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Contributions: The underrepresentation of women in computer science (CS) majors has long been a focus of attention in many academic documents, the majority of them from the United States and Europe. There is, however, a lack of information about educational interventions (EIs) for women in computing in Latin America. The contribution of this article is to cover this gap and describe what researchers in Latin American countries have been publishing about the recruitment and retention of women in the CS field. Background: Many EIs targeting female students at different educational levels—K-12, undergraduate, and graduate—have been undertaken to increase the participation of women in computing in Latin America. However, descriptions of these activities rarely are included in international academic databases. Research Questions: This literature mapping addresses two main research questions (RQ) about the topic of women in computing in academic publications in Latin American countries: RQ1) what are the characteristics of the publications about women in computing in Latin America? and RQ2) what are the published interventions to recruit and retain women in computing in Latin America? To answer RQ1, six subquestions were created covering year, language, country of origin, document type, and professional track. Furthermore, for RQ2, two subquestions were created involving educational level and the use of software development with a female theme. Methodology: This investigation used the systematic literature mapping process. To achieve a broad coverage of papers, the following sources were included: Scopus, Web of Science, Google Scholar, EBSCO, the proceedings of the Latin American Women in Computing Conference (LAWCC), and those of the Women in Technology (WIT) workshop colocated with the annual conference of the Brazilian Computer Society (SBC). The included papers were published in the last decade (2010–2020) and written in English, Portuguese, or Spanish. Findings: The literature mapping encompasses 197 academic documents, 48.2% of which were written in Portuguese, 28.7% in English, and 23.1% in Spanish. The papers originated from 15 of the 20 Latin American countries. Brazil and Costa Rica have the highest number of publications overall. The documents describe initiatives to increase the participation of women in computing majors that cover the entire educational spectrum, from K-12 to graduate programs, but papers targeting populations in higher education have started to appear recently. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contribution: This paper contributes to the literature by confirming the existence, in gender and socio-economic diversified higher educational environments, of differential evaluation ratings given by students to their teachers. Background: Women and low socio-economic classes have historically been under-represented, both as students and teachers. Various policies and measures are being put in place internationally to raise their standing, equity, and success as they progress in their careers. To be effective, the after effects of these policies must be investigated and understood. Research Questions: This paper addressed the question of whether gender and socio-economic differences, in both teachers and students, affect students’ opinion of their teachers in higher education, across a number of disciplines. Methodology: The research analyzed the differentials in students’ ratings of their teachers in five disciplines in the field of education. Data was drawn from student responses to the surveys conducted in a large Indian university at the end of each course unit. The survey questions elicit their perceptions of teaching quality in the disciplines of civil engineering, electrical engineering, computer science engineering, mathematics, humanities and social sciences. This paper analyzes 112 919 and 16 354 complete sets of student ratings, to study the gender and socio-economic diversity based effects respectively. Statistical multivariate and univariate general linear models were used to derive the relevant results and graphs. Findings: The study reveals the existence of socio-economic status bias, gender-typical behavior, gender-atypical behavior, and same-gender and cross-gender biases; these resulted in differential ratings in the disciplines examined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contribution: This paper argues for a shift in how students’ team project experiences are assessed. Findings from this paper suggest that it is not enough to consider student-reported data in assessing team dynamics; hidden gendered behavior may be impacting students in ways that students do not realize or report. Background: Although the number of women in engineering is rising, difficulties still exist for female students in electrical engineering and computer science, particularly in team projects. Male and female students may have very different project experiences, due to differing levels of confidence/self-efficacy, difficult team dynamics, or inequitable task division. Research Questions: This paper aimed to elucidate what differences exist in the project experience between male and female students, considering self-reported measures (engineering confidence/self-efficacy, time spent on task, and team satisfaction) and observational study. Methodology: Students completed pre/post-project surveys, weekly logs, and post-project interviews to report and discuss their engineering confidence/self-efficacy, project task selection, and team satisfaction. This paper reports a case study of one student team, observed by a researcher throughout the project course. Findings: While student-reported data implied a lack of gender division (male and female students had the same levels of confidence, completed the same project tasks, and were similarly satisfied with their teams), the observational study implied that the student-reported data may not be telling the whole story. Given the difficult team dynamics observed in the student team (but not reported by students), findings suggest that difficult gender dynamics may go unrecognized by students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contribution: This paper employs the automatic scoring of short essays as a novel way to determine pre-service teachers’ knowledge of and attitudes toward computational thinking (CT) from their written reflections. Implications about designing CT courses for pre-service teachers are discussed. Background: CT is an essential 21st-century competency that supports the development of problem-solving skills. Inspired by computing science problem-solving practices, CT should transcend disciplines, but few universities or colleges include CT courses or CT content in their core courses. It is also difficult to know what pre-service teachers think about CT and their role in promoting it. Research Questions: Do pre-service teachers’ coding reflections reveal any important information about their knowledge of, skills in, and attitudes toward CT? Methodology: Traditional qualitative techniques based on human raters are impractical in analyzing hundreds of essays. Topic modeling, an unsupervised machine learning modeling technique, was employed to extract topical features from participants’ reflections. In one section of an undergraduate Introduction to Educational Technology course offered at a large university in Western Canada, n = 139 pre-service teachers wrote a short reflection on their experience following a 20 h Accelerated Intro to Computer Science Code.org course. Topics