Computer Sciences Commons^™

Homo Ludens Moralis: Designing And Developing A Board Game To Teach Ethics For Ict Education, Damian Gordon, Dympna O'Sullivan, Ioannis Stavrakakis, Andrea Curley

Conference papers

The ICT ethical landscape is changing at an astonishing rate, as technologies become more complex, and people choose to interact with them in new and distinct ways, the resultant interactions are more novel and less easy to categorise using traditional ethical frameworks. It is vitally important that the developers of these technologies do not live in an ethical vacuum; that they think about the uses and abuses of their creations, and take some measures to prevent others being harmed by their work.

To equip these developers to rise to this challenge and to create a positive future for the use …

Evolution Of Computational Thinking Contextualized In A Teacher-Student Collaborative Learning Environment., John Arthur Underwood

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The discussion of Computational Thinking as a pedagogical concept is now essential as it has found itself integrated into the core science disciplines with its inclusion in all of the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS, 2018). The need for a practical and functional definition for teacher practitioners is a driving point for many recent research endeavors. Across the United States school systems are currently seeking new methods for expanding their students’ ability to analytically think and to employee real-world problem-solving strategies (Hopson, Simms, and Knezek, 2001). The need for STEM trained individuals crosses both the vocational certified and college degreed …

A Pilot Study On The Impact Of Teaching Assistant Led Cs1 Study Sessions Using Peer Instruction, Megan E. Gilbert

Senior Honors Projects, 2020-current

James Madison University’s Computer Science program strives to be a student-centered learning environment with a focus on creating a community for undergraduate success. National data reveals computer science has the lowest student retention rate compared to other STEM majors. The National Center for Women and Information Technology (NCWIT) has compiled a list of ways to retain students in Computer Science. In particular, NCWIT calls for collaboration indicate that “a sense of belonging, or a feeling of fit, is important for supporting student interest and persistence.” One aspect of creating community is the department’s longstanding commitment to provide undergraduate teaching assistants …

College Of Engineering Senior Design Competition Spring 2020, University Of Nevada, Las Vegas

Fred and Harriet Cox Senior Design Competition Projects

Part of every UNLV engineering student’s academic experience, the senior design project stimulates engineering innovation and entrepreneurship. Each student in their senior year chooses, plans, designs, and prototypes a product in this required element of the curriculum. A capstone to the student’s educational career, the senior design project encourages the student to use everything learned in the engineering program to create a practical, real world solution to an engineering challenge. The senior design competition helps focus the senior students in increasing the quality and potential for commercial application for their design projects. Judges from local industry evaluate the projects on …

Generating Acoustic Projections Using 3d Models, Jake A. Brazelton

Senior Honors Projects, 2020-current

Raytracing is used in commercial graphics engines most commonly for lighting effects, but it also has many uses when it comes to acoustic simulation. Adopted directly from these computer graphics programs, the formulas presented herein enable the visualization of acoustic intensity levels throughout a 3D space using Python 3 and the OpenGL library. In addition to visualization, they also provide the ability to calculate the reverberation time and critical distance of an enclosed space in relation to its size and material makeup. The described application bundles all of these components together in a Qt5 application that allows users to view …

Faculty Perceptions Of Open Educational Resources In Cyber Curriculum: A Pilot Study, Alan Stines

Masters Theses & Doctoral Dissertations

The cyber landscape is growing and evolving at a fast pace. Public and private industries need qualified applicants to protect and defend information systems that drive the digital economy. Currently, there are not enough candidates in the pipeline to fill this need in the workforce. The digital economy is still growing, thus presenting an even greater need for skilled workers in the future. The lack of a strong workforce in cybersecurity presents many challenges to safeguarding U.S. national security and citizens across the world. The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation defines Open Educational Resources (OER) as teaching, learning, and research …

Tidytouch: An Interactive Visualization Tool For Data Science Education, Jonah E. Devaney

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Accessibility and usability of software define the programs used for both professional and academic activities. While many proprietary tools are easy to grasp, some challenges exist in using more technical resources, such as the statistical programming language R. The creative project tidyTouch is a web application designed to help educate any user in basic R data visualization and transformation using the popular ggplot2 and dplyr packages. Providing point-and-click interactivity to explore potential modifications of graphics for data presentation, the application uses an intuitive interface to make R more accessible to those without programming experience. This project is in a state …

Positive Effects Of A Small Grant For Creation Of Open Education Resources, Cherian Mathews

