• The How and Why of Disability Data for the CRA Taulbee Survey

  By Richard E. Ladner, Professor Emeritus, Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science and Engineering, University of Washington

  

  Richard E. Ladner

  For the first time in 2021, the CRA Taulbee Survey reported on disability status for students.[1]  The survey chose to report on the number of students who received disability accommodations from the disability services office at their university. This number is typically much lower than the number of students who identify as having a disability. Nonetheless, for US institutions, it is an institutional number that is reported to the U.S. Department of Education and is important for budgeting purposes at each university. While the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) reported that, in 2020-2021, 20.5 percent of undergraduate students identify as having a disability,[2] only about 8 percent of them are registered with their student disability services office according to the Postsecondary National Policy Institute.[3] Just concentrating on undergraduates over the past three CRA Taulbee Surveys, Table 1 shows the CRA Taulbee disability data so far.

  Table 1:   Summary of undergraduate data on disability over three years of the CRA Taulbee Survey.

  Year	Depts reporting to Taulbee	Depts responding to disability question	Percent Enrollment with Accommodations	Percent of Depts Reporting zero Student with Accommodations	Max Department percent with Accommodations
  2021	171	51	4.1%	35%	17%
  2022	182	56	4.1%	38%	34%
  2023	176	69	3.4%	40%	22%

  Although the number of departments responding to the disability question has grown slightly, the percentage of departments responding remains about one-third. Further, the percentage of those responding to the disability question who answer zero has reached 40 percent in 2023. 

  This article addresses two questions. First, how would a department get the disability data that is requested by the CRA Taulbee Survey? Second, why should a department care about this disability data? I address the questions in this order under the assumption that many CRA member departments want to report this data, but have not done so yet. The primary purpose of this article is to give some guidance to departments who want to report disability data.

  How to Get Disability Data

  The disability data that is relevant to the CRA Taulbee Survey is institutional data that is typically found in the university’s student database, namely, whether a student is registered for disability services in a particular year. Other socioeconomic student data requested by the CRA Taulbee Survey, such as whether a student has a Pell Grant or is identified as being a first generation college student, is also typically found in the university’s student database. The question for a department trying to answer the disability question is how does the department request all the standard CRA Taulbee Survey student data, including gender, race, ethnicity, and citizenship.  A department should be able to get the student disability data in the same way. A new database query may need to be developed for disability and the other new socioeconomic student data.  The student database is typically managed by the university’s office of institutional research (OIR). Each university will have its own protocol for interacting with the OIR to facilitate student database queries. Whatever protocol is being used to get student demographic data, the same one can be used for disability data.

  There may be pushback from a university’s OIR with regard to disability data because of privacy and FERPA compliance concerns. If this pushback occurs at a U.S. university, it might be helpful to remind the OIR that it is required by Section 132 of the Higher Education Act of 1965 (P.L. 110-315),[4] as amended, to provide the very similar data to the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) to be posted on the NCES College Navigator website.[5] Disability data that is anonymized should not fall under FERPA. 

  One bit of advice: do not ask your university’s office of student disability services for disability data. They may have the data, but it is not likely they will share it with a department. Hopefully, they will refer you to the university’s OIR. 

  Another piece of advice: do not expect university administrators to know that this kind of disability data is in the student database. I can recall several years ago talking to a high level administrator at the University of Washington who had no idea that this student disability data exists in the student database. The people who know the most about student data are those who work in the university’s OIR.

  I looked up the percentage of undergraduate students enrolled who are formally registered with the office of disability services, for Fall 2022, on the College Navigator for U.S. universities that are CRA members, and put the percentages into a spreadsheet. There are 216 CRA member universities in the spreadsheet. If a university has multiple departments as CRA members, I only have one entry for the university. There were only three U.S. CRA member universities that did not have the disability data on the College Navigator. Summarizing what I found:

  • 29 universities who reported “3 percent or less” and 187 reported a percentage greater than 3 percent. 
  • For the 187 universities with more than 3 percent, the percentages ranged from 3.38 percent to 32.00 percent with a median of 9.03 percent.
  • For the 187 universities with more than 3 percent, the average, weighted by undergraduate enrollment for just those universities, is 9.26 percent.
  • Assigning 0 percent to the 29 universities who reported “3 percent or less” the average, weighted by undergraduate enrollment for all 216 universities, is 7.75 percent.

  It is safe to say that the actual percentage of undergraduates at all the CRA member universities is between 7.75 and 9.26 percent, which is relatively close to the 8 percent reported by the Postsecondary National Policy Institute. Nonetheless, it shows that the CRA members who report disability data to the CRA Taulbee Survey have far less participation by disabled students compared with the population at their universities. It suggests that the same is true for the combined CRA membership. 