were identified by analyzing contextual trends in participants’ written reflections. Findings: Results showed that pre-service teachers’ reflections included CT concepts, practices, and perspectives. Specifically, participants connected the coding activity to prior knowledge and experiences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Computer science (CS) is becoming an increasingly diverse domain. This paper reports on an initiative designed to introduce underrepresented populations to computing using an eclectic, multifaceted approach. As part of a yearlong computing course, students engage in Maker activities, participatory simulations, and computing projects that foreground the social and collaborative aspects of CS. Collectively, these activities are designed to introduce learners to the growing diversity of what CS looks like in the 21st century. This paper lays out the practical and theoretical motivations for the Computational Thinking for Girls (CT4G) project, specifically highlighting the use of Making through physical and social computing as ways to engage students in CS. A snapshot of one activity from the program is provided—Wearing the Web—in which students use open-hardware programmable badges to explore the underlying structure and technology that enables the Internet. Data from the first year of the CT4G program are presented to show the positive effects that this diverse introduction to CS is having on the students with respect to their attitudes toward CS. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Contribution: A conceptual model for task allocation among student teams in project-based learning (PBL) is proposed in this paper, along with a discussion on ways gender can affect teams’ apportioning of roles in inequitable ways in STEM PBL. Background: Studies find that men and women report taking on different roles in PBL projects, and that there is a relationship between team gender breakdown and students’ satisfaction with PBL teams, with teams less happy with the inclusion of more women. Both male and female students on teams with two or more women report lower team satisfaction than men on teams of just men, or men and women on teams with a single woman Research Questions: How do students self-select, negotiate, and allocate tasks on PBL teams? How does past PBL experience influence task allocation? How does gender affect task allocation? Methodology: First-year students (N = 60) completed reflections about task assignment during a semester-long PBL experience. Findings: Individual student characteristics that are related to gender—including interests, skills, experiences, and self-efficacy—interact with students’ goal orientations to lead to individual preferences regarding tasks. Ultimate task allocations are distributed in a non-gender-neutral way following individual preferences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on some vexed issues in the preparation of computer science (CS) curricula, including the systematization of the different areas of the technology, the definition of topics and subtopics to teach, their distribution across the various computing courses, and the relationships between them. It is a common opinion that such didactical difficulties are caused by the fast evolution of information technology. To show how this opinion has little ground, a comparison is made between the methods adopted by educators of informatics and of electronics; in fact, also the electronic technology advances at a similarly fast pace. This analysis brings evidence how the experts in electronics have a well-described theoretical basis that can be logically mapped and progressively taught to give a clear understanding of the field. The same cannot be said in CS. Educators in this field are not aided by underpinning theories in an effective manner. Experts have a mass of concepts at hand, but no network of logical connections to order them. This paper does not present a practical solution to these educational difficulties, but observes how the missing assistance of computer theorists may result in unnecessary expenditure of energy and considerable additional effort. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Contribution: This paper shows how significantly computer science instructors can disagree when grading code writing questions in introductory computer science (CS1) exams. Certain solutions are considered “very good” by some instructors and “very bad” by others. The study identifies four factors as possible contributors to such differences between graders: 1) disagreement on the role of syntax in CS1; 2) absence of objective measures for the seriousness of logic errors; 3) variance in how rubrics are constructed; and 4) the use of subjective judgement while grading. Background: Code writing questions are widely used in CS1 exams. Understanding differences in how graders approach such questions can help the CS education community become more informed about how to design valid assessments for summative and formative purposes. Research Questions: Do graders differ significantly in how they score student programs? What are the main factors to which differences between graders could be attributed? Methodology: A number of CS1 instructors and TAs were asked to score pieces of code resembling student solutions to CS1 exam questions, and were asked to answer open ended questions on how they approach grading in CS1 exams. Responses were then analyzed qualitatively and quantitatively. Findings: There is no consensus on how code writing questions in CS1 exams should be graded. Differences in opinion on how many points to award can be very significant, even for very simple programs and between graders in the same institution. Some graders assign grades that do not necessarily agree with how many points they believe the student solution is worth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contribution: This paper provides evidence that computational creativity exercises (CCEs) can increase engineering students’ learning in introductory computer science (CS1) courses. Its main contribution is its more rigorous treatment/control group research design that allows testing for causal influences of CCEs on student learning and performance. Background: Computer science (CS) courses are critical foundational courses for engineering students. CCEs that merge computational and creative thinking have been shown to increase achievement and learning of engineering and nonengineering students in CS1 courses, but previous research has used quasi- and non-experimental designs. Intended Outcomes: CCEs are intended to improve students’ learning of CS1 content and problem-solving ability by fostering computational creativity. Application Design: CCEs can improve student learning and can be used to supplement other evidence-based instructional practices. Findings: Propensity score matching was used to create equivalent treatment and control groups; results show that students in the CCE implementation section had higher scores on a CS knowledge test than students in the control section, but not higher self-efficacy for their CS knowledge. Focus group and open-ended survey questions indicated that students had mixed reactions to the CCEs, with about half the students seeing them as improving their learning, understanding, and ability to apply CS in their engineering field. Responses also reinforced the importance of fully incorporating CCEs in courses and aligning them with course topics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contribution: An approach is presented to provide contextualized feedback