With the continuous growth of cyberinfrastructure throughout modern society, the need for secure computing and communication is more important than ever before. As a result, there is also an increasing need for entry-level developers who are capable of designing and building practical solutions for systems with stringent security requirements.…

The undergraduate computer science curriculum is generally focused on skills and tools; most students are not exposed to much research in the field, and do not learn how to navigate the research literature. We describe how fiction reviews (and specifically science fiction) are used as a gateway to research reviews. Students learn a little about…

This article presents the use of a model-centric approach to facilitate software development projects conforming to the three-tier architecture in undergraduate software engineering courses. Many instructors intend that such projects create software applications for use by real-world customers. While it is important that the first version of these…

As software becomes more ubiquitous and complex, the cost of software bugs continues to grow at a staggering rate. To remedy this situation, there needs to be major improvement in the knowledge and application of software validation techniques. Although there are several software validation techniques, software testing continues to be one of the…

Critical thinking, problem solving, the use of tools, and the ability to consume and analyze information are important skills for the 21st century workforce. This article presents a qualitative case study that follows five undergraduate biology majors in a computer science course (CS0). This CS0 course teaches programming within a data-driven…

Given the increasing importance of soft skills in the computing profession, there is good reason to provide students withmore opportunities to learn and practice those skills in undergraduate computing courses. Toward that end, we have developed an active learning approach for computing education called the "Pedagogical Code Review"…

This article investigates the effectiveness of a course employing a discipline-based computing approach. The research questions driving this study were: (1) Can experiences with discipline-based computing promote students' acquisition and application of foundational computing concepts and procedures? (2) How do students perceive and…

Computing science students amass years of programming experience and a wealth of factual knowledge in their undergraduate courses. Based on our combined years of experience, however, one of our students' abiding shortcomings is that they think there is only "one correct answer" to issues in most courses: an "idealistic"…

This article discusses the evolution of a single undergraduate computer graphics course over five semesters, driven by a primary question: if one could offer only one undergraduate course in graphics, what would it include? This constraint is relevant to many small and medium-sized colleges that lack resources, adequate expertise, and enrollment…

The ability to reason with formal logic is a foundational skill for computer scientists and computer engineers that scaffolds the abilities to design, debug, and optimize. By interviewing students about their understanding of propositional logic and their ability to translate from English specifications to Boolean expressions, we characterized…

Usability and accessibility have become increasingly important in computing curricula. This article briefly reviews how these concepts may be included in existing courses. The authors conducted a survey of student attitudes toward these issues at the start and end of a usability engineering course that included a group project with an…

Digital games are marketed, mass-produced, and consumed by an increasing number of people and the game industry is only expected to grow. In response, postsecondary institutions in the UK and the U.S. have started to create game degree programs. Though curriculum theorists provide insight into the process of creating a new program, no formal…

Building on research that identifies and addresses issues of women's underrepresentation in computing, this article describes promising practices in undergraduate research experiences that promote women's long-term interest in computer science and engineering. Specifically, this article explores whether and how REU programs include programmatic…

Researchers have been working to understand the factors that may be contributing to low rates of participation by women and other minorities in the computer and information sciences (CIS). We describe a multivariate investigation of male and female university students' orientation to CIS careers. We focus on the roles of "self-efficacy" and…