Glossary - C

Click on letter to jump to the list of terms starting with that letter. Click on a term to jump to the full definition. The excerpts on this page show the first line of each definition.

• C4FCM — Center for Future Civic Media
• C.E. — Civil Engineer (degree)
• C.H.E. — Chemical Engineer (degree)
• C.S.E. — Computer Science Engineer (degree)
• CA — Certificate Authority
• CAA — Computer-Aided Automation
• CAAFI — Commercial Aviation Alternative Fuels Initiative
• CAC (Campus Activities Complex) — The Campus Activities Complex provides a range of facilities and services designed to support the educational mission of the institute and the out-of-classroom needs of the community. CAC services include facilities management, event planning and support, retail and contracted services.
• CAC (Committee on Animal Care) — MIT's Committee on Animal Care was established to ensure that all MIT, WIBR, and Broad Institute researchers working with animals or making funds available to support other researchers' work with animals comply with federal, state, local, and institutional regulations on animal care. To that end, the CAC inspects animals, animal facilities and laboratories, and reviews all research and teaching exercises which involve vertebrate animals or other tissues before activities are performed.
• CAES — Center for Advanced Educational Services (formerly Center for Advanced Engineering Study)
• CAMIT — Chinese Alumni of MIT
• CAMS — Collaboration Accounts Management System of CAMS is a part of MIT's Touchstone single sign-on infrastructure. It is used to register and manage identities for users outside the MIT community who may need to access MIT services.
• CANES — Center for Advanced Nuclear Energy Systems
• CAN-SPAM — Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act
• CAO — Controller's Accounting Office
• CAP — Committee on Academic Performanc
• CAS — Cost Accounting Standards
• CASE — Council for the Advancement and Support of Education (based in Washington, DC)
• CASPAR — Cambridge and Somerville Program for Alcoholism Rehabilitation
• CAVS — Center for Advanced Visual Studies
• CBA — Center for Bits and Atoms
• CBE — Center for Biomedical Engineering
• CBI — Center for Biomedical Innovation
• CBIP — Center for Biological Information Processing
• CC at MIT — Catalyst Collaborative at MIT, a collaboration between MIT and the Underground Railway Theater
• CCCOB — College Career Centers of Boston
• CCI — Center for Collective Intelligence
• CCIS — Center for Intelligent Control Systems
• CCNEs — Replace this text with one or more definitions for this term. Remember to use a pair of {excerpt} tags to contain the text you want displayed on the glossary index pages.
• CCOP — Corporation Committee on the Presidency
• CCP — Communication, Coordination, and Planning (Group)
• CCR — Former acronym for the David H. Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research (KI) based on the name Center for Cancer Research
• CCR (Committee on Corporate Relations) — The mission of the Office of Corporate Relations (OCR) is to create and strengthen mutually beneficial relationships between MIT and corporations and other organizations, measured in part by maximizing the flow of corporate investments to support the basic mission of MIT.
• CCREMS — Center for Computational Research in Economics and Management Science
• CCS (Carbon Capture and Sequestration) — The Carbon Capture and Sequestration Technologies Program at MIT conducts research into technologies to capture, utilize, and store CO2 from large stationary sources.
• CCS (Center for Coordination Science) — Founded in 1991, the MIT Center for Coordination Science studied how coordination occurs in a variety of different systems, including human organizations, markets, and computer networks. The Center's work emphasized how new information technologies are making it possible to organize businesses—and other organizations—in new ways. In order to place even more emphasis on these new possibilities, the Center was reorganized and renamed in July 2006 to be the MIT Center for Collective Intelligence.
• CCSC — Community Charter School of Cambridge
• CDB — Campus Dining Board
• CDC — Corporation Development Committee
• CDD — City Design and Development (program in the Department of Architecture)
• CDIO — Conceive, Design, Implement, Operate (interactive learning model in the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics)
• CDO — Computation for Design and Optimization Program
• CDP — Cell Decision Processes (MIT has a "Center of Excellence in CDP, with funding from NIH.)
• CDSA — Community Development and Substance Abuse, Office of
• CECI — Center for Educational Computing Initiatives
• CEE — (Department of) Civil and Environmental Engineering
• CEE (Center for Excellence in Education) — The Center for Excellence in Education nurtures careers of excellence and leadership in science and technology for academically talented high school and college students. It currently sponsors two programs for high school students: the Research Science Institute (RSI) and the USA Biology Olympiad (USABO).
• CEESA — Civil & Environmental Engineering Student's Association
• CEEW — Cyprus Institute Program for Energy, Environment and Water Resources (program in LFEE)
• CEHS — Center for Environmental Health Sciences
• CEI — Center for Environmental Initiatives (See LFEE.)
• cell (AFS) — An AFS cell is an administrative unit, with its own set of credentials, organization policies, and filesystem layout. The athena.mit.edu is the largest and most well-known cell at MIT.
• CENSAM — Center for Environmental Sensing and Modeling
• Centrex — Central Exchange (main telephone system until October 1988)
• CEP — Committee on Educational Policy. No longer in existence. It was split into the Faculty Policy Committee (FPC) and the Committee on the Undergraduate Program (CUP).
• CERN — European Organization for Nuclear Research
• Certificate — An electronic credential that allows access to secure web applications.
• CESF — Center for Engineering Systems Fundamentals (in the Engineering Systems Division)
• CET — Council on Educational Technology
• CETI — China Education and Technology Initiative
• CEUE — Commission on Engineering Undergraduate Education
• CFA — Committee on Faculty Administration
• CFA (Harvard) — (Harvard-Smithsonian) Center for Astrophysics
• CFP — Communications Futures Program
• CFP (old) — Community Fellows Program. Now called Center for Reflective Community Practice.