for students using a project management (PM) tool. This approach covers the ten PM knowledge areas, guiding students through the planning of software projects. Background: Because software PM is unfeasible without the support of a PM tool there is a growing demand that these tools be taught in the higher education computer courses. Hence, several approaches already have been proposed to improve this teaching, such as educational PM tools or simulators, which facilitate the application of specific PM techniques and the treatment of their results. Another approach to improve the teaching of PM tools is instructional feedback, but little information is as yet available on how to provide instructional feedback when teaching software PM. Intended Outcomes: Instructional feedback, essential to helping students to learn, is based on an evaluation of their actions and decisions. To take advantage of this instructional approach, this paper proposes an instructional feedback technique to be employed in an instructional unit (IU) teaching PM tools aligned with the project management body of knowledge. Application Design: This technique was evaluated through an experiment carried out in undergraduate computer courses. Control and experiential groups were exposed to the same IU, with only the experiential group using the instructional feedback technique. Findings: The proposed feedback technique contributes to student learning, meeting students’ need for better explanations to acquire a comprehensive understanding of PM theory and its practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the Internet era, students have increasingly lost interest in traditional lectures; as a consequence, their learning motivation and exam performance have decreased. The widespread adoption of learner-centered teaching methods that address this issue faces certain barriers, including: 1) the significant faculty effort necessary to prepare e-learning materials; 2) significant extra time required for active online communication with students; 3) student resistance to taking an active role in their education; and 4) lecturers’ common belief that learner-centered teaching activities do not allow discussion of all the required topics. This paper presents a case study based on one offering of an introductory digital systems course taught with a combination of learner-centered strategies selected to overcome these barriers and improve student performance. These measures included: 1) improving the student-teacher relationship; 2) applying intriguing, inductive, and counterintuitive approaches to introducing new concepts; 3) adopting puzzle-based quizzes integrated with peer instruction; 4) using an audience response system; 5) replacing certain lectures with tutorials; 6) reducing course duration; and 7) using a graphics tablet. The results obtained demonstrate significant improvements in lecture attendance and in student performance. The author believes that the approach presented here can benefit other engineering educators in similar courses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents and analyzes results of two Delphi processes that polled cybersecurity experts to rate cybersecurity topics based on importance, difficulty, and timelessness. These ratings can be used to identify core concepts–cross-cutting ideas that connect knowledge in the discipline. The first Delphi process identified core concepts that should be learned in any first course on cybersecurity. The second identified core concepts that any cybersecurity professional should know upon graduating from college. Despite the rapidly growing demand for cybersecurity professionals, it is not clear what defines foundational cybersecurity knowledge. Initial data from the Delphi processes lay a foundation for defining the core concepts of the field and, consequently, provide a common starting point to accelerate the development of rigorous cybersecurity education practices. These results provide a foundation for developing evidence-based educational cybersecurity assessment tools that will identify and measure effective methods for teaching cybersecurity. The Delphi results can also be used to inform the development of curricula, learning exercises, and other educational materials and policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Computational thinking and creative thinking are valuable tools both within and outside of computer science (CS). The goal of the project discussed here is to increase students’ achievement in CS courses through a series of computational creativity exercises (CCEs). In this paper, the framework of CCEs is described, and the results of two separate studies on their impact on student achievement are presented. Students in introductory CS courses completed CCEs as part of those courses. Students in Study 1 came from a variety of programs, and students in Study 2 were engineering majors. A profiling approach was used to test whether the impact of the CCEs could be accounted for by differences in students’ motivated and self-regulated engagement. Overall, CCEs had positive impacts on students’ grades and knowledge test scores, and although there were differences in achievement across the profiles, the impact of the CCEs was generally consistent across profiles. The CCEs appear to be a promising way to increase student achievement in introductory CS courses. Implications and directions for future research are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a graduate course project on computer vision. The aim of the project is to detect and recognize traffic signs in video sequences recorded by an on-board vehicle camera. This is a demanding problem, given that traffic sign recognition is one of the most challenging problems for driving assistance systems. Equally, it is motivating for the students given that it is a real-life problem. Furthermore, it gives them the opportunity to appreciate the difficulty of real-world vision problems and to assess the extent to which this problem can be solved by modern computer vision and pattern classification techniques taught in the classroom. The learning objectives of the course are introduced, as are the constraints imposed on its design, such as the diversity of students' background and the amount of time they and their instructors dedicate to the course. The paper also describes the course contents, schedule, and how the project-based learning approach is applied. The outcomes of the course are discussed, including both the students' marks and their personal feedback. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes a scaffolded concept mapping strategy, which considers a student's (high or low) prior knowledge, and provides flexible learning aids (scaffolding and fading) for reading and drawing a concept map. The goal is that the whole class should progress in synchronized fashion through this strategy, with each student achieving meaningful learning. The scaffolding is tailored to the student's needs, with various levels of support. The increasing demand for scaffolding, and its constant evolution, means that software aids are needed. The authors adopted a systematic instructional design, with associated software, to create a learning environment that supports the execution of the strategy. The paper also investigates whether this strategy improved student learning for 54 undergraduates in a database management system course. The results indicate that the students who used the strategy had better learning achievements than those who only experienced traditional lectures. Moreover, the implementation of the strategy received positive student feedback. