Dr. Chris Bourke

Associate Professor of Practice

I graduated from the University of Nebraska–Lincoln with a PhD in Computer Science in 2008 and joined the School of Computing in 2011. I was promoted to Associate Professor of Practice in 2015. My research interests include Computer Science Education, Computational Complexity Theory and Machine Learning, though my primary activities are teaching. I have over 25 years of computing education experience. I teach a wide variety of computing courses with a focus on introductory-level and honors courses (including CS1, CS2, and CS3).  Each year I teach an interdisciplinary Virtual Reality course in collaboration with Steve Kolbe in the Johnny Carson Center for Emerging Media Arts.  I also run a In support of my education mission, I have authored several Open Educational Resources including several textbooks and I host a successful YouTube channel. Recently I have published educational research papers in top CS education venues.  I am also the Director of the School of Computing Honors Program.

My Schedule

Teaching

  • You can clone via GitHub, chdir to your public_html directory and execute:
    git clone https://github.com/cbourke/grade We have produced an introductory video for instructors and teaching assistants.
  • Computer Science I - A draft of my text book for Computer Science I, covering CS1 topics in a generic manner using psuedocode with supplemental parts for specific languages (including Java, C, and PHP currently).
  • Computer Science II - Draft book for material from CSCE 156 - Computer Science II
  • Computer Science III - Lecture notes used in CSCE 310 - Data Structures
  • Trees - Lecture notes on Tree data structures and algorithms
  • Searching & Sorting - Lecture Notes on searching & sorting
  • Cryptography & Security - Lecture notes on Cryptography and security used in CSCE 477/877
  • Git Tutorial

Current & Prior Teaching

  • Fall 2023 - CSCE 155E, CSCE 155H
  • Spring 2023 - CSCE 156, CSCE 156H, ECEN 194 (CS2 at UNO), CSCE 492 (Virtual Reality)
  • Fall 2022 - CSCE 155E, CSCE 155H, CSCE 310H, ECEN 194 (CS1 at UNO)
  • Spring 2022 - CSCE 156, CSCE 156H, ECEN 194 (CS1 at UNO), CSCE 492 (Virtual Reality)
  • Fall 2021 - CSCE 155E, CSCE 155H, CSCE 310H
  • Spring 2021 - CSCE 156, CSCE 156H, CSCE 496 (Exploring Virtual Reality)
  • Fall 2020 - CSCE 155E, CSCE 155H
  • Spring 2020 - CSCE 156, CSCE 156H, CSCE 496 (Exploring Virtual Reality)
  • Fall 2019 - CSCE 155E, CSCE 155H
  • Spring 2019 - CSCE 156, CSCE 156H, CSCE 496 (Exploring Virtual Reality)
  • Fall 2018 - CSCE 155E, CSCE 155H
  • Summer 2018 - CSCE 310
  • Spring 2018 - CSCE 155E, CSCE 235, CSCE 496 (Exploring Virtual Reality)
  • Fall 2017 - CSCE 120, CSCE 155H, RAIK 183H
  • Summer 2017 - CSCE 310
  • Spring 2017 - CSCE 156, CSCE 156H, RAIK 184H, CSCE 496 (Exploring Virtual Reality)
  • Fall 2016 - CSCE 120, CSCE 155H, RAIK 183H
  • Summer 2016 - CSCE 235, CSCE 310
  • Spring 2016 - CSCE 156H, CSCE 235H, RAIK 184H
  • Fall 2015 - CSCE 120, CSCE 155H, RAIK 183H
  • Summer 2015 - CSCE 235, 310
  • Spring 2015 - CSCE 156H, 235H, RAIK 184H
  • Fall 2014 - CSCE120, 155E, 155H, 477/877
  • Summer 2014 - CSCE 235, CSCE 310
  • Spring 2014 - CSCE 155E, CSCE 156, CSCE 156H, CSCE 235, CSCE 235H
  • Fall 2013 - CSCE 155H, CSCE 156, CSCE 235
  • Summer 2013 - CSCE 235, 310
  • Spring 2013 - CSCE 155E, CSCE 156, CSCE 156H, CSCE 235H
  • Fall 2012 - CSCE 155E, CSCE 155H, CSCE 156, CSCE 235
  • Summer 2012 - CSCE 235, 310
  • Spring 2012 - CSCE 155E, CSCE 156, CSCE 235H
  • Fall 2011 - CSCE 156, CSCE 235

