Design for Non-Engineering Students and the Synchronisation Problem
B.W. Lampson	Teaching of Computer Design to Computer Science Undergraduates
J. Suchard	Course Structure at the University of Paris
C.G. Bell	Notations and Physical Components used in the Description, Design, and Teaching of Computing Structures
5. 1972 — The Application of Computers in Business
R.L. Ashenhurst	Organizational Information Structures
S.L. Andersen	The Use of Computers and Information Structures in Corporate and Profit Centre Strategic Planning
D.L. Parnas	Teaching the Cooperative Production of Programs
J.D. Couger	The Undergraduate Program in Inforation System Development
A.H. Duncan	The Graduate in Computing in Banking
P.V. Youle	The Use of Computer-Based Models in Running the ICI Petrochemicals Division
C.J. Bell	Society Needs Better Applications Oriented Software
F.F. Land	Draft I.F.I.P. Curriculum for System Designers
J.B. Cowie	User Requirements
6. 1973 — Computers and Communication
D.C. Engelbart	Computer Augmentation of Human Knowledge Work
A.G. Fraser	Future Trends in Computers and Communication Systems
L. Kleinrock	Analytic Techniques for Computer Communications Networks
D. McKay	Review of Computer Network Techniques: Present and Future
A. Boesveld	Stored Program Controlled Telephone Exchanges
G. Dale	Data Communications, Europe — Where Next?
E.W. Dijkstra	Asynchronous Systems, Conservation Laws and Cnvergence to a Steady State
J. McNeil	Graduates in the Computer Industry: A Consultant’s View
R. Reardon	The Establishment of a Large Scale International Computer Facility, for Both Communications and Data Processing
R. Scantlebury	Packet Switching Networks
7. 1974 — Formal Aspects of Computing Science
C.A.R. Hoare	Program Correctness Proofs
S. Winograd	Complexity of Computations
M.O. Rabin	Complexity of Computation
D.S. Scott	Mathematical Semantics
H. Bekič	The Semantics of Parallel Processing
J.E. Hopcroft	Themes in Algorithm Design
H. Zemanek	Formalization: Past, Present and Future
8. 1975 — Computers and the Educated Individual
W.A. Clark	The Basis of Present Computer Design
P.C. Goldberg	The Future of Programming for Non-Programmers
R.W. Hamming	The History of Computing to the Year 2000; Computers in the Coming Society; What to Include in Courses
F.J.M. Laver	Computers and Society
P. Naur	An Adaptable course of Elementary, University Level, Computer Science
A.W. Holt	Formal Methods in System Analysis
9. 1976 — Computer System Design
J.D. Aron	System Development
M.A. Jackson	More Constructive Methods of Program Design
W.C. Lynch	Structured Performance Evaluation; Load Variation, Scheduling and Measurement; Reliability Experience with CHI/OS
C.A. Petri	General Net Theory; Communication Disciplines
D.T. Ross	Structured Analysis
W.M. Turski	A View of Software Problems; The Software Curriculum at Warsaw University Institute of Informatics
10. 1977 — Digital Systems Design
D. Aspinall	Engineering Implications of Programmable Electronic Components
I.M. Barron	The Microcomputer and its Consequences
G.A. Blaauw	Specification of Digital Systems
T.C. Chen	Parallelism, Pipelining and Other Forms of Synchronous Multiprocessing
E.L. Glaser	Digital System Design
W. Händler	The Impact of Classification Systems on Computer Architecture
F.G. Heath	Directed Graph Methods in Computer System Education
C.A. R Hoare	Communicating Sequential Processes
W.M. McKeeman	Application Programming Systems So Friendly that Even a Salesman Can Use Them
Z.G. Vranešić	Organisation of Computer Systems
11. 1978 — Distributed Computing Systems
D.W. Davies	The Protection of Data by Cryptography
E.W. Dijkstra	Aspects of Reasoning Effectively about Distributed Systems
J.C. R Licklider	Education of Students to Cope with Problems of Computers and Society
P.M. Merlin	Modelling and Validation of Protocols
R.E. Miller	Graph Theoretic Models of Parallel Computation
R.M. Needham	User-Server Distributed Computing
E.J. Neuhold	The Distribution of Data and Processes in Computer Networks
K. Nygaard	Concepts and Tasks Related to System Description
G. Ringland	The Science Research Council’s Research Programme in Distributed Computing
12. 1979 — Data Base Systems
C.J. van Rijsbergen	Information Retrieval: Theory and Practice
H. Weber	Modularity in Data Base System Design
C.B. Jones	The Specification of Data Types