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The design of any robotic system requires input from engineers from a variety of technical fields. This paper describes a project-based module, Biologically-Inspired Robotics, that is offered to Electronics and Computer Science students at the University of Southampton, U.K. The overall objective of the module is for student groups to investigate the interface between robotics and biology and develop a system (either hardware or software) to illustrate biological principles. This paper discusses the details of the implementation and delivery of the module, together with evaluation feedback. A number of the robotic systems developed by project groups are presented in order to illustrate the diversity and quality of the systems that have been developed. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper describes the integration of robotics education into an undergraduate Computer Science curriculum. The proposed approach delivers mobile robotics as well as covering the closely related field of Computer Vision and is directly linked to the research conducted at the authors' institution. The paper describes the most relevant details of the module content and assessment strategy, paying particular attention to the practical sessions using Rovio mobile robots. The specific choices are discussed that were made with regard to the mobile platform, software libraries, and lab environment. The paper also presents a detailed qualitative and quantitative analysis of student results, including the correlation between student engagement and performance, and discusses the outcomes of this experience. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper explores the use of a constructivist 21st-century learning model to implement a week-long workshop, delivered as a “hackathon,” to encourage preuniversity teenagers to pursue careers in STEM, with a particular emphasis on computer science. For Irish preuniversity students, their experience of computing can vary from word processing to foundational programming, and while many schools are looking to introduce more ICT into the classroom, many students are left with a narrow view of what computer science is all about. Twenty-one students participated in the workshop and completed pre- and post-surveys, and a free word association exercise in the areas of computing and careers in computing. Analysis revealed that students’ motivation to learn about the design process, programming, inputs and outputs, and wearable technology (wearables)/Internet of Things (IoT) increased following participation. There were also increases in confidence in inputs and outputs and wearables/IoT following participation, as well as changes in the computing word associations, with students associating computing more with computer programming terms rather than general terms such as the Internet. The findings suggest that the combination of a hackathon event and a model for 21st century learning can be effective in motivating and increasing the self-efficacy of preuniversity teenagers in a number of emerging technological contexts such as IoT and wearables. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper presents a case study analyzing the advantages and disadvantages of using project-based learning (PBL) combined with collaborative learning (CL) and industry best practices, integrated with information communication technologies, open-source software, and open-source hardware tools, in a specialized microcontroller and embedded systems engineering Master's course. In addition to addressing industry requirements in both contents and methodology, the course develops capabilities and competencies in problem solving, independent learning, teamwork, and technical knowledge. Since PBL methodology alone does not ensure teamwork, it was complemented with CL. Design review meetings (as described in IEC 61160), deliverables, and organizational resources were also introduced to mirror industry demands. This structure integrated course content and student academic achievement in a simulated industrial environment. The course had students build a modular management system for home appliances, implementing control software on the “Arduino” open-source platform, as well as using wireless communications. The results show that teaching, learning, and student assessment processes can be improved by using PBL with CL. In addition, the introduction of industry practices, such us peer review meetings, brings academia closer to a real-world context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The issue of plagiarism is discussed in the context of university education in disciplines related to computing. The focus is therefore mainly on software plagiarism. First, however, a case is made for the claim that the most important reason that plagiarism cannot be tolerated lies in the essence of the concept of a university as it is rooted in the Western cultural tradition. The main contribution of this paper is in providing firsthand insight into students' views on some of the delicate questions related to student plagiarism. However, this paper presents views from both sides of the question, including the views of staff members. This paper is quite unique in that it is coauthored by students who provide independent comments and recommendations. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper reports on work undertaken within a pilot study concerned with the design, development, and evaluation of online computer science training courses. Drawing on recent developments in e-learning technology, these courses were structured around the principles of a learner-oriented approach for use with adult learners. The paper describes a methodological framework for the evaluation of three main educational issues involved in the learning process of Web-based computer science training courses, and analyzes the results of this study with the aim of providing an improved learning design, and environment, for these courses. The findings highlight a number of potential barriers to learning and indicate the failed indicators that need to be improved in order to enhance effective performance. The authors give their views both on ways to improve the proposed learning environment and on the need for an optimal balance between asynchronous and synchronous activities, enhanced collaboration, and interactions among adult learners and e-tutors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes a collaborative approach to enhancing the student learning experience based on Web 2.0 principles. Specifically, wiki Web sites are used by students for collaboration and for publication of course assignments, which are then shared with the class. Web 2.0 principles include: the Web as platform, harnessing collective intelligence, data are the next Intel Inside, and rich user experiences. Based on a case study in a junior-level undergraduate class, this paper studies a set of six factors with comprehensive grading and evaluation criteria that are critical to make this approach successful. The six factors are knowledge base, motivation, research, social aspects, presentation, and feedback and support. The data collected show that most of the students who participated feel that this approach is exciting and rewarding, and that even some undergraduate students are able to produce original and innovative concepts. The data also show other interesting phenomena with respect to motivation, undergraduate research, and social aspects. Finally, the paper proposes a methodology of conducting a wiki