In late 2019, a quadruped agile robot, named Spot, was introduced by the robotics company Boston ... more In late 2019, a quadruped agile robot, named Spot, was introduced by the robotics company Boston Dynamics for lease to the public. Spot found quick commercial success and social media fame with its sophisticated computer vision enabled inspection and environmental data collection capacity as well as its hypermobility. Spot was also leased by non-commercial organizations such as metropolitan police departments that integrated Spot into various aspects of their operations. Civil rights groups have criticized these deployments of Spot into public spaces based on its potential weaponization and its repeated use in poor and marginalized communities. Law enforcement organizations have responded to the conflict over their use of Spot in a variety of ways. This paper examines the issues raised by the increased use of agile robots through a combination of case studies and ethical design frameworks. We argue that while it may be too late to completely prohibit the use of this technology in public spaces, it is imperative that different stakeholder groups (i.e. technologists, policy makers, ethicists, etc.) must come together now to lay the groundwork for the responsible design, development, and deployment of agile robots. Several models for proactive computing ethics work are presented for stakeholder engagement around complex public safety, security, and equity concerns.
The socialization experience that occurs in the doctoral program occurs on two levels: socializat... more The socialization experience that occurs in the doctoral program occurs on two levels: socialization for the role of graduate student as well as socialization to the future profession. Of those graduating with a doctorate only about half will remain in academia, with the remaining graduates going on to work in industry, government, and business. Despite the diversity of professional pathways that doctoral recipients will pursue, graduate education in the USA has been criticized sharply for its lack of preparation and socialization for these roles. In this chapter, the authors present a discussion of socialization for a diversity of professional pathways, including practical implications for faculty, administrators, potential employers, and students.
It is not just K-12 students that have misconceptions about computer science. Undergraduate stude... more It is not just K-12 students that have misconceptions about computer science. Undergraduate students entering into a post-secondary computer science major also have significant misconceptions about what a computer scientist actually does on a day-to-day basis, even at the end of their four-year undergraduate computer science program. While the Draw-A-Scientist Test (DAST) investigates student perceptions of scientists in general (Chambers, 1983) and the Draw-An- Engineer Test (DAET) examines student perceptions of engineers (Knight and Cunningham, 2004), there have been few adaptations investigating student perceptions of computer scientists (Martin, 2004). Based on previous research, our study assessed undergraduate computer science student perceptions of computer scientists at both a mid-size research university and a small liberal arts college. Students (n=120) were asked to describe computer scientists in both a visual format and a written format using an adaptation of the DAST. The authors share comparative results for computer science students (pre-test, post-test) perceptions when 1) exposed to an intentional but not explicit curriculum with diverse representation of computer scientist images and a broad range of computer science research areas, and 2) exposed to a regular curriculum without intentional messages about the diversity of computer scientists and the diversity of research areas within the discipline. The poster describes additional scoring measures introduced beyond those in previous instruments which help to better categorize and interpret perceptions of computer science students about their own discipline.
As disease surveillance systems improve in both standardization of reporting methods and data col... more As disease surveillance systems improve in both standardization of reporting methods and data collection, better modeling and analysis methods are needed for use in spatial epidemiological studies. Recently new systems have been developed for the analysis of disease; however, many have difficulty clearly representing the complex concept of personal exposure histories. Exposure histories must not only capture the spatial and temporal dimensions of possible disease exposure events but also must convey the dynamic factors within the individual\u27s environment. This paper presents an ontology driven approach to represent data from heterogeneous sources to provide the foundation for improving environmental health monitoring systems to assess risk of longer latency disease based on the concept of a personal exposure history. The ontology presented is transformed into Resource Description Framework (RDF) to enhance the ability to explicitly query on event-event relationships. Special consideration is given to the efficient integration of large volumes of data available from the expanding deployment of environmental monitoring sensor networks
2021 7th International Conference of the Immersive Learning Research Network (iLRN), May 17, 2021
With the sudden shift to online learning during the global pandemic, there is an increased intere... more With the sudden shift to online learning during the global pandemic, there is an increased interest in earth science virtual field trips (VTFs). This work in progress poster describes a project to increase diversity and information access to introductory geology training through physically accessible VTFs. The pilot study investigates the effectiveness of an undergraduate introductory geology VFT in meeting the same real-world lab learning objectives in both desktop and immersive virtual formats.
