“All three say that despite the dearth of women in senior roles, the rise of social-media companies including Facebook Inc. and Twitter Inc. appear to be attracting more women to the field.”
Archive for June, 2011
Computer Studies Made Cool, on Film and Now on Campus
2011/06/12“The number of computer science degrees awarded in the United States began rising in 2010, and will reach 11,000 this year, after plummeting each year since the end of the dot-com bubble in 2004, according to the Computing Research Association, which tracks enrollment and degrees. Enrollment in the major peaked around 2000, with the most degrees — 21,000 — awarded four years later. The number of students who are pursuing the degree but have not yet declared their major increased by 50 percent last year.”
“Still, computer science graduates do not come close to filling the jobs available. Technology is one of the few bright spots in the economy, with jobs growing at double the rate of job growth over all, according to federal statistics. And colleges say they do not have enough resources or professors to teach interested students. Meanwhile, the programs woefully lag in attracting women and many minorities, though the share of computer science degrees granted to women climbed 2.5 percentage points last year to 14 percent.”
OpenCulture youtube favorites
2011/06/06The Risks of Stopping Too Soon
2011/06/05“Software development suffers from an infirmity best called Premature Termination; the symptoms are that developers begin to do something useful but stop too soon. The result is something that is not only not very useful, but often harmful.”
David Lorge Parnas
in http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/1953122.1953136
Communications of the ACM
Vol. 54 No. 6, Pages 31-33
10.1145/1953122.1953136
Can the U.S. Afford Universities Focusing on Research Over Teaching?
2011/06/05“The question I’m raising here is whether we can afford a shift toward research and away from teaching in the United States. There is evidence suggesting that the increasing costs of higher education are not due to growth in instructional costs, but in costs associated with sponsored programs and graduate education 
. In his blog, Rich DeMillo points out that university research rarely pays for itself . Doing research is more expensive than doing education well. ”
Computer science grads fielding ‘multiple job offers’
2011/06/03“It’s a good time to be a computer science major. Job prospects are rosy for today’s graduates, who are entering the workforce at a time when tech hiring is on the rise and talent is hard to find.
“We’ve calculated that there are about two to three open jobs for every computer science grad this year,” says Alice Hill, managing director at job site Dice.com.
“We’re job-rich, candidate-starved right now,” says Stephen Kasmouski, partner and general manager of the software technology group at recruiting firm Winter, Wyman. “The supply and demand has shifted dramatically, and it has shifted very quickly relative to what happened coming out of the last dot-com recession.””
in http://www.networkworld.com/news/2011/060111-computer-science.html
Mind-controlled computing for the disabled
2011/06/03“A new Israeli-developed tool enables the disabled to send emails by thought alone, and could revolutionize the world of mind-controlled computing.”
in http://www.israel21c.org/201106029094/technology/mind-controlled-computing-for-the-disabled
The Quiet Revolution in Open Learning
2011/06/03“The concept is simple: Community colleges that compete for federal money to serve students online will be obliged to make those materials—videos, text, assessments, curricula, diagnostic tools, and more—available to everyone in the world, free, under a Creative Commons license. The materials will become, to use the common term, open educational resources, or OER’s.”
Ponteiros 