To meet students’ needs colleges must look at how and where they operate, as well as who they serve and who is left out. 

These were just a few of the topics discussed Thursday during a media roundtable discussion Georgia Tech organized in New York City with peers in higher education, corporate leaders and foundations looking into this issue.

The crazy thing is, this isn’t the first time the Montgomery’s have accomplished the same feat together. Married for 16 years and together for nearly 20, the Montgomery’s met in high school Spanish class. Upon graduation they attended Illinois State University, both earning degrees in computer information systems.

Bachelor’s degrees in hand, the Montgomery’s started their careers at State Farm where they have worked for over a decade. The couple started in the same role, but have since pursued different paths within the company. Malikah now works as a software developer and Victor is an IT manager. 

Since their days in Illinois, Malikah had dreamed of earning an advanced degree but couldn’t find the right program for their lifestyle and budget. Around the same time, they began traveling around the southeastern U.S. recruiting candidates for State Farm. As they traveled, they began meeting Georgia Tech students and graduates and soon noticed that they were a caliber above the rest of the applicants.

“The more we talked to candidates, the more we realized how much we were drawn to and impressed with Georgia Tech graduates. When we realized we had an opportunity to become Georgia Tech graduates ourselves without having to leave our jobs or break the bank, we were immediately interested,” said Malikah.

Even though they are now Atlanta residents, the Montgomery’s chose to pursue their master’s via the online route. With two kids and one on the way, the OMSCS program seemed like a perfect fit. It offered much needed flexibility for their schedules while also making their goals completely affordable.

Both Malikah and Victor feel that participating in the program has been an incredible decision for them personally, for their family, and for their careers.

“With an almost ten-year gap since I’ve done hardcore programming, OMSCS has helped me prove to myself that I’ve still got those skills. Technology has changed so much since we earned our undergraduate degrees, but I’ve just got to remind myself to be patient and allow myself to fail. The pursuit is not easy, but it is rewarding,” Victor said of his experience.

Malikah added, “The expectation is not for you to know how to do something, but to become a thought leader in a particular space and to advance that space.

This new way of thinking really hit home what it meant to earn a master’s degree from Georgia Tech. I started to understand that it’s okay not to have the right answer immediately and that they try to get you to a place of learning and thinking that is different and helps you grow as a student, as a professional and as a person.”

With working full-time jobs, raising a family and school, keeping it all together can be tiresome. But the Montgomery’s have maintained a healthy amount of competition to keep themselves motivated.

“I want her to succeed and get an A in every class. I just want her to get the 94 and I get the 95!” said Victor with a laugh.

Besides the grades and the career advancement from pursuing OMSCS degrees, the best motivation for the Montgomerys is ultimately their children.

“It’s been cool to be a student at the same time as our children. We have a healthy amount of pressure on them to perform well academically, but I think it’s good for them to see Mom and Dad studying and for them to ask how my test went,” said Malikah.

"Hopefully by seeing us put in the work for our degrees, they’re also being motivated to pursue their own studies and see that we understand what they’re going through at school too. It’s given us a unique bond that other families may not have,” she added.

There is a possibility that Victor and Malikah will graduate together. Victor says that picturing he and his wife walking across the stage together with their kids in the audience brings him to tears every time. It’s a moment that drives them forward and that they hope they can create and cherish forever.

Organized by the Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology and the Association for Computing Machinery, the three-day conference is the largest gathering of women technologists in the world with more than 20,000 attendees this year. Academics, industry partners, and students come for the technical and professional development panels, mentoring sessions, and a career fair where companies and universities recruit.

The College of Computing had a strong presence with 24 undergraduates, six master’s students, five Ph.D. students, and 20 online Master of Science in Computer Science (OMSCS) students in attendance.

Many prominent faculty also represented the College, including Executive Associate Dean Charles Isbell, School of Interactive Computing Chair Ayanna Howard, and School of Computer Science Associate Professor Ada Gavrilovska. Howard co-led a session on professional branding, Building Your Professional Persona, during which she gave five tips on how to network better.