W. Kent	The Future Requirements of Data Modelling; Limiting Factors in Current Data Models; Integration of Modelling Concepts
J.W. Schmidt	Programming Languages and Data Base Models
D. Tsichritzis	A Form Manipulation System; Education in Data Base Management
D. Bjørner	Formalisation of Data Base Models and Data Base Management Systems
W.F. King	Future Directions in Data Base Management Systems
P.M. Stocker	A Data Base Internal Schema and Access Path Determination
13. 1980 — Artificial Intelligence
H.G. Barrow	Computational Vision
J. Darlington	Automatic Programming: Past, Present and Future
D.D. Grossman
M.H. E Larcombe	Robotics Research in the United Kingdom
J.S. Moore	Three Lectures on Theorem-Proving and Program Verification
Y. Wilks	Expert Systems and Natural Language Analysis
P.H. Winston	Teaching Artificial Intelligence
W.A. Woods	Augmented Transition Network Grammars for Natural Language Analysis; Continuous Speech Understanding
14. 1981 — Very Large Scale Integration
J. Allen	The Teaching of VLSI Design
J.P. Gray	Structured Design (Abstracts)
H.T. Kung	VLSI Computation
M. Rem	High Level Design Notations
V.L. Rideout	VLSI Technology
J. Rivierre	Test Pattern Generation for VLSI: Status and Trends
C.H. Séquin	The Impact of VLSI on Computer Architecture
15. 1982 — Formal Specification
J-R. Abrial	Specification and Construction of Machines
R.M. Burstall	Specification using an Algebraic Approach
D.I. Good	The Proof of a Distributed System in Gypsy; Reusable Problem Domain Theories
J.J. Horning	Putting Formal Specifications to Productive Use
C.B. Jones	Formal Specification and Design of Programs
P.M. Melliar-Smith	Formal Specification and Mechanical Verification
P. Mosses	Semantics Implementation Systems; Algebraic Specification of Programming Language Semantics
R. Nakajima	Many-Sorted Logical Specification for Modular Prgramming
16. 1983 — Man-Machine Interaction
P.J. Barnard	Experiments on Learning Interactive Dialogues; Applying the Products of Research on Interactive Dialogues
J.S. Bridle	Speech Properties and Methods for Synthesis and Recognition; Automatic Speech Recognition and Computer Science
S.T. Card and A. Newell	The Psychology of User-Computer Interaction; Examples of a Model-Based Human Factors; Human Computer Interaction in the Computer Science Curriculum
I.A. Clark	Designing Software to hit the Mark
W.E. Howard	Trends in Display Devices
J. McCarthy	Some Expert Systems need Common Sense
W. Newman	The Integrated User Interface
R.F. Sproull	Users’ Models; Programming the User Interface; Challenges in Graphical User Interfaces
17. 1984 — Security and Privacy
D. Coppersmith	Design of Cryptographic Systems
D.W. Davies	Authentication and Signatures in Commerce and Banking
D.E. Denning	Database Security
J.E. Dobson	The Newcastle Connection as a Mechanism for Providing a Multi-Level Secure File Store
R.J. Gornal	Practical Considerations
J.J. Kenny	Privacy and Data Protection
S.B. Lipner
H. van Tongeren	Consequences of Data Protection Legislation
R. Turn	Privacy Issues in the Design and Use of Computers
18. 1985 — Network Protocols
J.L. Adams	The Performance of LAN Protocols
H.J. Burkhardt	Open Systems Interconnection Communication Architecture — Realisation of Open Systems
V.G. Cerf	Electronic Messaging
D. Cohen	Another Look at Computer Communication Protocols; Computerized Commerce
V. Decreuse	High Layer Protocol Standardisation for Distributed Processing; IBM Logical Type 6.2 — An Overview
R. Milner	Verifying a Protocol Algebraically using CCS
F. Panzieri	Communication Architectures for Distributed Systems
D. Rayner	The State of the Art in Testing Protocol Implementations
H. Rudin	Notes on Automated Protocol Analysis
B. Wood	Standardisation for Open Systems
H. Zimmerman	On Protocol Engineering
19. 1986 — Programming Environments
A. Alderson	The Eclipse IPSE; PCTE (Portable Common Tool Environment)
M. Cowlishaw	REXX — A Practical Approach to Programming
A.N. Habermann	The Objectives of the Software Engineering Institute; A Quick Overview of the Gandalf System
W. Harrison	On the Construction of Development Environments; Trends in the Development of Development Environments
P. Hitchcock	The Aspect Information Base
K. Jackson	Tightly Controlled Project Support Environments
D.M. Ritchie	Brief Technical History of Unix; What’s Wrong with the Good Things in Unix?
