Archive of articles published in the 2017 issue.
The Networking and Information Technology Research and Development (NITRD) program, an interagency Federal-coordinating group, recently posted a draft Smart Cities and Communities Federal Strategic Plan for public comment. The Computing Community Consortium (CCC) responded to the request and submitted a response to the draft strategic plan.
Recently we posted a blog about Health in Your Pocket: Diagnosing and Treating Disease with Smartphones, a press briefing that CCC members, Elizabeth (Beth) Mynatt, Shwetak Patel, and Gregory Hager presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Association for the Advance of Science (AAAS) in early February. The focus of this post is on the Internet of Things (IoT). CCC Chair Beth Mynatt, CCC Executive Council Member Ben Zorn, and CCC Council Member Shwetak Patel were on a panel moderated by CCC Director Ann Drobnis on What Happens When Everyday Objects Become Internet Devices: A Science Policy Agenda.
CRA Board and Committee Members Honored
CRA Board Member Greg Hager Inducted to American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering College of Fellows.
CCC’s Cynthia Dwork Co-winner of 2017 Gödel Prize.
Former CRA Board Member Accomplishments
Valerie Taylor Named Argonne National Laboratory Division Director.
Laura M. Haas Named Dean of the College of Information and Computer Sciences at UMass Amherst.
NCWIT AA Accepting Award Nominations & Proposals & Winners Announced
The NCWIT Academic Alliance is pleased to announce the call for nominations and proposals for the latest round of awards.
CRA issued a statement opposing the President’s first order, and while CRA has the same concerns about the new order, certain exceptions could alleviate the immediate impacts on current researchers and students. In addition to exempting travelers who already have visas permanent residency status, the order adds exceptions to be considered under a case-by-case waiver system. There are nine such exceptions, but the first four seem most relevant to the computing research community.
The CRA board of directors is pleased to announce its selections for the 2017 CRA Awards.
Tom Kalil – Distinguished Service Award Winner
Carol Frieze – A. Nico Habermann Award Winner
CRA members have elected two new members to its board of directors: Carla Brodley and Kim Hazelwood. Current board members Nancy Amato, Susan Davidson, Dan Grossman, Brent Hailpern, Susanne Hambrusch, Barbara Ryder and Ellen Zegura were re-elected to the CRA board. Also beginning July 1, Brian Noble will be the USENIX representative to the CRA board replacing Margo Seltzer. Retiring from the board as of June 30, 2017 are David Culler, Mary Czerwinski and Seltzer. CRA thanks them all for contributions during their service on the board.
At the CRA board meeting on February 28, the CRA board of directors voted to re-elect its current board officers to serve new two-year terms beginning July 1, 2017. The board officers include: Susan Davidson (chair), Susanne Hambrusch (vice chair), Ron Brachman (treasurer), and Greg Morrisett (secretary).
To investigate the current situation, CRA produced an enrollment survey to measure, assess, and better understand enrollment trends and their impact on computer science units, diversity, and more. Part of this effort included a survey of doctoral- and non-doctoral granting academic units in fall 2015. Generation CS: CS Enrollments Surge Since 2006 reports the survey results with respect to majors, nonmajors, diversity, impact on academic units, and units’ actions in response to the surge and is now available on the CRA website.
On Monday, February 27, in Washington, D.C., the Computing Research Association hosted its annual Computing Leadership Summit for the senior leadership of CRA member societies (Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence, Association for Computing Machinery, CS-Can/Info-Can, IEEE Computer Society, Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics, and USENIX Association) and the CSTB. Several engaging sessions provided valuable information on current issues important to the organizations.
The main focus of my recent research has been computer science education and the role computer science can play in defining and advancing its own education research. Learning computational principles and learning to code is hard, and teaching these subjects is even harder. For most computer science topics, we know very little about how different learners’ best learn; how to effectively teach the material to audiences with different abilities, backgrounds, and goals; and how to reliably assess learning.
During the fall 2016 academic semester, CERP collected data from 5,208 undergraduate students currently or previously enrolled in computing courses at a sample of U.S. colleges and universities. Students were asked whether they had participated in any computing-related contests (e.g., hackathons or robotics competitions) during the past year. Some believe this type of activity can help resumes stand out and makes applicants competitive on the job market (e.g., Harnett, 2016; Mone, 2016). We found men were more likely than women, and Asian students were more likely than their peers, to report having participated in computing-related contests. To help promote a level applicant playing field, contest organizers should consider modifying recruitment strategies to target groups who are less likely to participate, such as women.