As a platinum-level sponsor, the College had a booth for prospective students run by Office of Outreach, Enrollment and Community and faculty. A College scholarship enabled many students to attend, from those just starting their academic careers to those looking for what comes after. First-year student Salina Nihalani took advantage of the technical panels to help her focus her studies.

“I would definitely recommend attending as a freshman because sometimes you aren’t sure about what you want to study, and it’s a great way to gain exposure to research areas you may not know,” she said, taking a particular interest in artificial intelligence thanks to the conference.

Fourth-year Dina Kozlov is graduating this semester and was looking for jobs at GH, where she found a lot of opportunity without the downsides of competition.

“Everyone is so nice that it doesn’t feel like a competitive, aggressive space,” she said. “We’re all just here to make the world a better place.”

Yet for OMSCS students, it was a chance to do a different type of networking. “It’s been exciting because it’s the first time I’ve met people from the program in person,” said Anne Chepkeitany, a first-year OMSCS student, who traveled all the way from Nairobi, Kenya, to attend.

It also lets students put the classes in context. “It’s neat to hear keywords I’ve learned about in class on the machine learning panels,” said OMSCS student Kate Reading.

Yet for many students, what mattered most wasn’t sessions or career opportunities, but the chance to be around by so many women in their field.

“I wanted to be surrounded by empowering women,” said fourth-year Devany Sandoval. “Hearing their side of the story reminds me that I have a good support system.”

The conference brings together students, faculty, researchers, and professionals from all backgrounds and ethnicities in computing to promote and celebrate diversity in computing. Tapia is sponsored by the Association of Computing Machinery (ACM) and presented by CMD-IT. The 2018 conference theme was “Diversity: Roots of Innovation.”

Sessions during the three-day event ranged from interactive activities addressing equity in computing to panels discussing impostor syndrome, bias in machine learning, and much more.

Professor Ayanna Howard, School of Interactive Computing chair, participated in the welcome panel and hosted a world-café style chat during one of the interactive sessions. Howard was also recognized as the recipient of the Richard A. Tapia Achievement Award for Scientific Scholarship, Civic Science and Diversifying Computing during the conference.

Angelik Laboy, a second-year computer science major said, “I really enjoyed my time at Tapia because it was such a great opportunity to network not only for my career, but with people from other schools and organizations. The sessions were extremely interesting and enlightening, and as someone from Puerto Rico, it was amazing to connect with other Hispanics in computing.”

Georgia Tech’s Office of Outreach, Enrollment and Community (OEC) hosted a College of Computing information booth for prospective graduate students. 

“It’s so important to give students the opportunity to build community not only with fellow Georgia Tech students but also with students from around the world. It’s a great feeling to see them forge new friendships with students who have encountered similar struggles and know that they are not alone in their pursuit of a computer science degree,” said Jennifer Whitlow, Director of Computing Enrollment and Alumni Engagement.

Raul Viera-Mercado, a current OMSCS student, was at Tapia representing his company at the event’s career fair. For him, Tapia was also an opportunity to meet many of his classmates in person for the first time.

“It was cool to finally put a face with a name to several people I have been in the same class with online. Meeting them helped me feel closer to the OMS CS community and I’m looking forward to more opportunities to connect with them online and in future meet-ups,” said Viera-Mercado.

Georgia Tech’s College of Computing, offering more than 18 bachelor’s and graduate degrees, is dedicated to celebrating diversity and promoting inclusion of its students. Opportunities like Tapia encourage students to better understand the computing landscape and help them prepare for careers in related technical fields.  

Henry Shi, co-founder and CTO of SnapTravel, recently graduated from the OMSCS program and created the SnapTravel Fellowships to benefit students who identify as belonging to underrepresented communities in STEM fields, as well as students exhibiting entrepreneurial spirit.

“For me, it’s incredibly important to pay forward my experiences,” said Shi. “Especially with a program like OMSCS, we know that fellowships like this can be meaningful for students who work full-time and also want to pursue their dreams and ambitions, regardless of their background, experience, and challenges.”

