Diversity in Computer Science Computational Thinking www.ugrad.cs.ubc.ca/~cs100
Learning Goals • [CT Impact] Justify the need for diversity in the field of Computer Science with at least two different, valid reasons • [CT Impact] Outline changes in enrolment of women in Computer Science over the last 40 years • [CT Impact] List several theories as to why there are few women in computer science Computational Thinking www.ugrad.cs.ubc.ca/~cs100
There are lots of different kinds of diversity that computer science doesn't do well at • Gender • Ethnic/racial • Disabilities Note that many of the stats that I have come from the US. They still generally hold for Canada, but it's harder to get good numbers/graphs. Computational Thinking www.ugrad.cs.ubc.ca/~cs100
Why diversity matters: need for breadth of ideas/cognitive diversity Different ideas come from different people with different experiences and perspectives Computational Thinking www.ugrad.cs.ubc.ca/~cs100
Example: A Braille Math translator • Nicole Torcolini has faced more obstacles than most: she lost most of her sight at age four due to cancer in the optic chiasm and the cancer treatment she received caused her to become slightly hard-of-hearing in both ears. [… She invented] the Nemetex Nemeth Back-Translator, a computer-based assistive technology device that translates visually incomprehensible braille math (Nemeth), produced on an electronic braille notetaker, into easily-readable print. Nicole became a high school entrepreneur [….]” https://news.cs.washington.edu/2013/08/01/uw-cse-accesscomputing-alumna- nicole-torcolini-profiled-by-ncwit/ Computational Thinking www.ugrad.cs.ubc.ca/~cs100
Example: A Braille Math translator Nicole’s first CS advisor (while she was still in high school) was Richard Ladner at the University of Washington; he grew up with deaf parents and that sparked his interest in technologies for deaf- blind people. Computational Thinking www.ugrad.cs.ubc.ca/~cs100
Why diversity matters: need for breadth of ideas/cognitive diversity Different ideas come from different people with different perspectives https://www.wheretowatch.com/2013/09/bras-in-space-the-incredible-true- story-behind-upcoming-film-spacesuit/ Computational Thinking www.ugrad.cs.ubc.ca/~cs100
Some of these differences can seem quite silly but be quite profound "Two years ago, we had a woman speaker … who is in charge of chassis design for the Ford Windstar. She gave an uproariously funny talk about the difficulty women have with a car that has been designed for the 50th-percentile male. Women have different needs, women carry purses, women use a vehicle differently, women are of a different size, etc., all of which make the 'male car' difficult to use. As I said, it was a very funny talk. However, when I mentioned this to my wife, who has a long involvement with the Defense Department, she said, 'Yes, and it's just as true of fighter planes where it's not funny; it's a life and death matter.'" - Bill Wulf – member of the National Academy of Engineering Computational Thinking http://www.nae.edu/Publications/Bridge/Competitive MaterialsandSolutions/DiversityinEngineering.aspx www.ugrad.cs.ubc.ca/~cs100
Why diversity matters: the business case • Let’s hear from Kellan Elliott-McCrea, former CTO of Etsy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w4LExVkv 4Pw&t=2m09s • Then discuss in your groups: What points does Elliott-McCrea make? Do you agree? Do you have other points to add? Computational Thinking www.ugrad.cs.ubc.ca/~cs100
Why diversity matters: there are more computer science jobs than qualified people "120K technical computing jobs produced annually, but we graduate only 40K BS degrees in computer science disciplines (i.e., 80K new jobs go unfilled each year )" http://blogs.msdn.com/b/dankasun/archive/2013/12/09/hour-of- code-why-computer-science-matters.aspx Computational Thinking www.ugrad.cs.ubc.ca/~cs100
Why diversity matters: computer science is of growing importance to other fields I'll let Maria Klawe take this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FNSzfPnB0u c&t=12m02s Computational Thinking www.ugrad.cs.ubc.ca/~cs100
Why diversity matters: CS and health • Apple has hired famed robotics expert Yoky Matsuoka, one of the co-founders of Google's X lab and former head of technology at Nest, to work on the iPhone maker's health projects. • After moving to the United States from Japan as a teenager to pursue a tennis career, she attended the University of California, Berkeley. Injuries waylaid her future in tennis, but she became interested in building tennis-playing robot, a pursuit that led her to MIT where she got Ph.D. and helped develop the BarrettHand, an revolutionary robotic arm. http://fortune.com/2016/05/03/apple-hires-nest-yoky-matsuoka/ http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/tech/yoky-matsuoka.html Computational Thinking www.ugrad.cs.ubc.ca/~cs100