• CFW — Council on Family and Work
• CG — Competency Group (former name of HR team in IS and IS&T)
• CGSP — Committee on Graduate School Programs (formerly Policy)
• CHARGEN — Charachter Generation protocol
• ChemE — (Department of) Chemical Engineering
• Chocolate City — Name used for the top three floors of New House 1
• CHP — Chemical Hygiene Plan
• CHP (Combined Heat and Power) — Also known as Cogeneration, CHP is the use of a heat engine or a power station to simultaneously generate both electricity and useful heat.
• CIC — Computationally Intensive Computing (team) in Information Systems and Technology
• CIDMS — Center for Information-Driven Mechanical Systems
• CI-H — Communication Intensive subject in the Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences (undergraduate requirement)
• CII — Communications Innovation Institute
• CIL — Committee on Industrial Liaison
• CI-M — Communication Intensive subject in the Major (undergraduate requirement)
• CIMIT — Center for Integration of Medicine and Innovative Technology
• CIPD — Center for Innovation in Product Development
• CIS — Center for International Studies
• CISR — Center for Information Systems Research
• CIST — Center for Infrastructure Science and Technology
• CJAC — Corporation Joint Advisory Committee on Institute-wide Affairs
• CLC — Cambridge Licensing Commission
• CLI — Center for Latin-American Logistics Innovation
• CLM — Center for Learning and Memory
• CLSS — Computerized Literature Search Service (Libraries)
• CME — Cambridge-MIT Exchange (Program)
• CME-MSRI — Chicago Mercantile Exchange-Mathematical Sciences Research Initiative
• CMI — Cambridge-MIT Institute
• C-MORE — Center for Microbial Oceanography Research and Education
• CMP — Cooperative Mobility Program
• CMRAE — Center for Materials Research in Archaeology and Ethnology
• CMS — Comparative Media Studies
• CMSE — Center for Materials Science and Engineering
• COBE — Cosmic Background Explorer (NASA's)
• COBRA — Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act
• COC — Committee on Curricula
• COCA — Committee on Central America
• COD — Committee on Discipline
• Coeus — MIT's electronic proposal and award system.
• COFHE — Consortium on Financing Higher Education
• COG — Communications Operating Group
• COGR — Council on Governmental Relations
• Cog Shop — The Humanoid Robotics Project
• COHH — Center for Oceans and Human Health
• COIL — Community Innovators Lab (formerly Center for Reflective Community Practice)
• COLAB — Cost of Living Advisory Board (formed by the Graduate Student Council)
• Collaboration Account — A way to use Touchstone for people that do not have an MIT Kerberos account, nor an account with other members of the InCommon Federation
• COM — Computer Output Microfilm
• Concourse — An experimental first year program
• Confluence — a wiki web application created by Atlassian software.
• Container — A term used in the context of Microsoft Windows Domains and Group Policy. Containers hold groups of items to which policies and settings can be applied remotely.
• COOP — Harvard Cooperative Society (including the MIT branch known as Tech Coop)
• COSO — Committee of Sponsoring Organizations (of the Treadway Commission). COSO is a voluntary private-sector organization whose purpose is improving the quality of financial reporting.
• COSYSMO — Constructive Systems Engineering Cost Model
• COUHES — Committee on the Use of Humans as Experimental Subjects
• CP — Campus Police
• CP (Chi Phi) — One of the fraternities of MIT
• CPA — Center for Policy Alternatives
• CPRL — Ceramics Processing Research Laboratory
• CPSE — Council on Primary and Secondary Education
• CPSR — Contractor Purchasing System Review (conducted by the federal government)
• CPW — Campus Preview Weekend
• CQI — Continuous Quality Improvement
• CRC — Clinical Research Center
• CRCP — Center for Reflective Community Practice (previous name of Community Innovators Lab)
• CRD — Committee on Race and Diversity
• CRE — Center for Real Estate
• CRI — Council on Resources for the Institute
• CRN — Computer Resource Network
• CRO — Computer Resources Office (in the Department of Architecture)
• CRSP — Committee for the Review of Space Planning
• CRTMA — Charles River Transportation Management Association
• CSA — Committee on Student Affairs
• CSAB — Computer Science Accreditation Board
• CSAIL — Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory
• CSBi — Computational and Systems Biology, a Ph.D. program at MIT
• CSC — Chinese Students Club
• CSDL — Charles Stark Draper Laboratory
• CSF — Community Service Fund
• CSHE — Center for Studies in Higher Education
• CSI — Center for Sports Innovation (Now named Sports Innovation @ MIT)
• CSO — Conference Services Office
• CSPI — Community Solar Power Initiative
• CSR — Center for Space Research. Now called MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics & Space Research (MKI)
• CSSA — Chinese Students and Scholars Association
• CSTF — Computer Space Task Force
• CSWG — Computing Support Working Group
• CTL — Center for Transportation and Logistics
• CTP — Center for Theoretical Physics
• CTS — Center for Transportation Studies (old name of the Center for Transportation and Logistics)
• CTSS — Compatible Time-Sharing System
• CU — (MIT Employees Federal) Credit Union
• CUAFA — Committee on Undergraduate Admissions and Financial Aid
• CUP — Central Utilities Plant
• CUP (Committee on the Undergraduate Program) — The Committee on the Undergraduate Program exercises oversight for the undergraduate academic program including the first year, the General Institute Requirements, and other interdepartmental educational activities.
• CUTC — Council of University Transportation Centers
• CVA — Committee on the Visual Arts (old)
• CWFPL — Center for Work, Family and Personal Life (now called the MIT Work-Life Center)
• CWSP — College Work-Study Program
• Cyborg — Personnel Database in Human Resources replaced by SAP 9/2003