“As an international alumnus who also co-founded a company while completing OMSCS, I wanted to find a way to encourage others with similar aspirations and to promote diversity in this field,” said Shi.

Ren is the recipient of the 2018 fellowship for underrepresented students in STEM. This award is designed to, “recognize and reward a student who is pursuing their OMSCS degree and identifies as a member of an underrepresented group in STEM; namely one who identified as a women, non-binary, Indigenous, Black, Hispanic and/or Latinx.”

Ren has a background in civil engineering and has studied in both China and the United States at the undergraduate and graduate levels. Through her work as a research scientist, Ren has made great advances in the reliability engineering field. Throughout the OMSCS program, she has maintained a 4.0 GPA and has achieved two research publications. She aspires to become a university professor and in her work for OMSCS she hopes to “move forward without any fear -- no matter what happens.”

“It is a great honor for me to receive the SnapTravel OMSCS Fellowship as an underrepresented group in STEM!” said Ren. “The fellowship will help motivate me to continue my long-life learning, pursue academic career excellence, and produce more positive impacts on people around me.”

Javed is the recipient of the 2018 fellowship for entrepreneurial spirit. This award is designed to, “recognize and reward a student who is pursuing their OMSCS degree while founding their own startup, or pursuing other entrepreneurial activities.”

Javed is the founder of Shout Health, a navigation software that helps healthcare providers direct their patients to community resources and address their social determinants of health. Her medical school education and background in physics, paired with her newly acquired computer science skills, have provided Javed with the foundation to get Shout Health off the ground and running. The Georgia Tech Create-X accelerator program provided Javed’s team with the initial funds and guidance to start the company.

Shout Health is now performing a pilot study, jointly funded by the American Academy of Pediatrics, taking place at the Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta. Javed is optimistic that this proof-of-concept will help her team tackle enormous public health issues in ways that are beneficial to both patients and the providers that care for them.

"While I self-taught myself some of the skills required to build ShoutHealth, there is no substitute for the depth of knowledge you get from pursuing a formal degree,” said Javed. “I have also learned a lot from my fellow students and the professors I've met through my courses -- they come from a variety of backgrounds and have opened my eyes to innovations and research that I wouldn't have known about otherwise.”

Fellowship recipients were selected through a meticulous application review process managed by SnapTravel with oversight from Georgia Tech’s College of Computing. Natalie Luu, a partner at VC funding entity Lightspeed Venture Partners and an alumna of Y Combinator, provided guidance to SnapTravel throughout the review process in order to ensure diverse perspectives were considered in the selection of the final recipients.

To learn more about SnapTravel’s connection to OMSCS, you can read a feature story about SnapTravel co-founder and OMSCS alumnus, Henry Shi.

If you are interested in applying for the next round of SnapTravel OMSCS Fellowships, you can learn more on the SnapTravel website.

The School of Interactive Computing Ph.D. student grew up in California, where she attended an exclusive high school populated, more or less, by students of privilege who had the time and resources to engage with educators, devote themselves to their studies, and ultimately come out of high school with the skills necessary for academic success.

But Gonzales wasn’t like most of her classmates. It took a lot of effort on both her and her mom’s part to make her time in high school a success.

Each day, Gonzales woke up at 4:30 a.m. so that her mom could take her to school in time to make it to work early in the morning. She made it to the high school about an hour and a half early every day and then, after school, went straight to her job at a t-shirt printing shop. There, Gonzales worked evenings to earn money to help supplement her family’s income, a practice she continued when she attended the University of California, Irvine. She paid her own student loans and sent money home to help her family make ends meet.

School, she said, was like an obstacle.

“As much as I loved it, it was limiting,” she said. “I didn’t have a computer. It became a restriction. There was no way for me to catch up because I was already so far behind on access.”