project in a university class using a cyclic constant improvement process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is an increasing need for an effective method of teaching bioinformatics. Increased progress and availability of computer-based tools for educating students have led to the implementation of a computer-based system for teaching bioinformatics as described in this paper. Bioinformatics is a recent, hybrid field of study combining elements of biology, statistics, and computer science. This paper describes the implementation of a system called Bioinformatics Foundational Learning Objects Workbench (BioFLOW), that is intended to be used by instructors to educate their students in bioinformatics principles at a variety of grade levels. BioFLOW functions by dividing topics in bioinformatics into modules. These modules cover a wide variety of topics and may be inserted into different courses in bioinformatics-related fields, providing students with a basic understanding of bioinformatics if they choose to pursue it as a field of advanced study. BioFLOW also incorporates a method for assessing the performance of the modules and the students. Assessment includes evaluation of students' learning styles and their performance on quizzes and is designed to evaluate the effectiveness of the modules. Utilized together, these tools can be used to refine the content of the teaching modules and thus provide an effective system for educating students in bioinformatics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Low retention rates in third-level computing courses, despite continuing research into new and improved computer teaching methods, present a worrying concern. For some computing students learning programming is intimidating, giving rise to lack of confidence and anxiety. The noncognitive domain of anxiety with regard to learning computer programming is investigated in this paper and programming anxiety, a constituent component of computer anxiety, is defined. The paper describes a longitudinal research study that has been conducted, which investigates the variance of anxiety amongst undergraduate computing students, with specific emphasis upon their !earning programming during their first year in higher education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes an efficient method of teaching impulse voltage testing of power transformers to undergraduate students of power system groups in electrical engineering departments, as a part of a high-voltage course for senior undergraduate students. The paper shows how to simulate the power transformer and impulse generator to teach students the basics of impulse voltage testing of power transformers and to practice analyzing the test results. In the first part of the paper, the effect of wave shaping of the voltage waveform is simulated to teach the behavior of the impulse generator, and in the second part, impulse voltage testing of a transformer is simulated. Evaluation of the simulation over several semesters with more than 80 students is very positive in terms of their developing confidence in an understanding of this test. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Database technology affects many disciplines beyond computer science and business. This paper describes two animations developed with images and color that visually and dynamically introduce fundamental relational database concepts and querying to students of many majors. The goal is for educators in diverse academic disciplines to incorporate the animations in their existing courses in order to meet their pedagogical needs. The introduction of the animations was assessed and evaluated within several contexts, including non-majors courses offered by computer scientists as well as a course on computational molecular biology. The evaluation indicated that student knowledge of fundamental database concepts improved significantly with the use of the courseware. The animations provide visual learners with an engaging method to learn the topics presented with the ability to replay the dynamic presentation. Overall, the evaluation indicates the accessibility of database topics across the disciplines as well as the specific concepts that need further elaboration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes a knowledge-based strategy for recommending educational resources—worked problems, exercises, quiz questions, and lecture notes—to learners in the first two courses in the introductory sequence of a computer science major (CS1 and CS2). The goal of the recommendation strategy is to provide support for personalized access to the resources that exist in open educational repositories. The strategy uses: 1) a description of the resources based on metadata standards enriched by ontology-based semantic indexing, and 2) contextual information about the user (her knowledge of that particular field of learning). The results of an experimental analysis of the strategy's performance are presented. These demonstrate that the proposed strategy offers a high level of personalization and can be adapted to the user. An application of the strategy to a repository of computer science open educational resources was well received by both educators and students and had promising effects on the student performance and dropout rates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hardware-based courses in computer science studies require much effort from both students and teachers. The most important part of students' learning is attending in person and actively working on laboratory exercises on hardware equipment. This paper deals with a specific group of students, those who are marginalized by not being able to regularly attend lessons and perform the laboratory exercises. This group of “busy students” includes older students, and those who travel, are employed or are parents. In particular it describes how such students achieved impressive results in a hardware-based course by using Open Educational Resources (OER). These facilitated students' learning process and gave busy students the opportunity to organize their learning time so as to work on the hardware courses remotely from home when they had time and opportunity. The results of the evaluation show significant improvements, both in grade distribution and course throughput, after implementing the new Open Educational Resources approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Computer science courses typically incorporate integrated training in software engineering, which includes learning how to reuse existing code libraries in new programs. This commonly presents a need to use the libraries' application programming interfaces (APIs) during project-based learning activities. The students learn these APIs with little support from the instructor. Instead, they primarily learn from whatever code examples they find on the Web—a scattershot approach that is slow, frustrating, and sometimes fruitless. Preliminary work investigated an improved approach that provides students with intelligent API tutors. This interactive educational content walks students through code examples selectively harvested from the Web. This approach increased students' knowledge of API method names, but a key pedagogical challenge remained: Students still lacked an understanding of common problems and surprises that they might encounter when using APIs in practice. Perhaps even more crucially, the prior statistical study provided no information about how students would perceive and accept the intelligent tutor approach, when given a choice. Therefore, this paper presents an