V. Stenning	The ISTAR Environment
B.C. Warboys	Current Industrial Software Engineering Concerns; IPSE 2.5 — One IPSE that is Necessary
R.W. Witty	The Alvey IPSE Strategy and its Relationship to UK Computer Science Teaching
20. 1987 — Logic and its Application to Computing Science
H. Benker	Logic Programming Architectures
J.E. Dobson	Representing the Real World
D. Gries	What a Programmer Should Know About Logic
F.K. Hanna and N Daeche	Specification and Verification of Digital Systems; Specification and Verification using Higher-Order Logic
Z. Manna	Automated Deduction — Techniques and Applications
A. Pnueli	Applications of Temporal Logic to Reactive Systems
F.B. Schneider	What a Systems Programmer can Learn from Programming Logics
S-Å. Tärnlund	Logic Programming
M. Thomas
21. 1988 — Object-Oriented Computer Systems
M.P. Atkinson	Persistent Programming and Object Oriented Databases
F. Bancilhon	GIP Altair
J. Brenner	Objects as a Systems Organisation Principle
J.A. Campbell	Teaching Introductory Programming in Scheme at University College London
A. Goldberg	Reusability — When it Works, When it Does Not
D.M. Harland	Object-Oriented Computer Architecture
P. Hitchcock	Using the Relational Model RM/T to Provide an Object-Oriented Database
A. Kay	Point of View is Worth 80 IQ Points
K. Nygaard	Basic Concepts in Object-Oriented Programming — An Overview of the Beta Language
P. Ross	Object-Oriented Techniques in AI
C. Schaffert	A Survey of Object-Oriented Languages — Problems in Object-Oriented Language Design
M. Wolczko	Formal Aspects of Object-Oriented Systems
22. 1989 — Real-Time Systems
C. Bron	Controlling Discrete Real-Time Systems with Parallel Processes
N. Halbwachs	Synchronous Programming of Reactive Systems; Specifying, Programming & Verifying Real-Time Systems Using the Language LUSTRE
M. Joseph	Time and Computation; Transformation Methods for Implementing Correct Real-Time Programs
H. Kopetz	Real-Time Computing — Basic Concepts; Design of a Real-Time Computing System; Clock Synchronization
A. Mok	Real-Time Logic Scheduling
G.M. Reed	Real-Time CSP
H.R. Strong	Fault Tolerance in Real Time Systems
W.M. Turski	Timing Considerations Will Damage Your Programs; How to cope with Many Processors in No Time at All
23. 1990 — System Modelling
E.G. Coffman Jr.	Asymptotic Methods in the Probabilistic Analysis of Packing and Partitioning Algorithms
E. Gelenbe	Product Form Networks with Negative and Positive Customers; Performance Analysis of the Connection Machine
P. Harrison	Analytical Models for Multi-Stage Interconnection Networks; Modelling Circuit-Switched Multi-Stage Interconnection Networks
P.H. Hughes	Developments in Modelling Capability; Integration with System Engineering
B. Littlewood	Software Reliability Modelling: Some Achievements and Limitations
I. Mitrani	Exploiting Parallelism in Simulations; Network Models in Manufacturing and Communications
G. Pujolle	Broadband ISDN and HS-LANs; Resource Sharing and Blocking — Applications to Connection-Oriented Protocols
A. Solvberg	Integrated Modelling and Support Environments for Information Systems