Proceedings of the 53rd ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education V. 2, 2022
The inclusion of computing ethics and social impact curricula in computer science programs has re... more The inclusion of computing ethics and social impact curricula in computer science programs has received increasing attention in research and teaching. While students explicitly interested in the topic may choose to take courses designed only to teach ethical thinking in computer science, we have a societal need to "teach ethics" in a wider variety of computing courses. With the powerful tools that we give students comes responsibility, and students should know how to consider ethical implications of the things they build. The difficulty of developing strategies to "teach ethics" in computing courses is that 1) teaching computing ethics is different than teaching other computational courses, requiring more than the simple transmission of information or knowledge 2) we lack a way to assess the efficacy of the strategies we use to accomplish the "more." We aim to foster a discussion on the current research and instructional approaches, led by researchers who are actively teaching responsible computer science and data science in a variety of institutional settings (e.g., private, public, small, large, etc.). In addition to forming new research and teaching collaborations, we hope this discussion will inspire the larger community of computer science educators to embed computing ethics and social impact in their technical courses.
2021 7th International Conference of the Immersive Learning Research Network (iLRN), 2021
With the sudden shift to online learning during the global pandemic, there is an increased intere... more With the sudden shift to online learning during the global pandemic, there is an increased interest in earth science virtual field trips (VTFs). This work in progress poster describes a project to increase diversity and information access to introductory geology training through physically accessible VTFs. The pilot study investigates the effectiveness of an undergraduate introductory geology VFT in meeting the same real-world lab learning objectives in both desktop and immersive virtual formats.
2021 IEEE International Symposium on Ethics in Engineering, Science and Technology (ETHICS), 2021
In late 2019, a quadruped agile robot, named Spot, was introduced by the robotics company Boston ... more In late 2019, a quadruped agile robot, named Spot, was introduced by the robotics company Boston Dynamics for lease to the public. Spot found quick commercial success and social media fame with its sophisticated computer vision enabled inspection and environmental data collection capacity as well as its hypermobility. Spot was also leased by non-commercial organizations such as metropolitan police departments that integrated Spot into various aspects of their operations. Civil rights groups have criticized these deployments of Spot into public spaces based on its potential weaponization and its repeated use in poor and marginalized communities. Law enforcement organizations have responded to the conflict over their use of Spot in a variety of ways. This paper examines the issues raised by the increased use of agile robots through a combination of case studies and ethical design frameworks. We argue that while it may be too late to completely prohibit the use of this technology in public spaces, it is imperative that different stakeholder groups (i.e. technologists, policy makers, ethicists, etc.) must come together now to lay the groundwork for the responsible design, development, and deployment of agile robots. Several models for proactive computing ethics work are presented for stakeholder engagement around complex public safety, security, and equity concerns.
Proceedings of the 50th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education, 2019
It is not just K-12 students that have misconceptions about computer science. Undergraduate stude... more It is not just K-12 students that have misconceptions about computer science. Undergraduate students entering into a post-secondary computer science major also have significant misconceptions about what a computer scientist actually does on a day-to-day basis, even at the end of their four-year undergraduate computer science program. While the Draw-A-Scientist Test (DAST) investigates student perceptions of scientists in general (Chambers, 1983) and the Draw-An- Engineer Test (DAET) examines student perceptions of engineers (Knight and Cunningham, 2004), there have been few adaptations investigating student perceptions of computer scientists (Martin, 2004). Based on previous research, our study assessed undergraduate computer science student perceptions of computer scientists at both a mid-size research university and a small liberal arts college. Students (n=120) were asked to describe computer scientists in both a visual format and a written format using an adaptation of the DAST. The authors share comparative results for computer science students (pre-test, post-test) perceptions when 1) exposed to an intentional but not explicit curriculum with diverse representation of computer scientist images and a broad range of computer science research areas, and 2) exposed to a regular curriculum without intentional messages about the diversity of computer scientists and the diversity of research areas within the discipline. The poster describes additional scoring measures introduced beyond those in previous instruments which help to better categorize and interpret perceptions of computer science students about their own discipline.