enhanced approach that augments intelligent tutors with selected information from online FAQs and online open-source code, thereby providing more explanation and context about how to use APIs in practice. A qualitative study assessed student perceptions of the system's usability as well as suggestions for improvement, revealing that 100% of students considered the approach to be useful. A key implication is that providing information from online FAQs, related articles, and open-source code could facilitate computer science students' learning how to use APIs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes a one-year introductory robotics course sequence focusing on computational aspects of robotics for third- and fourth-year students. The key challenges this curriculum addresses are scalability, i.e., how to teach a robotics class with a limited amount of hardware to a large audience,student assessment, i.e., how to assess the students' success on robotic design and programming assignments, and depth versus breadth, i.e., how to down-select content from the interdisciplinary field of robotics to computer science students. This is achieved by combining simulation-based laboratory assignments, which can be conducted anywhere and anytime, with compatible hardware devices that allow a seamless transition from simulation to real hardware, and a focus on performance-based assessment with an open-ended final project/competition. Content learning and retention is assessed for a subset of students who successfully went through the proposed curriculum. All class materials as well as hardware—in particular, a low-cost, highly articulated robotic arm developed for teaching advanced robotics concepts—are open-source and available online. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Teaching larger software engineering project courses at the end of a computing curriculum is a way for students to learn some aspects of real-world jobs in industry. Such courses, often referred to as capstone courses, are effective for learning how to apply the skills they have acquired in, for example, design, test, and configuration management. However, these courses are typically performed in small teams, giving only a limited realistic perspective of problems faced when working in real companies. This paper describes an alternative approach to classic capstone projects, with the aim of being more realistic from an organizational, process, and communication perspective. This methodology, called the company approach, is described by intended learning outcomes, teaching/learning activities, and assessment tasks. The approach is implemented and evaluated in a larger Master's student course. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rubrics and oral feedback are approaches to help students improve performance and meet learning outcomes. However, their effect on the actual improvement achieved is inconclusive. This paper evaluates the effect of rubrics and oral feedback on student learning outcomes. An experiment was conducted in a software engineering course on requirements engineering, using the two approaches in course assignments. Both approaches led to statistically significant improvements, though no material improvement (i.e., a change by more than one grade) was achieved. The rubrics led to a significant decrease in the number of complaints and questions regarding grades. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Due to significant technological advances and industry requirements, many universities have introduced programmable logic and hardware description languages into undergraduate engineering curricula. This has led to a number of logistical and didactical challenges, in particular for computer science students. In this paper, the integration of some programmable logic concepts into an introductory digital electronics course is presented. The proposed optional lab develops a printed circuit board that implements a programmable logic block. Another contribution is the collaborative problem-solving methodology used to achieve this goal. Surveys completed by the students, and their final grades, show that the lab has improved the quality of their education and has contributed to a successful integration of programmable logic concepts in an introductory digital electronics course. Because of its demands on students' time and effort, the lab favors the most motivated students. This suggests future research on a proposal for a lab that would be feasible within the time constraints for even the least motivated students. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper outlines the adaptation of a course on the management of network services in operating systems, called NetServicesOS, to the context of the new European Higher Education Area (EHEA). NetServicesOS is a mandatory course in one of the official graduate programs in the Faculty of Computer Science at the Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia (UNED), Madrid, Spain, the Spanish University for Distance Education. Since UNED is a distance university, this course is taught entirely online. The adaptation process includes the implementation of continuous assessment, a key feature in EHEA's methodology. This learning–teaching methodology is driven by a set of student activities that implement the continuous assessment. For this, a virtual machine-based framework was defined, and an automatic evaluation system implemented. The evaluation system can handle the large student numbers characteristic of distance learning. If the set of proposed activities had to be performed in person on site, significant resources would have been necessary since many computer laboratories would have been required to accommodate all the students. Furthermore, the proposed framework ensures that students can perform the practical work simply and flexibly, without the need for large computing platforms. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

An intelligent genetic algorithm (IGA) is proposed to solve Japanese nonograms and is used as a method in a university course to learn evolutionary algorithms. The IGA combines the global exploration capabilities of a canonical genetic algorithm (CGA) with effective condensed encoding, improved fitness function, and modified crossover and mutation. In this paper, the condensed encoding ensures that the chromosome is a feasible solution in all rows for Japanese nonograms. In the reconstruction process of a Japanese nonogram, the numbers in the left column are used as encoding conditions, and the numbers in the top row with the improved fitness function are employed to evaluate the reconstruction result. From the computational experiments, the proposed IGA approach is applied to solve Japanese nonograms effectively, with better results than using a CGA. The students of the Department of Computer Science, National Pingtung University of Education, Taiwan, have gained practical experience of applying evolutionary algorithms to solve Japanese nonograms using both the proposed IGA and a CGA. The students learn that the IGA can find the right solution of the puzzle effectively, but the CGA cannot. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The authors conducted a qualitative interview-based study to reveal students' misconceptions about state in sequential circuits. This paper documents 16 misconceptions of state, how students' conceptions of state shift and change, and students' methodological weaknesses. These misconceptions can be used to inform and direct instruction. This study revealed a need for the development and adoption of standard terminology and a need to focus digital logic instruction upon a central concept of information encoding. In addition, these misconceptions will serve as the basis for the creation of standard assessments called concept inventories. A concept inventory will provide rigorous and quantitative metrics to assess the effectiveness of new teaching methods. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Constructivist approaches to computer science education emphasize that as well as knowledge, thinking skills and processes are involved in active knowledge construction. K–12 computer science curricula must not be based on fashions and trends, but on contents and processes that are observable in various domains of computer science, that can be taught at every intellectual level, that will stay relevant in the longer term, and that are related to everyday language and/or thinking. Only recently, two empirically determined lists, one of central content concepts (algorithm, computer, data, system, etc.) and another of central process concepts (problem solving and problem posing, analyzing, classifying, generalizing, etc.), have become available for computer science education. This paper tackles the problem of finding content and process concepts to be taught in combination. Computer science experts are surveyed in order to identify combinations of content and process concepts—so-called blocks—that are relevant to computer science education. By using cluster analyses, 15 central blocks for teaching computer science in schools are determined. The results of this study may serve as a reference system for the systematic design of instruction in K–12 computer science education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The work presented in this paper aims to support and promote the learning process in introductory computer science courses through the Web-based, adaptive, activity-oriented learning environment known as Supporting Collaboration and Adaptation in a Learning Environment (SCALE). The environment engages students actively in the learning process and supports them with multiple informative and tutoring feedback components. The exploitation of appropriately developed educational material, which was provided through SCALE, showed that SCALE can be a valuable tool for supporting the learning process in introductory computer science courses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes a practical experience of adapting the teaching of a course in Computer Technology (CT) to the new demands of the European Higher Education Area (EHEA). CT is a core course taught in the first year of the degree program Technical Engineering in Management Computing in the Faculty of Computer Science at the University of A Coruña (UDC), Spain. The contents of this course are mainly devoted to the design of digital systems. The main purpose of the adaptation has been to focus more on students, clearly defining the abilities they will develop during the course and suggesting activities that facilitate the development of those abilities. The aim of this work is to describe how this adaptation was performed, the materials and activities prepared, the difficulties encountered, the goals achieved and the response of students and teachers to these changes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents the results of an analysis of indicators that can be used to predict whether a student will succeed in a Computer Science Ph.D. program. The analysis was conducted by studying the records of 75 students who have been in the Computer Science Ph.D. program of the University of Alabama in Huntsville. Seventy-seven variables were extracted from each student's record, and the variables were correlated with whether the student did or did not successfully graduate from the program. A multivariate model was developed that predicts success with a high degree of accuracy. Importantly, the model relies on variables that can be determined reasonably early in a student's Ph.D. class work, enabling its use as a selection metric. Hypotheses about the composition of the model are also presented and discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Laboratory work assignments are very important for computer science learning. Over the last 12 years many students have been involved in solving such assignments in the authors' department, having reached a figure of more than 400 students doing the same assignment in the same year. This number of students has required teachers to pay special attention to conceivable plagiarism cases. A plagiarism detection tool has been developed as part of a full toolset for helping in the management of the laboratory work assignments. This tool defines and uses four similarity criteria to measure how similar two assignment implementations are. The paper describes the plagiarism detection tool and the experience of using it over the last 12 years in four different programming assignments, from microprogramming a CPU to system programming in C. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A survey using a scenario-based questionnaire format has provided insight into the perceptions of U.K academics who teach programming on computing courses. This survey across various higher education (HE) institutions investigates what academics feel constitutes source-code plagiarism in an undergraduate context. Academics' responses on issues surrounding source-code reuse and acknowledgement are discussed. A general consensus exists among academics that a "zero tolerance" plagiarism policy is appropriate; however, some issues concerning source-code reuse and acknowledgement raised controversial responses. This paper discusses the most important findings from the survey and proposes a definition of what can constitute source-code plagiarism from the perspective of U.K. academics who teach programming on computing courses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a learning activity designed to improve student motivation towards learning certain topics in computer architecture, particularly assembly-level machine organization. This activity applies a pedagogical method suitable for computer architecture courses. The method improves motivation by allowing students to verify by themselves, on real platforms, that they can apply their architecture knowledge to improve software performance and also by showing them the improvements achieved in complete applications. The activity is compared to other such activities based on different motivation and learning techniques. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An open-source management system of Web-based teaching interventions is presented that can be used in general for science curriculum courses and especially for computer science courses. The proposed solution is called System of Teaching Intelligent Interventions (STII) and facilitates the authoring, deployment, and evaluation of Web-based metaphors. This paper discusses the use of metaphors for assisting students to comprehend the substance of cognitive concepts and their basic background. STII has been applied in a particular educational scenario during the learning process of 228 students attending the course "computer applications." The presentation of results from a pilot evaluation of two metaphors demonstrates the usefulness of the system. The evaluation focuses on the impact of the two metaphors on student learning, and on detecting potential correlations between metaphors and students' groups. STII evaluation conclusions strongly support that multimedia metaphors can be used as an alternative instructional tool to assist students in confronting their cognitive constraints and developing functional understanding of curriculum courses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents an approach to design Electronic Systems Curricula for making electronics more appealing to students. Since electronics is an important grounding for other disciplines (computer science, signal processing, and communications), this approach proposes the development of multidisciplinary projects using the project-based learning (PBL) strategy for increasing the attractiveness of the curriculum. The proposed curriculum structure consists of eight courses: four theoretical courses and four PBL courses (including a compulsory Master's thesis). In PBL courses, the students, working together in groups, develop multidisciplinary systems, which become progressively more complex. To address this complexity, the Department of Electronic Engineering has invested in the last five years in many resources for developing software tools and a common hardware. This curriculum has been evaluated successfully for the last four academic years: the students have increased their interest in electronics and have given the courses an average grade of more than 71% for all PBL course evaluations (data extracted from students surveys). The students have also acquired new skills and obtained very good academic results: the average grade was more than 74% for all PBL courses. An important result is that all students have developed more complex and sophisticated electronic systems, while considering that the results are worth the effort invested. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The VMEbus is an IEEE standard architecture upon which many embedded and real-time systems are built. The VMEbus architecture has existed for nearly 25 years and has been used extensively for military, industrial, and aerospace applications. This paper describes the general characteristics of the VMEbus architecture, specifically relating these characteristics to aspects of embedded systems education included as components of the IEEE/ACM CE2004 computer engineering model curriculum. Portions of this model curriculum are currently being implemented at universities across the country as part of an increasing effort to address the need for embedded systems education. This evaluation will identify the strengths and weaknesses of this architecture as a general-purpose embedded systems educational tool. The VMEbus architecture is used in the laboratory component of an undergraduate embedded systems course at the University of Alabama (UA), Tuscaloosa. The assessment results evaluating its effectiveness are presented. Index Terms-Computer architecture, computer engineering education, educational technology, embedded systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes an experience of designing and implementing a portal to support transparent remote access to supercomputing facilities to students enrolled in an undergraduate parallel programming course. As these facilities are heterogeneous, are located at different sites, and belong to different institutions, grid computing technologies have been used to overcome these issues. The result is a grid portal based on a modular and easily extensible software architecture that provides a uniform and user-friendly interface for students to work on their programming laboratory assignments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The IEEE/Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) Computing Curricula and the Accreditation Board of Engineering and Technology (ABET) Evaluation Criteria 2000 emphasize the use of recurrent concepts and system design/evaluation through projects and case studies in the curriculum of Computer and Electrical Engineering. In addition, efficient teamwork, autonomy, and initiative are commonly required qualifications for a professional in this field. Project-based learning approaches that require the students to handle realistic case studies are adequate to pursue these objectives. However, these pedagogical approaches tend to be rejected because they promote deep learning but focus on a restricted set of concepts, whereas many engineering curricula require a broad range of concepts to be covered in each course. The introduction of multiple case studies carried out simultaneously in the same course by different teams of students can broaden the set of concepts studied, but collaboration at different levels must be strongly enforced to achieve effective learning. This paper describes a multiple-case-study project design that has been applied to a computer architecture course for four years. After systematically evaluating the experience, the authors conclude that students achieve a deep learning of the concepts required in their own case study, while they are able to generalize their knowledge to case studies of different characteristics from those considered during the course. Furthermore, a number of collaborative skills and attitudes are developed as a consequence of the proposed environment based on multiple levels of collaboration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes a flexible method of teaching introductory artificial intelligence (AI) using a novel, Java-implemented, simple agent framework developed specifically for the purposes of this course. Although numerous agent frameworks have been proposed in the vast body of literature, none of these available frameworks proved to be simple enough to be used by first-year students of computer science. Hence, the authors set out to create a novel framework that would be suitable for the aims of the course, for the level of computing skills of the intended group of students, and for the size of this group of students. The content of the introductory AI course in question is a set of assignments that requires the students to use intelligent agents and other AI techniques to monitor, filter, and retrieve relevant information from the World Wide Web. It represents, therefore, a synthesis of the traditional objectivist approach and a real-world-oriented, constructivist approach to teaching programming to novices. The main aim of implementing such a pedagogy was to engage the students in learning to which they personally relate while attaining intellectual rigor. Classroom experience indicates that students learn more effectively when the traditional objectivist approach is combined with a constructivist approach than when this orthodox approach to teaching programming to novices is used alone. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents an approach that has been used for teaching disciplines on reconfigurable computing and advanced digital systems, which are intended to cover such topics as architectures and capabilities of field-programmable logic devices; languages for the specification, modeling, and synthesis of digital systems; design methods; computer-aided design tools; reconfiguration techniques; and practical applications. To assist the educational process, the following units have been developed and employed in the pedagogical practice: animated tutorials, miniprojects, hardware templates, and course-oriented library of digital circuits. To stimulate the student's activity, an optional project-based evaluation technique has been applied. All the materials that are required for students are available on the university website (WebCT) and can easily be used for studying inside the university, for obtaining additional information during practical classes and for distance learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]