Gonzales’ story can be told by millions of other Americans. For most, that’s where the story ends – an educational deficit never closed because of a lack of access and resources. For her, though, that experience has served as inspiration for her research into the benefits and pitfalls of online educational environments. Gonzales believes that online learning has potential to reach students who, like herself, had limited access to one of the fundamental components of education: time. Online learning has opened up opportunities for students to learn asynchronously from one another, allowing them to participate in courses as their schedules allow for it.

Degrees like the Georgia Tech Online Master of Science in Computer Science (OMSCS) program, which has made enormous breakthroughs and turned online learning on its head, aim to broaden access to these types of students. Many in Gonzales’ position are unable to achieve similar results in traditional education. In theory, by making quality education available online, online learning could provide the same opportunity to those underserved communities.

But what are the properties of a flourishing online classroom? Why do they work? Who do they work for? And, ultimately, how can the academic community design environments that provide access to quality higher education for all?

Marissa, meet Jill

Gonzales came to Georgia Tech in 2016 to pursue her Ph.D. after graduating from Irvine with a degree in informatics, concentrating on human-computer interaction.

When she arrived, she approached Professor Ashok Goel, who had just achieved international attention for Jill Watson, an artificially intelligent teaching assistant that answered students’ questions in the online section of his Knowledge-Based AI class.

“I literally just took (Goel) aside and said, ‘Look, I’m interested in your work,’” Gonzales said. “‘I really like this concept going with the virtual TA, and I’d like to help.’”

Initially, she saw the opportunity as one to evaluate the system. How did it affect the students? Was it helping them become more engaged or helping overall grades? As she began to dig in to the project, though, she realized that there was an opportunity and a need for more.

“When we learn, there’s a lot of factors that affect how we learn or affect our feeling about learning, about the classroom, the teacher, the material,” Gonzales explained. “How much do we value the experience and how much does that value impact our overall performance? Do we feel like we’re getting something out of it? Are we learning to use specific strategies for academic improvement and reflecting on our performance?

“These are all things that go on in residential classrooms. What about online classrooms, where the sense of a learning community is perhaps obscured, and where students aren’t just working with the teaching staff, but with intelligent agents?”

Understanding Design Implications for Online Systems

As she dug, Gonzales concluded that she needed to evaluate more than just how AIs could ease the load on teaching staff, making them more available to provide additional in-depth assistance to students online. Instead, she needed to take a more holistic view about the students’ online experience.

Since she began, Gonzales has performed evaluations after each semester for both the residential and online sections of the Knowledge-Based AI class in which Jill Watson and other AIs are used.

The goal is to gain a more complete understanding of the online educational experience and how the design and implementation of these AI assistants, among other design decisions in online learning environments, can help or hurt the process of offering quality education online. Online learning, Gonzales said, isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. As OMSCS has shown, a quality education can be achieved beyond just a residential program. But it is important that researchers get in front of potential future challenges as online opportunities become more common.

“We have to get in front of it and understand what works and what doesn’t work before the demand becomes too great to keep up,” she said. “Ultimately, online learning should broaden access to more populations, but it’s important that we design and implement programs that provide a complete educational experience.”

In her two years at Georgia Tech, Gonzales has been awarded the Goizueta Foundation Fellowship, which is designed to help attract and promote doctoral students of Hispanic/Latino origin, and the Intel Diversity Fellowship from the Georgia Tech Focus Program.

She aims to pick her dissertation topic in the next few months and is on track to complete her degree in 2021.

Held in Chicago from March 23-24, WiCyS drew some 4,000 attendees and more than 50 sponsors--both corporate and academic--including the College of Computing. The four student scholar representatives sent by the College were Tina Fatouros (OMSCS), Jenna McGrath (Ph.D. Public Policy), Stacey Truex (Ph.D. Computer Science), and Chenzi Wang (OMSCS). Attendees had the opportunity to enjoy meals and network with other women in the field of cybersecurity, attend technical and career-focused talks like “Practical Network Forensics,” “Teaching Cyber Ethics and Societal Impacts in Introduction Computing Courses,” and “Watson for Cybersecurity and IBM’s Cyber Range,” and also take advantage of the conference’s Career Fair, at which the College hosted a recruitment booth.

