2024 CRA Taulbee Survey Kicks Off Data Collection Under New Leadership

By Matt Hazenbush, Director of Communications

The Computing Research Association (CRA) is marking the beginning of an exciting new chapter as it launches data collection for the 2024 CRA Taulbee Survey. 

This annual survey, a cornerstone of the computing research community, tracks essential data on student enrollment, degree production, faculty salaries, and employment trends in academic units that grant PhDs in computer science (CS), computer engineering (CE), or information (I) in the U.S. and Canada.

As the survey kicks off this year, CRA is also celebrating the retirement of Betsy Bizot, Senior Research Associate, after 20 years of remarkable service. Betsy’s leadership has been instrumental in shaping the CRA Taulbee Survey into the trusted resource it is today, providing vital insights to academic institutions and industry leaders alike. Her dedication to the computing research community has left an indelible legacy.

Welcoming Jasmine Batten, PhD

In her place, CRA is pleased to introduce Jasmine Batten, who joined CRA in August 2024, as the new lead for the CRA Taulbee Survey. Batten, a Research Associate with CRA’s Center for Evaluating the Research Pipeline (CERP), brings new energy to this long-standing project and will guide its future development.

As we embark on the 2024 survey, we are excited to announce the following key dates for data collection:

• October 7, 2024: Data gathering PDFs will be released.
• October 14, 2024: Both the CRA Taulbee Main Survey and the CRA Taulbee Salary Survey will open for input.
• November 29, 2024: The CRA Taulbee Salary Survey will close.
• January 24, 2025: The CRA Taulbee Main Survey will close.

With data collection underway, we took the opportunity to sit down with Jasmine Batten to discuss her vision for the survey and her thoughts on the future of this critical resource.

First, welcome to CRA and congratulations on your new role leading the CRA Taulbee Survey! Could you start by telling us a bit about your background and what drew you to this position?

Thank you so much for the warm welcome! I am so thrilled to be working at CRA. As a quick background, I started as a computer science education (CS ed.) undergraduate researcher in 2017 at Florida International University (FIU) in Miami, FL working with Dr. Monique Ross. During my time in her LEARN-CS lab as an undergraduate research assistant, she encouraged me to go to graduate school. Ultimately, I enrolled in my PhD program (with her as my advisor) in 2019 at Florida International University (FIU). During my PhD, I published several conference and journal articles with the support of my National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Fellowship related to efforts to broaden participation. My dissertation was specifically focused on how we can improve computing classrooms and their mindset cultures. My goal of focusing on this topic was to better understand how we can improve learning environments for female and minoritized students in computing at the undergraduate degree level. I graduated from FIU in July 2024 with my PhD in computer science with a focus on CS ed. 

What drew me to this role was actually my participation in the CRA-WP Grad Cohort for Women Workshop in 2023. I attended in San Francisco, CA with one of my research group peers and we had an amazing time—I was surrounded by so many female and minoritized students, faculty, and other professionals. I presented a poster at the workshop and met so many amazing student scholars across many different computing disciplines, which was truly inspiring. I was exposed to so many new topics and ideas I had never heard of. Additionally, I have never felt as safe at a networking event as I did at the CRA-WP Grad Cohort for Women Workshop. I saw the impact of this cohort on creating inclusive and mindful networking experiences firsthand, and during my participation at the workshop, I knew I wanted to continue contributing towards these efforts to improve inclusivity in computing at CRA specifically. I am super honored to have been chosen to work on the critically important CRA Taulbee survey, which aligns with my own career goals in continuing to broaden participation in computing.

As a researcher, when did you first become aware of the CRA Taulbee Survey, and what role did it play in your own research or career development?

I first became aware of the CRA Taulbee survey a year or two into my PhD program after we were looking into statistics on intersectional enrollment rates in computing. This data was incredibly important in supporting our arguments related to the need to improve efforts to broaden participation at the undergraduate degree level. Without the data from the CRA Taulbee survey, it would have been more challenging to demonstrate the necessity for this work.

The CRA Taulbee Survey is of course a well-known resource in the computing community, and many have come to rely on it for tracking key industry trends. What do you see as the key priorities for the survey moving forward?

There are a few priorities we will be focusing on related to reporting and data quality of the survey results. We will also be focusing on improving the reporting efforts. The annual CRA Taulbee survey report has so much information to share with stakeholders that it can be a lot to sift through. Moving forward, there is going to be a big effort towards the improvement of just the visualization of the results, but also the navigability of the report. Additionally, we will be focusing on improving the clarity of the survey questions, which will hopefully help increase general participation for CRA Taulbee, and the participation of other North American academic units.

One of the challenges with the survey is ensuring that it reflects the evolving landscape of computing research. Are there any changes or enhancements you’re considering to keep the survey relevant and valuable?

There are several dimensions we are currently grappling with given the rapid evolution of computing research and education. One of the biggest challenges related to CRA Taulbee is determining the boundaries related to the types of computing programs it should collect data on. Given that CRA Taulbee is a longitudinal survey, maintaining consistency across measures is important. At the same time, evolution and providing the community with relevant, useful data is also necessary. For instance, newer computing-related degree programs such as data science and artificial intelligence (AI) are becoming more prevalent as technology advances and higher education attempts to keep pace. I think we are still trying to figure out the best way to go about this without: (1) overhauling the survey too much from year to year, and (2) increasing the survey burden for the academic units that already participate in CRA Taulbee. In addition to newer computing fields, there are also considerations related to how the survey categorizes faculty (and how that has evolved), and how we can improve it to stay up-to-date. These are issues we are having ongoing conversations about within CERP and during survey committee discussions.

Looking at the trends in the computing field, what do you think will be the most impactful insights from the CRA Taulbee data in the coming years?

I think the enrollment and awarded degree trends for female and minoritized students is highly valuable for getting a sense of whether students are enrolling into different computing degree programs, especially given the increased need for more specialized (and diverse) computing knowledge that serves all of our communities. If students are not finishing their computing degrees, why? If not, how can we as a computing community work to support them? CRA Taulbee data allows the community to begin answering these types of questions. I think this data is the first step for not only researchers but other stakeholders to continue addressing these concerns.

As you step into this new role, how can the community best support your efforts and the future of the CRA Taulbee Survey?

If your academic unit participates in CRA Taulbee, that’s some of the best support you can provide! Otherwise, if you have any recommendations on how to improve the survey, feel free to reach out via email to taulbeesurvey@cra.org. We are always open to feedback from the community. 

A New Chapter Begins 

As data collection for the 2024 CRA Taulbee Survey gets underway, the computing research community can expect continued excellence and exciting new developments under its new leadership. With a strong foundation in place, the CRA Taulbee Survey will remain a vital resource for tracking the trends that shape the future of computing research and education. 

CRA is committed to working closely with the community to ensure the survey evolves to meet emerging needs and continues providing invaluable data for years to come. If you have questions about participation, please feel free to reach out via email at taulbeesurvey@cra.org.