TY - GEN
T1 - Free Talk Zone
T2 - 2017 International Conference on Computational Science and Computational Intelligence, CSCI 2017
AU - Khan, Arshia A
AU - Wei, Yichen
PY - 2018/12/4
Y1 - 2018/12/4
N2 - This study, strives to understand the low retention and facilitate mechanisms to encourage the retention of women in the department of computer science at the University of Minnesota, Duluth. Two interventions attempt to address the concern for the reason why women quit CS field-one, women are more inclined to solve real world problems either in the scientific or social field that can benefit humanity; and two, women are dependent on social networking and more inclined to share their feelings with others when compared to men. We verified both hypotheses by creating a Facebook discussion group among consented students in the introductory courses and replacing the traditional assignments with the ones that are designed closer to real-life problem in Fall 2015. By the end of the semester, we surveyed our participants to examine the effect of the two interventions. According to the results we got from our research, we can conclude that both building the online discussion platform and using more practical examples will help increase women's interest in studying computer science. A feedback mechanism was developed to help us continue our research in the future following these interventions, and improve our approach by the implementing the feedback.
AB - This study, strives to understand the low retention and facilitate mechanisms to encourage the retention of women in the department of computer science at the University of Minnesota, Duluth. Two interventions attempt to address the concern for the reason why women quit CS field-one, women are more inclined to solve real world problems either in the scientific or social field that can benefit humanity; and two, women are dependent on social networking and more inclined to share their feelings with others when compared to men. We verified both hypotheses by creating a Facebook discussion group among consented students in the introductory courses and replacing the traditional assignments with the ones that are designed closer to real-life problem in Fall 2015. By the end of the semester, we surveyed our participants to examine the effect of the two interventions. According to the results we got from our research, we can conclude that both building the online discussion platform and using more practical examples will help increase women's interest in studying computer science. A feedback mechanism was developed to help us continue our research in the future following these interventions, and improve our approach by the implementing the feedback.
KW - Women in computing
KW - encouraging women in computing
KW - issues concerning women in computing
KW - use of social media to encourage retention of women
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85060613530&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85060613530&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1109/CSCI.2017.193
DO - 10.1109/CSCI.2017.193
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:85060613530
T3 - Proceedings - 2017 International Conference on Computational Science and Computational Intelligence, CSCI 2017
SP - 1108
EP - 1114
BT - Proceedings - 2017 International Conference on Computational Science and Computational Intelligence, CSCI 2017
A2 - Tinetti, Fernando G.
A2 - Tran, Quoc-Nam
A2 - Deligiannidis, Leonidas
A2 - Yang, Mary Qu
A2 - Yang, Mary Qu
A2 - Arabnia, Hamid R.
PB - Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.
Y2 - 14 December 2017 through 16 December 2017
ER -