“Overall, it was a great conference and definitely worth the time to attend,” said Fatouros, who works in security and compliance for AT&T. “There was a good mix of students, professionals, and teaching faculty attending, which provided many opportunities to interact and network. I was able to pick up job-relevant information from all of the sessions, including workshops, distinguished speakers, and lightning talks. I work in cybersecurity and left WiCyS more focused and encouraged about the many challenging, rewarding, and attainable opportunities in my field.”

While in Chicago, the College of Computing and Wenke Lee, co-executive director of the Institute for Information Security & Privacy (IISP), hosted a celebration for local OMSCS students and College alumni. The event was held at the Chicago Athletic Association Hotel, and the 35 attendees enjoyed an evening of celebration with their fellow students -- many of whom met in person for the first time. Lee shared news of all of the exciting cybersecurity research success at Georgia Tech, as well as tips and tricks on how to succeed in the OMSCS program (in which he teaches Introduction to Information Security).

“It was fantastic to see so many students from OMSCS come out for this social,” said Lee. “I always enjoy meeting students to hear what they are motivated to do in their careers and their feedback about the program.”

If you are interested in learning more about cybersecurity at the Institute for Information Security & Privacy (IISP) at Georgia Tech, visit https://cyber.gatech.edu/

If you are interested in learning more about the online Master of Science in Computer Science (OMSCS) program, visit http://www.omscs.gatech.edu/.

The Georgia Tech College of Computing continued its climb up the U.S. News and World Report rankings of graduate computer science programs, rising one spot to No. 8 in the 2018 rankings that were released March 20.

The new position represents Georgia Tech’s second jump in the last three CS rankings, all released since 2012, and is the highest U.S. News has ever ranked the College of Computing.

GT Computing's global impact

“We are thrilled but not surprised at this latest recognition of the work we’re doing in GT Computing,” said Zvi Galil, John P. Imlay Jr. Dean of Computing.

“I attribute this to our visible leadership in computing education and research, to the fact that we are now the largest computing program in the United States counting both faculty and students–and likely number 2 in terms of faculty size–and to the global impact we are having both through our research and the work of our thousands of alumni.”

U.S. News ranks computer science programs through a reputational survey. With our average score of 4.4, Georgia Tech has now tied with Princeton and one spot ahead of No. 10 University of Texas-Austin. In the 2018 rankings, Georgia Tech rose in both points and ranking—and was the only Top 10 program to rise in either.

The College also achieved rankings in the following specialties:

• Artificial Intelligence (No. 7)
• Programming Language (No. 16)
• Systems (No. 10)
• Theory (No. 9)

Coincidentally, the No. 8 overall ranking matches the spot Georgia Tech earned in last year’s Times Higher Education/Wall Street Journal rankings, when the College was named the No. 8 program in the world.

Other GT ranking highlights

“Over the past several years,” Galil continued, “we have made deliberate, strategic investments of time and treasure, both in research and education, and this recognition is one of the fruits of those efforts.”

The College of Computing was just one of many Georgia Tech programs to place highly in the 2018 rankings.

The College of Engineering also ranked No. 8 (No. 4 among public universities), and all 11 of its programs ranked in the top 10. In the College of Sciences, Chemistry jumped four to No. 20, Math moved up two to No. 26, Physics moved up one to No. 28, Earth Sciences moved up four to No. 38, and Biology moved up one to No. 54. Within mathematics, the discrete math/combinatorics specialty had Georgia Tech at No. 2, up two positions.

[READ: U.S. News and World Report 2019 Graduate School Rankings]

The Scheller College of Business full-time MBA program moved up one to No. 28, and its part-time MBA moved up five to No. 25. Scheller was also ranked in the following specialties:

• Production/Operations (No. 7)
• Supply Chain/Logistics (No. 17)
• Information Systems (No. 12)

In the Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts, the Sam Nunn School of Public Policy moved up two to No. 43 overall with the Information and Technology Management specialty remaining at No. 2, Public Policy Analysis debuting at No. 20 and the Environmental Policy and Management specialty debuting at No. 12.