All Faculty Presentations - School of Engineering and Computer Science

Open educational resources have been shown to have the potential to improve student learning outcomes while lowering student costs associated with curricular materials. University competitively awarded small grants of $2500 to encourage faculty to create or adopt Open Educational Resources (OER) to help reduce student costs or enhance the student learning experience. This paper outlines how the grant award was used to create open tutorial resources and lab materials that helped students independently learn to use the simulation software Simulink in conjunction with a Digital Signal Processing course. Students were required to review the OER materials and complete the lab …

Engagement And Computational Thinking Through Creative Coding, Dana Hoppe

Honors Program: Senior Projects (Public)

Rising enrollments in Computer Science pose an opportunity to engage students from diverse backgrounds and interests; and a challenge to deliver on positive learning outcomes. While student engagement is the driving factor for increased learning performance and retention, it has been declining to new lows for Computer Science students in recent years. In order to further explore the potential of contextualized computing as a tool for increasing engagement in computing and developing Computational Thinking aptitude in students, we have developed an introductory computing course contextualized with Art and Design with modules centered around guiding pedagogical principles and aimed at middle …

Need For Adoption Of Koha Integrated Library Management Software In Nigerian Academic Libraries, Isaac Echezonam Anyira

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

The main objective of this paper is to justify the need for Nigerian libraries which have not automated their functions to adopt of Koha ILMS as their automation software. The paper therefore examined the need for automation, the reasons for the choice of Koha ILMS and potential benefits accruable to the libraries, and functions that Koha can facilitate their perform in their libraries. The paper identified the need for automation to include need to handle information explosion, for effective management of library operations, to improve operation speed, resource sharing etc; the choice of Koha was informed by its features and …

Teaching Data Carving Using The Real World Problem Of Text Message Extraction From Unstructured Mobile Device Data Dumps, Gary D. Cantrell, Joan Runs Through

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

Data carving is a technique used in data recovery to isolate and extract files based on file content without any file system guidance. It is an important part of data recovery and digital forensics, but it is also useful in teaching computer science students about file structure and binary encoding of information especially within a digital forensics program. This work demonstrates how the authors teach data carving using a real world problem they encounter in digital forensics evidence processing involving the extracting of text messages from unstructured small device binary extractions. The authors have used this problem for instruction in …

Assessing A Scholarship Program For Underrepresented Students In Computer Science & Information Technology, Dale E. Parson, Lisa Frye Ph.D., Patrick Earl

Computer Science and Information Technology Faculty

There continue to be underrepresented student populations in undergraduate computer science and information technology programs in the United States and Pennsylvania. Despite some enrollment growth, female students in particular continue to be underrepresented. The authors are in the final year of managing a five-year, $614,375 program to support underrepresented student populations in our majors via scholarships and supporting activities, funded by the National Science Foundation. The program has been particularly successful in recruiting and retaining female students. We have discovered several patterns of behavior that provide early warnings for at-risk students. Lack of first-semester contribution to simple activities such as …

A Learning Culture For The Digital World – Something To Learn From Moscow?, Andreas Schleicher

Teacher India

While people have different views on the role that digital technology can and should play in schools, we cannot ignore how digital tools have so fundamentally transformed the world outside of school. Andreas Schleicher looks at how schools in Moscow use digital technology in their classrooms.

Computer Science Without Computers: A Guide To Teaching Concepts Of Computer Science Without Access To Computers Or Other Technological Devices, Anna Nagy 20

Honor Scholar Theses

No abstract provided.

Incorporating Digital Ethics Throughout The Software Development Process, Michael Collins, Damian Gordon, Anna Becevel, William O'Mahony

Conference papers

The media is reporting scandals associated with computer companies with increasing regularity; whether it is the misuse of user data, breach of privacy concerns, the use of biased artificial intelligence, or the problems of automated vehicles. Because of these complex issues, there is a growing need to equip computer science students with a deep appreciation of ethics, and to ensure that in the future they will develop computer systems that are ethically-based. One particularly useful strand of their education to incorporate ethics into is when teaching them about the formal approaches to developing computer systems.