  For those who are interested in finding their university’s disability data on the College Navigator, first find your university, then go to the “General Information” tab, then look at the right-hand column to find the data.[5]  The College Navigator disability data only includes undergraduates, not Masters and PhD students. You might be interested in going to the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) to look for disability data. There is no variable related to disability that is available to the public on IPEDS. 

  I am concerned about the number of departments that are currently reporting zero undergraduates who receive disability accommodations to the CRA Taulbee Survey. I hope that each of these departments reach out to their OIR to make sure they are using the proper query or if they are trying to find this data elsewhere. It is highly unlikely that a department with more than 100 undergraduate majors has zero students who are registered with their student disability services office.

  Why Get Disability Data

  Broadening participation in computing (BPC) is a core value of the computing community.  I wrote about this in my Viewpoints article in December 2009 in the Communications of the ACM.[6] The reasons for broadening participation in computing I outlined in that article still apply today: 

  • Numbers: There is still a high demand for computer professionals. The computing profession needs to attract people from all demographics.
  • Social Justice: People from all demographics should have equal opportunity to become computer professionals.
  • Quality: Diverse groups of designers and engineers tend to develop better computing products and services.

  For these reasons and others, the NSF’s CISE Directorate, which is the major funding agency for computer and information science research in the U.S., has instituted programs and policies that promote BPC. Programs include the NSF BPC Alliances and the NSF CSGrad4US program, both of which fund CRA activities. Policies include the requirement that BPC Plans be included in medium to large proposals submitted to NSF CISE. CRA runs BPCnet.org, which provides many resources for proposal writers to CISE programs.

  Along with other minoritized groups, disabled people are identified by NSF as a group that needs increased participation in STEM fields including computing fields.[7] Tracking the participation of members of these groups in undergraduate and graduate programs, and in computing professions, is important to understand if BPC activities are making an impact and for planning. Unfortunately, disability data is hard to collect and understand.[8]  It took some time, but the CRA Taulbee Survey found a good demographic to track for disabled students, namely, the number of students registered with the disability services to receive accommodations at their universities. Let’s call this number DS for Disability Services. DS doesn’t tell the whole story about the participation of disabled students in computing degree programs, but it is a strong indicator of their participation for the following reasons: 

  • Comparing the university wide DS with the departmental DS will guide departments on whether they should be attracting more disabled students to their program.
  • Tracking departmental DS over time will help a department understand if interventions they are using to attract disabled students are working.
  • Sharing the departmental DS with the Taulbee survey will help the entire computing field understand how the field as a whole is doing with disability inclusion.

  In this article, I covered the how and why of collecting disability data for the CRA Taulbee Survey. As an action item for readers of this article, please pass it on to the people in your department who submit data to the CRA Taulbee Survey. Readers may be interested in reading an older article I wrote in 2020 about disability data at all levels from K-12 to the workforce.[9]

  Acknowledgement

  This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 2137312.  Thanks to Briana Blaser and Maya Cakmak for valuable input for this article.

  [1] CRA Taulbee Survey. https://cra.org/resources/taulbee-survey/

  [2] National Center for Education Statistics, Table 311.10. https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d22/tables/dt22_311.10.asp

  [3] Postsecondary National Policy Institute: Students with Disabilities in Higher Education. https://pnpi.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/StudentswithDisabilities-Nov-2023.pdf

  [4] Higher Education Act of 1965 (P.L. 110-315). https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/COMPS-765/pdf/COMPS-765.pdf

  [5] NCES College Navigator. https://nces.ed.gov/collegenavigator/

  [6]  R.E. Ladner. 2009. Broadening Participation Opening Remarks. Commun. ACM 52, 12 (December 2009), 22–24. https://doi.org/10.1145/1610252.1610263.

  [7] Broadening Participation in STEM homepage at NSF. https://new.nsf.gov/funding/initiatives/broadening-participation.

  [8] B. Blaser and R.E. Ladner.  Why is Data on Disability so Hard to Collect and Understand?  2020 Research on Equity and Sustained Participation in Engineering, Computing, and Technology (RESPECT), Portland, OR, USA, 2020, pp. 1-8, http://doi.org/10.1109/RESPECT49803.2020.9272466.

  [9]  Richard E. Ladner. 2020.  Expanding the Pipeline: The Status of Persons with Disabilities in the Computer Science Pipeline. Computing Research News. November 2020, Vol. 32/No. 10. https://cra.org/crn/2020/11/expanding-the-pipeline-the-status-of-persons-with-disabilities-in-the-computer-science-pipeline/

   

• CRA Update: Taulbee Survey Shows Record Number of Graduates and Strong Enrollment at All Degree Levels

  By Matt Hazenbush, Director of Communications, and the CRA Taulbee Survey Team  

  The Computing Research Association (CRA) is pleased to present the findings of the 53rd annual CRA Taulbee Survey. A widely known and trusted resource in the computing research community, this year’s survey report documents trends in student enrollment, degree production, employment of graduates, and faculty salaries in academic units in the United States and Canada that grant PhDs in computer science (CS), computer engineering (CE), or information (I).