The celebration was held at the Orange County Convention Center from Oct. 4-6 and welcomed more than 17,000 female technologists from across the globe, as well as more than 100 companies in attendance to recruit the top talent in the tech industry. Keynote speakers included Melinda Gates of the Gates Foundation, Fei-Fei Li of Stanford University AI Lab, and Georgia Tech’s own Ayanna Howard of the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, among many other inspiring female leaders in STEM fields.

The College of Computing is a platinum-level sponsor of Grace Hopper Celebration and sends a number of scholarship attendees to the conference each year. Among this year’s 57 student attendees from Georgia Tech, 40 were on-campus undergraduate and graduate students based in Atlanta and 17 were online M.S. in Computer Science (OMS CS) students. An additional 15 current Georgia Tech graduate students attended as recruiters for their companies or through outside scholarships with companies like Microsoft and Disney.

“If Georgia Tech wants to be known for our efforts to support women in computing, it’s important for us to have a presence at the nation’s foremost gathering of female technologists -- so that we can be allies with a passion for creating a diverse workforce to meet the growing needs of the industry,” said Jennifer Whitlow, director of computing enrollment in the College of Computing. “The conference provides current female computing students with amazing opportunities to network with others who share a similar background and pathway in the field, as well as the opportunity to seek career and graduate school opportunities with companies and universities from across the nation.”

The OMS CS students in attendance traveled from all over the United States -- from San Francisco to Washington D.C. to Las Vegas -- and Canada. Student Rwithu Menon even traveled from Bangalore, India, to attend and meet her fellow students, with plans to make a pit stop in Atlanta on her way home in order to see Georgia Tech’s campus for the first time.

College of Computing attendees participated in sessions and talks about their fields of interest, interviewed for jobs and internships with top tech companies (some, even receiving job offers on the spot), and gathered at an all-GT Computing reception on Thursday, Oct. 5. The reception included a surprise visit from Charles Isbell, executive associate dean and professor in the College of Computing.

"Attending Grace Hopper with Georgia Tech was a great opportunity to meet lots of talented women in tech and to hear their stories and experiences, ups and downs,” said Azade Sanjari, a current OMS CS student from California. “Also, I was able to finally meet other students, in-person, from the OMS CS program! We talked about our experiences with our courses and our plans for the future. It made me even more determined to complete the program and hopefully, start my career path in machine learning."

If you’d like to learn more about the experiences of women in computing at Georgia Tech and the significance of Grace Hopper, you can view our #SheisGTComputing video or explore https://anitab.org/.

Atlanta played host to the 2017 Richard Tapia Celebration of Diversity in Computing, held Sept. 20-23 in the downtown Hyatt Regency, and once again a strong contingent of GT Computing students, faculty, and staff represented the College of Computing and all its efforts to build equity of access to computing education.

This year, however, those efforts literally took center stage, as the College received the inaugural University Award for Retention of Minorities and Students with Disabilities in Computer Science. The awarded recognizes U.S. institutions that have demonstrated a proven commitment to recruiting and retaining students from underrepresented groups in undergraduate computing programs.

Awarded by the Center for Minorities and People with Disabilities in IT (CMD-IT), the honor was accepted on behalf of the College by Executive Associate Dean Charles Isbell, Assistant Dean Cedric Stallworth, and Director of Computing Enrollment Jennifer Whitlow, however it recognized the work of many more Georgia Tech faculty and staff—several of whom also had official roles to play at Tapia.

Professor Mark Guzdial and Research Scientist Barb Ericson, for example, helped build several of the programs that helped Georgia Tech win the award, such as the College’s undergraduate program in computational media and the Georgia Computes! initiative to bring CS education into more of Georgia’s K-12 schools. Both Guzdial and Ericson spoke in separate sessions as part of the official Tapia program (see below).