There are a number of …

Does A Computer Science Graduation Requirement Contribute To Increased Enrollment In Advanced Computer Science Coursework?, Steven Mcgee, Randi Mcgee-Tekula, Jennifer Duck, Lucia Dettori, Ronald I. Greenberg, Andrew M. Rasmussen, Erica Wheeler, Adam Shelton

Computer Science: Faculty Publications and Other Works

Prior research has shown that students pursuing Exploring Computer Science (ECS) as their first elective course were more likely to pursue another computer science course in high school, as compared to students who took a traditional course as the first course. This study investigated whether the results are consistent when students are pursuing ECS to fulfill the Chicago Public Schools' graduation requirement. ECS is designed to foster deep engagement through equitable inquiry around computer science concepts. It is hypothesized that students who are fulfilling a graduation requirement will pursue additional computer science coursework at rates similar to students who were …

An Alternative To The One-Size-Fits-All Approach To Isa Training: A Design Science Approach To Isa Regarding The Adaption To Student Vulnerability Based On Knowledge And Behavior, Thomas Jernejcic

SDSU Data Science Symposium

Any connection to the university’s network is a conduit that has the potential of being exploited by an attacker, resulting in the possibility of substantial harm to the infrastructure, to the university, and to the student body of whom the university serves. While organizations rightfully “baton down the hatches” by building firewalls, creating proxies, and applying important updates, the most significant vulnerability, that of the student, continues to be an issue due to lack of knowledge, insufficient motivation, and inadequate or misguided training. Utilizing the Design Science Research (DSR) methodology, this research effort seeks to address the latter concern of …

The Changing Profile Of Ecs Teachers, Steven Mcgee, Lucia Dettori, Ronald I. Greenberg, Andrew M. Rasmussen, Dale F. Reed, Don Yanek

Computer Science: Faculty Publications and Other Works

This study compares the characteristics and professional development (PD) experiences between teachers who began teaching Exploring Computer Science before and after the enactment of a CS graduation requirement in the Chicago Public Schools. The post-requirement teachers were less likely to have a CS background, but their experience in the ECS PD and their level of confidence at the end of the PD were equivalent to the early adopters.

Computer Science Through Concurrent Enrollment: A Strategy To Broaden Participation, Renee Fall, Seth Freeman, Ronald I. Greenberg, Dan Kaiser, Nigamanth Sridhar

Computer Science: Faculty Publications and Other Works

Most U.S. states support college-readiness and access through dual enrollment, in which high school students enroll in college courses. Concurrent enrollment (CE) allows students to take college courses in their own high school, taught by high school teachers approved by the partner college. CE has positive effects on students' education, but rarely is CS available through CE. Unlike AP, CE provides college credit to students who are assessed throughout the course rather than by a single high-stakes exam/project. This panel will showcase four different types of post-secondary institutions' experiences offering CS-through-CE and discuss its potential as an entry point into …

The Impact Of Cs For All On College Placement In Computer Science, Ronald I. Greenberg, Julie Medero, Samuel A. Rebelsky, Frances P. Trees, Dale Reed

Computer Science: Faculty Publications and Other Works

With the CS for All movement increasingly gaining traction nationally, students entering colleges and universities are arriving with deeper and broader CS experiences. This in turn can change students' higher education starting point. This panel of CS faculty with expertise in this area will present perspectives and models to describe how higher education choices for placement, credit, and curriculum design affect the efforts to broaden participation in student pathways into computing and related studies.

Divergent Student Views Of Cybersecurity, Susan E. Ramlo, John B. Nicholas

Journal of Cybersecurity Education, Research and Practice

Cybersecurity is a worldwide issue and concern. Prior studies indicate that many people do not use cybersecurity best practices. Although these prior studies used large-scale surveys or interviews, this study used Q methodology [Q] because Q provides greater insight than Likert-format surveys. In fact, Q was created to scientifically study subjectivity. Within a Q study, various stages as well as philosophical, epistemological, and ontological principles represent a complete methodology. At first, Q researchers collect items that represent the broad range of communications about the topic (called the concourse). Although the items can be pictures, scents, or other means of communication, …

Development And Field Testing Of A Narrative-Centered Digital Game For English Comprehension, Jenilyn Agapito, Dominique Marie Antoinette Manahan, Ma. Monica L. Moreno, Jose Isidro Beraquit, Ingrid Yvonne Herras, Kevin Arnel C. Mora, Johanna Marion R. Torres, Ma. Mercedes T. Rodrigo

Education Department Faculty Publications

This paper describes the development and field testing of Learning Likha: Rangers to the Rescue, a narrative-centered, mobile-based digital game for practicing English comprehension. Twenty-seven (27) student participants from Grades 4, 5, and 6 were invited to play the game and answer a comprehension test to determine their level of understanding of the game’s contents. Self-report questionnaires were also used to assess the extent to which they enjoyed playing the game. Three (3) teachers were likewise invited for a focus group discussion (FGD) to gather their insights about the game and how they may use it in their classes. Student’s …

Helping Language Education Teachers Using Ai, Hyechan Jun, Kenneth C. Arnold

Summer Research

Not every language student is equal. That is the reason for differentiated instruction, where the difficulty of the material and lessons is adjusted to suit the needs of each individual student. Unfortunately, differentiated instruction requires spending a significant amount of time and effort to produce individualized content, which— though not impossible—is certainly not easy. That is why in our research we ask: “How can we use artificial intelligence to aid language education teachers in differentiated instruction?”