24. 1991 — Parallel Computing
C.G. Bell	Computer Structures for Parallel Processing
A. Dickenson	Parallel Processing and Meteorological Models
P.G. Harrison	Synthesising Efficient, Portable Algorithms for Parallel Architectures
N. Holt	Parallel Computing for Commercial Applications
R.N. Ibbett	Massively Parallel Computers
M. Koutny	Invariants and Paradigms of Concurrency Theory
H.M. Levy	Scheduler Activations — Effective Kernel Support for the User-Level Management of Parallelism
G.M. Megson	Automatic Systolic Algorithm Design I — Basic Synthesis Techniques; Automatic Systolic Algorithm Design II — A Practical Approach
B. Procter	Technology and Market Trends
25. 1992 — 25th International Seminar on the Teaching of Computer Science
E.W. Dijkstra	On a Once Deep Theorem Conjectured by Sylvester — and — The Kind of Things I Learned and Liked
C.A. R Hoare	Algebra and Models
D.E. Knuth	Stable Husbands; The Stanford Graphbase — A Platform for Combinatorial Algorithms
B.W. Lampson	Computer Architecture and Design
J. McCarthy	Artificial Intelligence
R.M. Needham	Communication Systems Development; Reasoning About Cryptographic Protocols
K. Nygaard	Information Processes, Programming Languages and Perpectives on Reality
M.O. Rabin	Clock Construction in Fully Asynchronous Parallel Systems and PRAM Simulation
26. 1993 — Information
T. Berners-Lee	The World-Wide Web Initiative
J. Foster	Networked Information Systems — Bringing Order to Chaos?
D.K. Gifford	Semantic File Systems
T. Lincoln	Information Systems — Where Exceptions Test The Rule
I.R.M. Mowat	Plus Ça Change, Plus C’est La Même Chose
J.V. Panter	Multimedia — Evolution or Revolution
C.J. van Rijsbergen	Information Retrieval and Informative Reasoning; What is Information Anyway
D. Russell	Networking Advances: The Internet Perspective Vortex
R.K. Stamper	A Semiotic Theory of Information and Information Systems; Applied Semiotics
27. 1994 — Systems Integration and Structuring
A. Aho	System Integration and the Global Information Infrastructure — and — How Reliable Can We Make Software
R.T. Emery	OPENframework
J. Kramer	Exoskeletal Software: Making Structure Explicit
R. Levin	Software Configuration Management: The Vesta Approach
R. Morrison	Persistent Programming: A Programming Language and Database Integration Technology
E. Rechtin	Systems Architecting and Software Integration
J. Sventek	Distributed Objects as a Legacy Integration Mechanism; System Integration using Distributed Objects
28. 1995 — The Future of Software
R.H. Bourgonjon	The Evolution of Embedded Software in Consumer Products
B.R. Gladman	Progress in Securing the Global
D.F. Hartley	The Development of Broadband Research Networking in Europe — The Political Challenges
A.J. Herbert	Distributed Computing Meets Telecommunications; Distributed Computing Meets The Information Highway
M.E. Lesk	The Role of Software in Digital Libraries, and the Role of Digital Libraries in Software; Software Protection: How Much and What Kind
G.M. Ringland	The Software Industry Beyond 2000; The Impact of Digital Information on Society?