Proceedings of the 52nd ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education, 2021
The prevention of criminal activity has changed dramatically over the past two decades, largely d... more The prevention of criminal activity has changed dramatically over the past two decades, largely due to the increased reliance on systems that provide crime data analysis. Created specifically for police, judicial sentencing, and prison applications, these systems conduct both predictive and retrospective analysis to aid decision making within the criminal justice system. Furthermore, these software platforms typically combine spatial informatics packages and advanced statistical features behind user-friendly interfaces. Recent studies have demonstrated problems with both the flawed logic within these systems' algorithms and the inherent biases in the underlying data. In this paper, we present a novel repository of computing ethics teaching modules across a variety of narrative areas. These modules and curated narratives help faculty to establish 'ethical laboratories' that can guide computer science students in improving their ethical reasoning skills as it relates to the creation of current and future technologies. First, we provide an overview of the Computing Ethics Narratives (CEN) project, its narrative repository and the module framework through a sample module on predictive policing algorithms. Furthermore, we share preliminary findings from a pilot of this module, which was implemented in an intermediate algorithms course. The preliminary student and faculty feedback suggest the predictive policing module was able to help students contextualize the ethical issues around the topic, however, students recommended devoting more class time to evaluating the technical complexities of these critical systems.
Proceedings of the 52nd ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education, 2021
How do you design more responsible computing technologies? You start by training computer science... more How do you design more responsible computing technologies? You start by training computer science (CS) students, the creators of tomorrow's tech, to think critically about their own action and responsibilities from the first day of their introductory programing course. The standard approach to the CS1 level curriculum needs evolve to make room for ethics instruction presenting students with difficult questions, provocative simulations, and time for personal reflection about ethics and the professional responsibilities of current and future computer scientists, software engineers and other technologists. This poster describes curriculum development work from the Computing Ethics Narratives (CEN) conducted by CS students and faculty engaged in critical thinking about ethical issues related to computing and technological innovation and its widespread influence on individuals and society. The presentation will provide examples of three computing ethics modules that have been piloted into CS1 and CS 2 level courses in both online and in-person settings. Early results of the pilot study are shared along with future work.
In late 2019, a quadruped agile robot, named Spot, was introduced by the robotics company Boston ... more In late 2019, a quadruped agile robot, named Spot, was introduced by the robotics company Boston Dynamics for lease to the public. Spot found quick commercial success and social media fame with its sophisticated computer vision enabled inspection and environmental data collection capacity as well as its hypermobility. Spot was also leased by non-commercial organizations such as metropolitan police departments that integrated Spot into various aspects of their operations. Civil rights groups have criticized these deployments of Spot into public spaces based on its potential weaponization and its repeated use in poor and marginalized communities. Law enforcement organizations have responded to the conflict over their use of Spot in a variety of ways. This paper examines the issues raised by the increased use of agile robots through a combination of case studies and ethical design frameworks. We argue that while it may be too late to completely prohibit the use of this technology in public spaces, it is imperative that different stakeholder groups (i.e. technologists, policy makers, ethicists, etc.) must come together now to lay the groundwork for the responsible design, development, and deployment of agile robots. Several models for proactive computing ethics work are presented for stakeholder engagement around complex public safety, security, and equity concerns.
The socialization experience that occurs in the doctoral program occurs on two levels: socializat... more The socialization experience that occurs in the doctoral program occurs on two levels: socialization for the role of graduate student as well as socialization to the future profession. Of those graduating with a doctorate only about half will remain in academia, with the remaining graduates going on to work in industry, government, and business. Despite the diversity of professional pathways that doctoral recipients will pursue, graduate education in the USA has been criticized sharply for its lack of preparation and socialization for these roles. In this chapter, the authors present a discussion of socialization for a diversity of professional pathways, including practical implications for faculty, administrators, potential employers, and students.
