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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 full Professor of Practice in 2024. 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, CompEd 2023.
  • 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

 

LaTeX

LaTeX - Beamer

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

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)

Resources