C. Simonyi	The Death of Computer Languages, the Birth of Intentional Programming
B. Warboys	The Software Paradigm; Reflections on the Relationship between BPR and Software Process Modelling
29. 1996 — Algorithms
A. Anderson	What Are the Basic Principles for Sorting and Searching
J. Lenstra	Computing Near-Optimal Schedules — and — Job Shop Scheduling by Local Search
N. Lynch	Fault-Tolerant Distributed Computing in Three Timing Models — and — Atomic Objects
K. Mehlhorn	The LEDA Platform for Combinatorial and Geometric Computing
J. Nievergelt	Spatial Data Structures: Concepts and Design Choices
M. Paterson	A Brief History of Selection
P. Raghavan	An Overview of Randomised Algorithms
V. Rayward-Smith	Modern Heuristic Techniques
30. 1997 — The Web
R.J. Anderson	On the Limits of Steganography; Security in Clinical Information Systems
P. Cochrane	The Virtual University
J.W. Coleman	Strategic And Tactical Uses Of The Web: The Stanford University Libraries Program; Highwire Press, The Internet Imprint of Stanford University
D.J. Farber	The Future of Telecommunications and Networking — An Attempt to Predict the Unpredictable
W. Hall	URLs Considered Harmful: Large Scale Information Management for the Web
U. Manber	Global Web Search
V. Quint	Document Formats for the Web; Tools for Interactivity on the Web
S.K. Shrivastava	Constructing Dependable Web Services
R. Weber	What Are Rights And Why And How Should They Be Managed?; Distributed Middleware Tools For Trusted Electronic Inter-Actions
31. 1998 — Software Architecture and Design
R. Balzer	Instrumented Connectors; A COTS Infrastructure For Domain Specific Diagram Semantics
F.P. Brooks	The Design Of Design; Evolution of a Software Engineering Laboratory Course
G. Crampton Smith	Artist-Designers and Engineer-Designers; What You Get Is What You See
M.A. Jackson	Problem Analysis and Structure
R.E. Johnson	Dynamic Object Model
D.E. Perry	Generic Architecture Descriptions for Product Lines; A Product Line Architecture for a Network Product
M. Shaw	Constructing Systems from Parts: What Students Should Learn About Software Architecture; Architectural Mismatch, Interoperability, and the Prospects for Electronic Commerce in Software Parts and Services; A Field Guide to Boxology: Preliminary Classification of Architectural Styles for Software Systems
32. 1999 — People and Computers
P.E. Agre	An Outline of Social Informatics; The Problem of Rationality in Computing; The End of Babbage’s Theology
E.H. Mamdani	New Services and Their Challenges; Challenges for the Middleware
P.G. Neumann	Illustrative Risks to the Public in the Use of Computer Systems and Related Technology
W. Newman	The Last Piece of the Puzzle: Bringing Interactive System Design into the Engineering Fold
K. Nygaard	Programs, Processes, People, Perspectives — and — What Is Informatics?
J.M. Taylor	Engineering the Information Age — The Last Five Years: The Emerging Information Infrastructure & Society; Engineering the Information Age — Where Next: Information Utilities and Information Appliances
C. Yapp	Learning and the Transition to an Information Society; Implications for an Information Society
33. 2000 — Objects and Agents Proceedings
M. Fisher	Local Principles of Rational Agents; Reasoning and Programming with Rational Agents
D.B. Lange	Voice Agents; Mobile Agent Structures
A. Sloman	Intelligent Beasts and Artefacts — or — How to Turn Philosophers of Mind into Engineers; Sim-Agents, A Toolkit for Philosophers and Engineers
R.J. Stroud	Using Reflection as a Mechanism for Enforcing Security Polices in Mobile Code
B. Thomsen
J. Waldo	Mobile Code, Distributed Computing and Agents
A. Watson	Non-Terminating Arguments in Distributed Object Architecture
D. Wood	Software Opportunities and Problems Posed by Wireless Information Devices; Use of Objects and Agents at Symbian
L. Cardelli
34. 2001 — Dependability
H. Kopetz	Hard Real-Time Systems I; Hard Real-Time Systems II
J-C. Laprie	Dependability — Concepts, State-Of-The-Art, Challenges; Modelling Computer Systems Evolutions
B. Littlewood	Probability Models for Design Diversity; How Proabilistic Diversity Modelling Can Help To Formalise th SE Process
R.M. Needham	Satan and Murphy; Security — A Technical Problem or a People Problem
B. Randell	Facing Up To Faults
J.M. Rushby	Assurance for Dependable Systems (Disappearing Formal Methods); Using Model Checking to Help Discover Confusions And Other Automation Surprises
F.B. Schneider	Design And Deployment Of COCA; The Case For Language-Based Security
E.S. Page	After Dinner Speech