Archive of articles published in the 2016 issue.

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Are you working on the Taulbee Survey?

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The CRA Taulbee Survey is in progress. The deadline for the salary section is November 18 and the deadline for the rest of the survey is January 18, 2017.

If you are the academic unit head of a U.S. or Canadian department granting doctoral degrees in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, and/or Information, you should have received emails about the survey. If you did not, please check with the CRA Director of Statistics, Dr. Betsy Bizot, at bizot@cra.org.

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Announcing the VMware Systems Research Award for Early Career Faculty

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We are pleased to announce a new award in support of the computer science research community. The objective of this award is to call attention to a valuable and promising body of emerging computer science systems research and provide support for continued advances by an emerging research leader. This will be an annual award in the amount of USD 100,000, granted to the recipient’s university in support of her/his research.

Eligible nominees are faculty worldwide within 5 years of their first tenure-track appointment. Nominations must be submitted by a university department chair and each submission should include a one-page letter of nomination, a proposed citation and three references with contact information. Each department chair is limited to a single nomination which must be submitted via email at sysaward@vmware.com. The deadline for the nominations submission is November 15, 2016.

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John Hopcroft Receives China’s Friendship Award

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John Hopcroft, 2007 CRA Distinguished Service award recipient, recently received the Friendship Award, China’s highest award given to “a foreign expert who has made an outstanding contribution to China’s economic and social progress.” Hopcroft is a faculty member at Cornell University. He has lectured frequently in China and helped several Chinese universities upgrade their advanced teaching programs.

From Cornell’s announcement:
“We cannot waste a significant fraction of the world’s talent,” Hopcroft said. “Improving education in China is an opportunity to improve the lives of tens of millions of individuals. This is also an opportunity for Cornell to truly become an international university – by committing to help other countries improve their educational systems.”

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Ruzena K. Bajcsy Receives NAE Founders Award

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Ruzena K. Bajcsy, the 2003 recipient of the CRA Distinguished Service Award, recently received the 2016 Simon Ramo Founders Award from the National Academy of Engineering.

The award webpage states: “Her current research is in the use of robotic technology, namely measuring and extracting noninvasively kinematic and dynamic parameters of individual in order to assess their physical movement capabilities or limitations. If there are limitations, her students have designed assistive devices that can compensate for the lack of kinematic agility and /or physical strength.”

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New Videos Encourage Undergraduates to Pursue Advanced Education in Computing

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The Computing Research Association (CRA) and its education committee (CRA-E) are excited to announce the creation of five short videos entitled “Choosing a PhD in Computer Science.” These videos were designed in conjunction with award-winning producer Patrick Sammon (co-producer of “Codebreaker”) to explain the benefits of pursuing a PhD in CS.  The videos showcase young researchers with PhDs who are now working in industry as they talk about what compelled them to pursue a doctorate and how they are using their advanced training in their work.  While many undergraduates understand that a PhD is needed for a position in academia, these videos demonstrate how a PhD can be useful in industry as well.

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Career Mentoring WorkshopCareer Mentoring Workshop

CRA Women Early and Mid Career Mentoring Workshops

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CRA’s Committee on the Status of Women in Computing Research (CRA-W) will host early and mid career mentoring workshops on November 19-20 in Washington, D.C. The goal of these workshops is to provide an environment for mentoring, practical information, advice, and support among researchers and educators in computing. The application is free, there is a $250 registration fee for the workshop (for those accepted), and CRA-W will reimburse participants for expenses (hotel and airfare) after the workshop. In order to receive reimbursement applicants must be affiliated with a U.S. institution or be employed in the U.S. These workshops are open to individuals in their early career in education, research and labs, and mid career in education, research, and labs. Learn more about the CRA-W Career Mentoring Workshops here.

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2016 CRA Taulbee Survey Schedule

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The 2016 CRA Taulbee Survey will be starting soon. As we did last year, 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.

The schedule will be as follows:

  • By September 9: All doctoral departments will be contacted to update Taulbee user information. The academic unit head will receive an email and so will the Taulbee primary contact, if separate.
  • September 13: PDF will be available for data gathering.
  • September 27: Both sections of the Taulbee will open for input.
  • November 18: Due date for salary section.
  • December 19: Preliminary salary report available.
  • January 18, 2017: Due date for the main Taulbee section.
  • April 2017: Full Taulbee report to CRA members and participating departments.
  • May 2017: Published in CRN.
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    Save the Dates: Next Two CRA Conferences at Snowbird

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    The next two CRA Conferences at Snowbird have been scheduled.
    2018: Monday, July 16 – Wednesday, July 18.
    2020: Tuesday, July 21 – Thursday, July 23.

    The upcoming conference dates are revised somewhat from past schedules with the intent of making the Conference more family friendly by avoiding weekends. Because of the long lead time for reserving space at Cliff Lodge, this is being implemented gradually.

    We do not record the conference presentations in order to encourage free-flowing discussions, but we do post the presentations by every speaker who provides them to us. For 2016 click: here. Names and sessions highlighted in blue have an associated presentation.

    And a special thank you to everyone who submitted evaluations of the 2016 conference. We read this carefully and do our best to improve the conference based upon feedback.

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    Nominations Open for 2017 CRA Award for Outstanding Undergraduate Researchers

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    The Computing Research Association is pleased to announce the annual CRA Award for Outstanding Undergraduate Researchers, which recognizes undergraduate students in North American colleges and universities who show outstanding research potential in an area of computing research. The award is a terrific way to recognize your best student researchers and your department.

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    CERP InfographicCERP Infographic

    Graduate Students Without Versus With a Mentor Report Lower Self-Efficacy

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    While almost all computing graduate students have advisors, recent CERP data indicate many of those students do not have a mentor. Specifically, 17% of a sample of graduate students enrolled in computing programs (sample N = 2,617) indicated they did not “have a mentor with whom [they] have an ongoing relationship, and who provides [them] advice and assistance in advancing in [their] career.” The graphic above presents evidence toward a potential implication of not having a trusted mentor as a graduate student: relatively low self-efficacy. Self-efficacy refers to beliefs about one’s ability to plan for and execute steps necessary for future success. Indeed, the current analysis indicates students without a mentor report lower self-efficacy in their computing career track than students with a mentor, p ≤ .001.

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    John KellyJohn Kelly

    Computing, Cognition, and the Future of Knowing: How Humans and Machines are Forging a New Age of Understanding

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    IBM Research is a Lab and Center member of CRA. This article is the first in a series of our industry member profiles.

    It’s not surprising that the public’s imagination has been ignited by artificial intelligence since the term was first coined in 1955. In the ensuing 60 years, we have been alternately captivated by its promise, wary of its potential for abuse, and frustrated by its sometimes slow development.

    But like so many advanced technologies that were conceived before their time, artificial intelligence has come to be widely misunderstood—co-opted by Hollywood, mischaracterized by the media, and portrayed as everything from savior to scourge of humanity. Those of us engaged in serious information science and in its application in the real world of business and society understand the enormous potential of intelligent systems.

    The future of this technology—which we believe will be cognitive, not “artificial”—has very different characteristics from those generally attributed to AI, spawning different types of technological, scientific, and societal challenges and opportunities, with different requirements for governance, policy, and management.

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