Why diversity matters: CS and health • Sohrab Shah’s work is in the field of computational cancer genomics involves development of statistical models and machine learning algorithms to interpret next generation sequence data for defining mutational landscapes and quantifying clonal evolution in ovarian and breast cancers. • Sohrab studied biology as an undergraduate, did UBC CS’s second degree program and then graduated UBC CS PhD http://compbio.bccrc.ca/about/dr-sohrab-shah/ Computational Thinking www.ugrad.cs.ubc.ca/~cs100
Shouldn’t we worry about the lack of men in teaching and nursing, too? • I worry about that, too • Note that this is a recent turn of events (http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/07/sunday- review/why-dont-more-men-go-into- teaching.html?_r=0 ) • But this is a computer science class • Plus female dominated fields tend to pay substantially less and have less prestige than male dominated fields (this happened in nursing and teaching, too) Computational Thinking www.ugrad.cs.ubc.ca/~cs100
Why are there so few women, and overall lack of diversity, in Computer Science? • We have some guesses • No one's entirely sure • But there are some factors that we can say are issues (we'll do those next) Computational Thinking www.ugrad.cs.ubc.ca/~cs100
One problem: it starts early We can use high school Advanced Placement (AP) exams as a proxy for this Overall: Computer Science http://media.collegeboard.com/digitalServices/pdf/ap/rtn/10th-annual/10th-annual-ap-report-subject-supplement-computer-science-a.pdf http://media.collegeboard.com/digitalServices/pdf/ap/rtn/10th-annual/10th-annual-ap-report-to-the-nation-two-page-spread.pdf Computational Thinking www.ugrad.cs.ubc.ca/~cs100
Communicators, Techies, Creators Let’s look at boys vs girls’ comfort with three types of computer-related tasks Computational Thinking http://www.acm.org/press-room/membership/NIC.pdf (next 3 slides) www.ugrad.cs.ubc.ca/~cs100
This impacts comfort with tech Computational Thinking http://www.acm.org/press-room/membership/NIC.pdf (next 3 slides) www.ugrad.cs.ubc.ca/~cs100
Then there’s whether people feel that computer scientists are like them Computational Thinking www.ugrad.cs.ubc.ca/~cs100
Why lack of diversity? Bias Reminder: • Conscious bias is when you're biased and you know it (and you're generally not sorry) • Unconscious bias is when you're biased… and you may not know it (and if you do, you're sorry)… and you may even be biased against what you believe! Computational Thinking www.ugrad.cs.ubc.ca/~cs100
Bias exists many ways "A research article written by a woman and published in any of the top journals will still receive significantly fewer citations than if that same article had been written by a man." "Articles published by women in the top IR [International Relations] journals are cited less often than those written by men even after controlling for the age of publication, whether the author came from a [top research] school, the topic under study, the quality of the publishing venue, the methodological and theoretical approach, and the author’s tenure status." Computational Thinking http://curt-rice.com/2013/10/19/the-great-citation-hoax-proof-that-women-are-worse- www.ugrad.cs.ubc.ca/~cs100 researchers-than-men/
It even exists in how we think about ourselves Self-citations are citations made to the author's own work Computational Thinking http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=9038606 www.ugrad.cs.ubc.ca/~cs100
Why lack of diversity? Image of computing “Limited understanding and exposure to the realities of CS leave the field open to the perpetuation of stereotypes and misunderstanding. This is epitomized in an old “Take on Orbitz” commercial which featured two male opponents, one a busy but clearly loving, friendly father complete with several happy, active kids, the other a single computer scientist. They were paired off in a “humorous ” sketch to see who could get the best vacation package in the shortest time. The busy well-rounded father won.” – Carol Frieze, 2011 http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~cfrieze/Images%20of%20Computing.pdf Computational Thinking www.ugrad.cs.ubc.ca/~cs100
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