Computer Science For Equity: Teacher Education, Agency, And Statewide Reform, Joanna Goode, Max Skorodinsky, Jill Hubbard, James Hook

Computer Science Faculty Publications and Presentations

This paper reports on a statewide “Computer Science for All” initiative in Oregon that aims to democratize high school computer science and broaden participation in an academic subject that is one of the most segregated disciplines nationwide, in terms of both race and gender. With no statewide policies to support computing instruction, Oregon's legacy of computer science education has been marked by both low participation and by rates of underrepresented students falling well-below the already dismal national rates. The study outlined in this paper focuses on how teacher education can support educators in developing knowledge and agency, and impacting policies …

Predictive Accuracy Of Recommender Algorithms, William Blake Noffsinger

CCAC Theses and Dissertations

Recommender systems present a customized list of items based upon user or item characteristics with the objective of reducing a large number of possible choices to a smaller ranked set most likely to appeal to the user. A variety of algorithms for recommender systems have been developed and refined including applications of deep learning neural networks. Recent research reports point to a need to perform carefully controlled experiments to gain insights about the relative accuracy of different recommender algorithms, because studies evaluating different methods have not used a common set of benchmark data sets, baseline models, and evaluation metrics. The …

A Collaborative Online Micro: Bit K-12 Teacher Pd Workshop, Roisin Faherty, Karen Nolan, Keith Quille

Conference Papers

This poster describes the use of online technology to deliver K12 teacher professional development (PD) during the COVID-19 pandemic in Ireland. Traditionally these sessions are delivered in person, with a focus on hand-on activities, but the sudden changes faced by the closures in Ireland required an alternative approach for delivering these sessions. The PD session presented in this poster was a more technically challenging micro:bit workshop, which was delivered online using the micro:bit classroom. This is typically used as an in-class, one to many instructor tool, and trialing this as a PD collaborative tool, was a novel approach. This poster …

It Security Managers' Strategies For Mitigating Data Breaches In Texas School Districts, Mercy Ikhuoria Nwankwo

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

School districts are increasingly becoming a prime target for cybercriminals. As a result, information technology (IT) security managers in Texas school districts are concerned about hackers gaining access to network resources that could lead to data breaches on their network. Grounded in the technology threat avoidance theory, the purpose of this qualitative multiple case study was to explore strategies IT security managers use to mitigate data breaches in school district networks in Texas. The participants comprised 6 IT security managers in 3 Texas school districts whose roles involved managing and implementing data security strategies. Data collection involved conducting semistructured interviews …

Unix Administrator Information Security Policy Compliance: The Influence Of A Focused Seta Workshop And Interactive Security Challenges On Heuristics And Biases, John Palmer Mcconnell

CCAC Theses and Dissertations

Information Security Policy (ISP) compliance is crucial to the success of healthcare organizations due to security threats and the potential for security breaches. UNIX Administrators (UXAs) in healthcare Information Technology (IT) maintain critical servers that house Protected Health Information (PHI). Their compliance with ISP is crucial to the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of PHI data housed or accessed by their servers. The use of cognitive heuristics and biases may negatively influence threat appraisal, coping appraisal, and ultimately ISP compliance behavior. These failures may result in insufficiently protected servers and put organizations at greater risk of data breaches and financial loss. …

Perceptions, Potholes, And Possibilities Of Using Digital Voice Assistants To Differentiate Instructions, Adrian A. Weir

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Access to technologies and understanding the potential uses of technology to differentiate instruction have been a concern for the teachers and students in a local school district located in the southeastern United States. Despite the emergence of digital voice assistants (DVAs) as tools for instructions, teachers lack knowledge and strategies for using DVAs to differentiate instruction in their classrooms. The purpose of this qualitative study was to identify teacher knowledge and strategies employed among special education (SPED) teachers using DVAs to differentiate instruction in their classrooms. The concepts of Carol Tomlinson’s differentiation theory and Mishra and Koehler’s TPACK framework served …

Leading Through Change: 2020, Domenick Pinto

School of Computer Science & Engineering Faculty Publications

Having served as department chair and school director for 31 years, I have witnessed a tremendous evolution in the role of chair as economic, social and student climates have changed. My session will summarize collected data from chairs of departments of various sizes and types in order to discuss and understand better our ever changing role as we see responsibilities of delegating, leading change, creative budgeting and fundraising, grant writing and managing conflict become vital to our positions.