It is not just K-12 students that have misconceptions about computer science. Undergraduate stude... more It is not just K-12 students that have misconceptions about computer science. Undergraduate students entering into a post-secondary computer science major also have significant misconceptions about what a computer scientist actually does on a day-to-day basis, even at the end of their four-year undergraduate computer science program. While the Draw-A-Scientist Test (DAST) investigates student perceptions of scientists in general (Chambers, 1983) and the Draw-An- Engineer Test (DAET) examines student perceptions of engineers (Knight and Cunningham, 2004), there have been few adaptations investigating student perceptions of computer scientists (Martin, 2004). Based on previous research, our study assessed undergraduate computer science student perceptions of computer scientists at both a mid-size research university and a small liberal arts college. Students (n=120) were asked to describe computer scientists in both a visual format and a written format using an adaptation of the DAST. The authors share comparative results for computer science students (pre-test, post-test) perceptions when 1) exposed to an intentional but not explicit curriculum with diverse representation of computer scientist images and a broad range of computer science research areas, and 2) exposed to a regular curriculum without intentional messages about the diversity of computer scientists and the diversity of research areas within the discipline. The poster describes additional scoring measures introduced beyond those in previous instruments which help to better categorize and interpret perceptions of computer science students about their own discipline.
As disease surveillance systems improve in both standardization of reporting methods and data col... more As disease surveillance systems improve in both standardization of reporting methods and data collection, better modeling and analysis methods are needed for use in spatial epidemiological studies. Recently new systems have been developed for the analysis of disease; however, many have difficulty clearly representing the complex concept of personal exposure histories. Exposure histories must not only capture the spatial and temporal dimensions of possible disease exposure events but also must convey the dynamic factors within the individual\u27s environment. This paper presents an ontology driven approach to represent data from heterogeneous sources to provide the foundation for improving environmental health monitoring systems to assess risk of longer latency disease based on the concept of a personal exposure history. The ontology presented is transformed into Resource Description Framework (RDF) to enhance the ability to explicitly query on event-event relationships. Special consideration is given to the efficient integration of large volumes of data available from the expanding deployment of environmental monitoring sensor networks
2021 7th International Conference of the Immersive Learning Research Network (iLRN), May 17, 2021
With the sudden shift to online learning during the global pandemic, there is an increased intere... more With the sudden shift to online learning during the global pandemic, there is an increased interest in earth science virtual field trips (VTFs). This work in progress poster describes a project to increase diversity and information access to introductory geology training through physically accessible VTFs. The pilot study investigates the effectiveness of an undergraduate introductory geology VFT in meeting the same real-world lab learning objectives in both desktop and immersive virtual formats.
Proceedings of the 53rd ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education V. 2, 2022
The inclusion of computing ethics and social impact curricula in computer science programs has re... more The inclusion of computing ethics and social impact curricula in computer science programs has received increasing attention in research and teaching. While students explicitly interested in the topic may choose to take courses designed only to teach ethical thinking in computer science, we have a societal need to "teach ethics" in a wider variety of computing courses. With the powerful tools that we give students comes responsibility, and students should know how to consider ethical implications of the things they build. The difficulty of developing strategies to "teach ethics" in computing courses is that 1) teaching computing ethics is different than teaching other computational courses, requiring more than the simple transmission of information or knowledge 2) we lack a way to assess the efficacy of the strategies we use to accomplish the "more." We aim to foster a discussion on the current research and instructional approaches, led by researchers who are actively teaching responsible computer science and data science in a variety of institutional settings (e.g., private, public, small, large, etc.). In addition to forming new research and teaching collaborations, we hope this discussion will inspire the larger community of computer science educators to embed computing ethics and social impact in their technical courses.
2021 7th International Conference of the Immersive Learning Research Network (iLRN), 2021
With the sudden shift to online learning during the global pandemic, there is an increased intere... more With the sudden shift to online learning during the global pandemic, there is an increased interest in earth science virtual field trips (VTFs). This work in progress poster describes a project to increase diversity and information access to introductory geology training through physically accessible VTFs. The pilot study investigates the effectiveness of an undergraduate introductory geology VFT in meeting the same real-world lab learning objectives in both desktop and immersive virtual formats.