  View the Report

  The results of this year’s survey indicate continued strong productivity among doctoral-granting departments. The number of graduates at each degree level was at an all-time high in 2022-23 and, for the most part, overall enrollment in the programs showed increases. 

  Among U.S. CS institutions, average bachelor’s enrollment in the departments has now been increasing for 16 consecutive years. The departments continue to hire many new teaching faculty to help keep pace with the enrollment growth, though tenure track faculty size also increased somewhat.

  Trends in Computer Science, Computing Engineering, and Information Departments 

  Doctoral Programs 

  • This year’s respondents reported another all-time high doctoral degree production, breaking the 2021-22 record by 3.2 percent. Among all departments reporting both this year and last year, the number of total doctoral degrees increased by 0.8 percent.
  • Among 2022-23 PhD recipients aggregated across CS, CE and I, 24.1 percent identified as female, up from 22.9 percent in 2021-22. Among CS programs that reported doctoral degrees by race/ethnicity, the distribution is similar to that reported for 2021-22.
  • Total doctoral enrollment increased this year by 4.7 percent across all responding departments, and increased 3.0 percent among departments reporting both this year and last year. 
  • The share of females among enrolled doctoral students of known gender rose for the eighth straight year, from 26.1 percent to 26.3 percent across the three areas of CS, CE and I combined. Among those students whose race/ethnicity is known, the overall percentage of doctoral students who were neither Non-resident Aliens, Asian, nor White was 5.6 percent; this is little changed from the 5.7 percent reported last year.
  • Among the new 2022-23 PhDs for whom employment information was known, the percentage who took positions in North American industry in 2023-24 was 57.5 percent, down from the near record 62.5 percent reported last year for the new 2021-22 PhDs. Conversely, the percentage who took North American academic jobs was 30.6, considerably higher than last year’s reported record low of 25.8 percent.
  • Artificial intelligence/machine learning continues to be by far the most popular area of specialty of new PhDs, comprising more than a quarter of all doctoral degrees awarded for which the area was known.

  Master’s Programs 

  • Overall master’s degree production ballooned in 2022-23, a natural result of the two consecutive years of post-COVID large increases in total master’s enrollment reported in the previous two Taulbee surveys. Both the total number of master’s degrees produced and the average per reporting department are more than double those from last year’s report and are the largest reported master’s production levels in the history of the Taulbee Survey.
  • The proportion of female graduates among CS master’s degree recipients increased slightly, from 26.3 percent in 2021-22 to 26.8 percent in 2022-23. Among graduates whose residency and ethnicity is known, the proportion of CS master’s degrees that went to Non-resident Aliens recovered 10 percentage points from last year’s 15 percentage point drop, and is again at the 60 percent level.
  • The record production of master’s graduates is not expected to continue this year. The total number of new students in 2023-24 is much less than the number of graduates in 2022-23, while overall enrollment for 2022-23 reported by this year’s master’s programs is similar to that reported in 2021-22 by last year’s master’s programs (this year’s reported enrollment is 0.6 percent less than last year’s).

  Bachelor’s Programs 

  • Bachelor’s degree production continued its post-COVID period rebound in 2022-23 with a second consecutive year of double-digit increase. Aggregated across all three areas, production was up by 17.6 percent. When considering only those departments that reported both years, the increase in total degree production across the CS, CE and I areas was 15.5 percent among all departments.
  • Gender diversity among bachelor’s graduates was somewhat higher in 2022-23 than in 2021-22. Among graduates whose gender was reported, 23.3 percent were female in aggregate across all disciplines compared with 22.7 percent in 2021-22. The percentage of bachelor’s graduates who are White decreased across CS, CE, and I.
  • In aggregate across all three areas, U.S. CS departments reported an increase in new majors per department of 3.4 percent. When only departments reporting both this year and last year are considered, the count of new majors increased by 7.3 percent across all departments, and 9.5 percent at U.S. CS departments. This is the third consecutive year of such increases. 

  

  Long-Time Taulbee Team’s Swan Song 

  This year marks the final collaboration of the CRA Taulbee Survey’s long-time partners Betsy Bizot, CRA Senior Research Associate, and Stuart Zweben, Professor Emeritus at The Ohio State University.  

  Bizot – who was honored with the 2021 Distinguished Alumni Award from the Virginia Tech Department of Computer Science – is retiring from CRA after many years of service to CRA and the CRA Taulbee Survey. 