Recent Publications

  • Aditya Jain, Ryan Bockmon, Chris Bourke, Stephen Cooper.  Validating a Language-Independent CS1 Learning Outcomes Assessment, 2023.  Under Review.
  • Chris Bourke, Yael Erez, and Orit Hazzan. Executable exams: Taxonomy, implementation and prospects. In Proceedings of the 54th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education V. 1, SIGCSE 2023, page 381–387, New York, NY, USA, 2023. Association for Computing Machinery.
  • Ryan Bockmon and Chris Bourke. Validation of the placement skill inventory: A cs0/cs1 placement exam. In Proceedings of the 54th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education V. 1, SIGCSE 2023, page 39–45, New York, NY, USA, 2023. Association for Computing Machinery.
  • Chris Bourke. Development & evolution of a computer science I course. Technical report, University of Nebraska–Lincoln, December 2021. Available, https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/prtunl/202/.

Old Publications

[1] Chris Bourke. Finite-state dimension of individual sequences. Master's thesis, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, May 2004.
[2] Chris Bourke, John M. Hitchcock, and N. V. Vinodchandran. Entropy rates and finite-state dimension. Theoretical Computer Science, 349(3):392-406, 2005.
[ .pdf ]
[3] Deng Kun, Chris Bourke, Stephen Scott, and N. V. Vinodchandran. New algorithms for optimizing multi-class classifiers via ROC surfaces. In Proceedings of the 3rd International Workshop ROC Analysis in Machine Learning (ROCML-2006), pages 17-24, June 2006. Held within the 23rd International Conference on Machine Learning (ICML'06).
[ .pdf ]
[4] Chris Bourke, Raghunath Tewari, and N. V. Vinodchandran. Directed planar reachability is in unambiguous log-space. In Proceedings of the 22nd Annual IEEE Conference on Computational Complexity, pages 217-221, 2007.
[ .pdf ]
[5] Chris Bourke. A note on the karp-lipton collapse for the exponential hierarchy. Technical Report UNL-CSE-2007-0004, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2007.
[ .pdf ]
[6] Deng Kun, Chris Bourke, Stephen Scott, Julie Sunderman, and Yaling Zheng. Bandit-based algorithms for budgeted learning. In Proceedings of IEEE International Conference on Data Mining (ICDM), pages 463-468, 2007.
[ .pdf ]
[7] Chris Bourke, Kun Deng, Stephen D. Scott, Robert E. Schapire, and N. V. Vinodchandran. On reoptimizing multi-class classifiers. Machine Learning, 71(2-3):219-242, June 2008.
[ .pdf ]
[8] Chris Bourke, Raghunath Tewari, and N. V. Vinodchandran. Directed planar reachability is in unambiguous log-space. ACM Transactions on Computation Theory, page To Appear, 2008.
[ .pdf ]
[9] Derrick Stolee, Chris Bourke, and N. V. Vinodchandran. "A log-space algorithm for reachability in planar acyclic digraphs with few sources", 25th Annual IEEE Conference on Computational Complexity, June 2010

Useful Stuff

Coding Stuff

Computational Complexity

Misc.

CSS

JavaScript

LaTeX

LaTeX - Beamer

Beamer is a LaTeX class with which you can create beautiful PDF slides.

me, cubs style
Celebrating the 2016 World Championship Cubs team. My fandom was partially responsible for this victory.

Dr. Chris Bourke (He/Him)
Associate Professor of Practice
105 Schorr
School of Computing
University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Lincoln, NE 68588-0150

cbourke3@unl.edu
(402) 472-5008 (voice)
(402) 472-7767 (fax)