2021 IEEE International Symposium on Ethics in Engineering, Science and Technology (ETHICS), 2021
In late 2019, a quadruped agile robot, named Spot, was introduced by the robotics company Boston ... more In late 2019, a quadruped agile robot, named Spot, was introduced by the robotics company Boston Dynamics for lease to the public. Spot found quick commercial success and social media fame with its sophisticated computer vision enabled inspection and environmental data collection capacity as well as its hypermobility. Spot was also leased by non-commercial organizations such as metropolitan police departments that integrated Spot into various aspects of their operations. Civil rights groups have criticized these deployments of Spot into public spaces based on its potential weaponization and its repeated use in poor and marginalized communities. Law enforcement organizations have responded to the conflict over their use of Spot in a variety of ways. This paper examines the issues raised by the increased use of agile robots through a combination of case studies and ethical design frameworks. We argue that while it may be too late to completely prohibit the use of this technology in public spaces, it is imperative that different stakeholder groups (i.e. technologists, policy makers, ethicists, etc.) must come together now to lay the groundwork for the responsible design, development, and deployment of agile robots. Several models for proactive computing ethics work are presented for stakeholder engagement around complex public safety, security, and equity concerns.
Proceedings of the 50th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education, 2019
It is not just K-12 students that have misconceptions about computer science. Undergraduate stude... more It is not just K-12 students that have misconceptions about computer science. Undergraduate students entering into a post-secondary computer science major also have significant misconceptions about what a computer scientist actually does on a day-to-day basis, even at the end of their four-year undergraduate computer science program. While the Draw-A-Scientist Test (DAST) investigates student perceptions of scientists in general (Chambers, 1983) and the Draw-An- Engineer Test (DAET) examines student perceptions of engineers (Knight and Cunningham, 2004), there have been few adaptations investigating student perceptions of computer scientists (Martin, 2004). Based on previous research, our study assessed undergraduate computer science student perceptions of computer scientists at both a mid-size research university and a small liberal arts college. Students (n=120) were asked to describe computer scientists in both a visual format and a written format using an adaptation of the DAST. The authors share comparative results for computer science students (pre-test, post-test) perceptions when 1) exposed to an intentional but not explicit curriculum with diverse representation of computer scientist images and a broad range of computer science research areas, and 2) exposed to a regular curriculum without intentional messages about the diversity of computer scientists and the diversity of research areas within the discipline. The poster describes additional scoring measures introduced beyond those in previous instruments which help to better categorize and interpret perceptions of computer science students about their own discipline.
Proceedings of the 52nd ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education, 2021
The prevention of criminal activity has changed dramatically over the past two decades, largely d... more The prevention of criminal activity has changed dramatically over the past two decades, largely due to the increased reliance on systems that provide crime data analysis. Created specifically for police, judicial sentencing, and prison applications, these systems conduct both predictive and retrospective analysis to aid decision making within the criminal justice system. Furthermore, these software platforms typically combine spatial informatics packages and advanced statistical features behind user-friendly interfaces. Recent studies have demonstrated problems with both the flawed logic within these systems' algorithms and the inherent biases in the underlying data. In this paper, we present a novel repository of computing ethics teaching modules across a variety of narrative areas. These modules and curated narratives help faculty to establish 'ethical laboratories' that can guide computer science students in improving their ethical reasoning skills as it relates to the creation of current and future technologies. First, we provide an overview of the Computing Ethics Narratives (CEN) project, its narrative repository and the module framework through a sample module on predictive policing algorithms. Furthermore, we share preliminary findings from a pilot of this module, which was implemented in an intermediate algorithms course. The preliminary student and faculty feedback suggest the predictive policing module was able to help students contextualize the ethical issues around the topic, however, students recommended devoting more class time to evaluating the technical complexities of these critical systems.
Proceedings of the 52nd ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education, 2021
How do you design more responsible computing technologies? You start by training computer science... more How do you design more responsible computing technologies? You start by training computer science (CS) students, the creators of tomorrow's tech, to think critically about their own action and responsibilities from the first day of their introductory programing course. The standard approach to the CS1 level curriculum needs evolve to make room for ethics instruction presenting students with difficult questions, provocative simulations, and time for personal reflection about ethics and the professional responsibilities of current and future computer scientists, software engineers and other technologists. This poster describes curriculum development work from the Computing Ethics Narratives (CEN) conducted by CS students and faculty engaged in critical thinking about ethical issues related to computing and technological innovation and its widespread influence on individuals and society. The presentation will provide examples of three computing ethics modules that have been piloted into CS1 and CS 2 level courses in both online and in-person settings. Early results of the pilot study are shared along with future work.
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