  

  About the Survey 

  Conducted each fall since 1974, the survey name honors Orrin E. Taulbee of the University of Pittsburgh, who conducted these surveys for the Computer Science Board until 1984, with retrospective annual data going back to 1970. In its current form, the survey documents trends in student enrollment, degree production, employment of graduates, and faculty salaries in academic units in the United States and Canada that grant PhDs in computer science (CS), computer engineering (CE), or information (I).

  In 2020, the CRA Taulbee Survey was honored with the Service to CRA Award in recognition of 50 years of providing an invaluable resource to CRA as well as to the computing community.

  The survey generally covers the preceding academic year, with the notably exception of faculty salary data, which are for the current year. CRA gathers survey data during the Fall. For this year, responses received by February 14, 2024 are included in the analysis. CRA surveyed a total of 314 PhD-granting departments and received responses from 176, for an overall response rate of 56 percent.

  View the Report
• 2023 CRA Taulbee Survey: Data Collection to Begin This Month

  By Betsy Bizot, Senior Research Associate

  The 2023 CRA Taulbee Survey will be launching soon! As has been CRA’s recent practice, the survey will be split into two parts, salary and main (everything else). This allows us to set an earlier deadline for the salary section in order to produce a preliminary salary report in December, while giving departments more time to collect and enter the information in the rest of the survey if needed.

  All North American departments that grant doctorates in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, or Information are invited to participate in the survey.

  Schedule for the 2023 Taulbee Survey:

  • By September 17: Each academic unit head will receive an email about this year’s survey and so will the Taulbee primary contact(s), if separate. The data-gathering pdf will also be available at this time.
  • September 24: Both Salary and Main surveys open for input.
  • November 28: Due date for salary section.
  • Late December: Preliminary salary report available to survey participants.
  • January 23, 2024: Due date for the main Taulbee section.
  • May 2024:Findings shared with the community.
• CRA 2022 Taulbee Survey: Record Doctoral Degree Production; More Increases in Undergrad Enrollment Despite Increased Degree Production

  This article and the accompanying figures and tables present the results from the 52nd annual CRA Taulbee Survey. The survey, conducted annually by the Computing Research Association, documents trends in student enrollment, degree production, employment of graduates, and faculty salaries in academic units in the United States and Canada that grant the Ph.D. in computer science (CS), computer engineering (CE), or information (I). Most of these academic units are departments, but some are colleges or schools of information or computing. In this report, we will use the term “department” to refer to the unit offering the program.

• CRA Taulbee Survey Announcement

  The 2022 CRA Taulbee Survey will be starting soon. As has been our recent practice, the survey will be split into two parts, salary and main (everything else). This allows us to set an earlier deadline for the salary section in order to produce a preliminary salary report in December, while giving departments more time to collect and enter the information in the rest of the survey if needed.

  Taulbee Schedule

  • By September 19: Each academic unit head will receive an email about this year’s survey and so will the Taulbee primary contact(s), if separate. The data-gathering pdf will also be available at this time.
  • September 26: Both Salary and Main surveys open for input
  • November 28: Due date for salary section.
  • Late December: Preliminary salary report available to participants.
  • January 23, 2022: Due date for the main Taulbee section.
  • April 2022: Full Taulbee report to CRA members and participating departments.
  • May 2022: Published in CRN.
• CRA 2021 Taulbee Survey: CS Enrollment Grows at All Degree Levels, With Increased Gender Diversity

  This article and the accompanying figures and tables present the results from the 51st annual CRA Taulbee Survey, which documents trends in student enrollment, degree production, employment of graduates, and faculty salaries in academic units in the United States and Canada that grant the Ph.D. in computer science, computer engineering, or information.

• Expanding the Pipeline: Gender and Ethnic Differences in PhD Specialty Areas

  This article examines gender and residency/ethnicity differences in PhD specialty areas as reported to the CRA Taulbee Survey from 2012-2018. The Taulbee Survey is conducted each fall and, among other questions, asks doctoral departments of Computer Science, Computer Engineering, and Information for data about each PhD they awarded in the previous academic year. The data on each new PhD includes gender, residency/race/ethnicity, and PhD specialty area. A total of 12,968 PhDs were awarded by Taulbee respondents during the 7 year period from 2012-2018.

• The CRA Taulbee Survey and Teaching Faculty Data

  Non-tenure-track teaching faculty are becoming more important to doctoral departments to help them meet their educational goals and responsibilities, particularly in response to the current enrollments surge. In the Generation CS report (available at https://cra.org/data/Generation-CS/), 65% of doctoral departments reported in fall 2015 that they had increased the number of teaching faculty on continuing appointments in response to increased enrollments, and an additional 16% were considering it. Similarly, between fall 2006 and fall 2016, the proportion of Taulbee Survey respondents reporting at least one full-time non-tenure-track teaching faculty member increased from 81% to 87% and, more notably, the median number of such teaching faculty at the departments reporting nonzero counts rose from 3 to 6.

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