research-article

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Scaling and Adapting a Program for Early Undergraduate Research in Computing

Authors:

Christine Alvarado,

Lisa YanAuthors Info & Claims

SIGCSE 2022: Proceedings of the 53rd ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education - Volume 1

Pages 50 - 56

https://doi.org/10.1145/3478431.3499336

Published: 22 February 2022 Publication History

Abstract

The Early Research Scholars Program (ERSP) was launched in 2014 at UC San Diego as a way to provide the benefits of research experiences to a large and diverse group of students early in their undergraduate computing career. ERSP is a structured program in which second-year undergraduate computing majors participate in a group-based, dual-mentored research apprenticeship over a full academic year. In its first four years ERSP engaged 139 students with a high proportion of women (68%) and racially minoritized students (19%), and participation in ERSP correlated with increased class grades. In 2018 we partnered with three additional universities to launch their own version of ERSP. Implementations at our partner sites have seen similar diversity and initial success, and have taught us how to implement the program in different contexts (e.g. quarters vs. semesters, different credit structures). This paper describes the structure of ERSP and how it can be adapted to different contexts to construct a scalable and inclusive research experience for early-career undergraduates in computing and related fields.

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Cited By

Sunshine JVelez-Ginorio J(2024)Research Experiences for Undergraduates Are Necessary for an Equitable Research CommunityCommunications of the ACM10.1145/3665517Online publication date: 31-Jul-2024
https://doi.org/10.1145/3665517
Torres-Mendoza DKheirinejad SAjmal MChembu APalea DWhitehead JLee D(2024)Evaluating Exploratory Reading Groups for Supporting Undergraduate Research Pipelines in ComputingProceedings of the 2024 ACM Conference on International Computing Education Research - Volume 110.1145/3632620.3671104(389-405)Online publication date: 12-Aug-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3632620.3671104
Nezafati MReizman IBenton MPeponis JPayne MJohnson BVan Treuren KLiu L(2023)Enhance Undergraduate Research by Incorporating an Entrepreneurial Mindset2023 IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference (FIE)10.1109/FIE58773.2023.10343249(1-9)Online publication date: 18-Oct-2023
https://doi.org/10.1109/FIE58773.2023.10343249

Index Terms

Scaling and Adapting a Program for Early Undergraduate Research in Computing
1. Social and professional topics
  1. Professional topics
    1. Computing education

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cover image ACM Conferences

SIGCSE 2022: Proceedings of the 53rd ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education - Volume 1

February 2022

1049 pages

ISBN:9781450390705

DOI:10.1145/3478431

General Chairs:
Larry Merkle
Air Force Institute of Technology, USA
,
Maureen Doyle
Northern Kentucky University, USA
,
Program Chairs:
Judithe Sheard
Monash University, Australia
,
Leen-Kiat Soh
University of Nebraska-Lincoln, USA
,
Brian Dorn
University of Nebraska at Omaha, USA

Copyright © 2022 Owner/Author.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution International 4.0 License.

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Published: 22 February 2022

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March 3 - 5, 2022

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Cited By

Sunshine JVelez-Ginorio J(2024)Research Experiences for Undergraduates Are Necessary for an Equitable Research CommunityCommunications of the ACM10.1145/3665517Online publication date: 31-Jul-2024
https://doi.org/10.1145/3665517
Torres-Mendoza DKheirinejad SAjmal MChembu APalea DWhitehead JLee D(2024)Evaluating Exploratory Reading Groups for Supporting Undergraduate Research Pipelines in ComputingProceedings of the 2024 ACM Conference on International Computing Education Research - Volume 110.1145/3632620.3671104(389-405)Online publication date: 12-Aug-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3632620.3671104
Nezafati MReizman IBenton MPeponis JPayne MJohnson BVan Treuren KLiu L(2023)Enhance Undergraduate Research by Incorporating an Entrepreneurial Mindset2023 IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference (FIE)10.1109/FIE58773.2023.10343249(1-9)Online publication date: 18-Oct-2023
https://doi.org/10.1109/FIE58773.2023.10343249

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