Overall, it was quite an introduction to GT Computing’s diversity for the undergraduate and graduate students who attended Tapia, which included 17 online M.S. in Computer Science (OMS CS) students traveling from around the country and the world. In all, some 57 students comprised Georgia Tech’s delegation.

In fact, two OMS CS students (one former and one current) participated in a panel with Isbell titled, “How Can Digital Degrees Make Higher Education More Accessible?” Program alumnus Miguel Morales, a 2017 graduate, joined current student Tia Pope in sharing their experiences as students from underrepresented groups.

In fact, the entire Tapia program was dotted with GT Computing speakers, including:

• Guzdial, who took part in the panel, “Increasing Diversity in Computing: Sharing of Good Practices”
• Professor Ayanna Howard (School of Electrical & Computer Engineering), in the panels, “Entrepreneurial Skills & Thinking” and “Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency in Algorithmic Decision Making”
• Ericson, as moderator of the workshop, “How to Use and Customize Free Interactive Ebooks”
• Research Scientist Lorna Rivera (Center for Education Integrating Science, Mathematics & Computing), on the panel, “Using Advanced Computing to Affect Social Change”
• Research Scientist Rosa Arriaga, on the panel, “Strategies for Human-Human Interaction”
• Associate Professor Ada Gavriloska, on the panel, “Data Challenges for the Internet of Things”
• M.S. student Nicole de Vries, in the workshop, “Using ‘Why’ to Build a Better ‘What’: A Human-Centered Approach to Systems & Data”
• Isbell, on the panel, “National-Scale Committee: The Process & the Requirements”

On Thursday evening, the College hosted a reception on campus for its Tapia attendees and Atlanta-area alumni to celebrate GT Computing’s leadership in diversity. Isbell and Stallworth both discussed the past efforts that had won Georgia Tech the inaugural CMD-IT award and gave an attendees-only preview of the exciting work that lay ahead.

“What is the role for Georgia Tech in ensuring that students at the K-12 level have equity of access to a computing education?” Stallworth said in his remarks. “How can we help all kids in the state of Georgia and beyond tap into the incredible opportunities that accompany that kind of an education?”

On Friday, several OMS CS attendees took an afternoon break from Tapia to enjoy their own personalized campus tour—for most, the first (and possibly only) opportunity they would have to see Georgia Tech firsthand.

“OMS CS has been my first online educational experience, and one worry I had was, what kind of community would I find in the program?” said OMS CS student Shipra De, who traveled from Las Vegas to attend Tapia. “The collaboration among students has been so encouraging, with many going above and beyond in their efforts to help each other. Then there’s the fact that they’re doing all this for people they’ve never met!”

“In Ecuador, there’s not as much of a culture of improvement for technical skills or software engineers, so OMS CS was just what I needed,” said Romeo Cabrera, who traveled from his hometown of Guayaquil, Ecuador. “This program has improved my life in so many ways, not just because of the technical experience—its flexibility has also allowed me time to share with my family. I can’t say enough about it.”

After a full semester of teaching the online CS 1301 section, instructor David Joyner and the course team compiled an internal, research-driven “report card” to gauge successes and areas in need of improvement. Students from the online section rated the pace and rigor of the online course approximately the same as other CS 1301 students rated their on-campus versions while giving the online section an overall higher score for course quality.   

Following the success of the spring semester pilot, an online CS 1301 section will be offered in Fall 2017 to all interested Georgia Tech undergraduates.

The Fall 2017 online CS 1301 section will include:

• More complete, authentic testing suites
• Embedded, enhanced personalized feedback and tutoring on exercises
• Integrated code visualizations and style feedback
• Artificial intelligence to answer student questions in discussion forums  

The online students will also receive a new programming language translation guide, optional advanced material and concepts, and embedded off-site supplementary material.

“In the first semester, the online version appears to have had comparable learning gains to the traditional version despite requiring less teaching assistant time, providing more flexibility to students, and supporting greater scalability, all while creating a positive student experience,” said Joyner, who also teaches multiple courses in Georgia Tech’s online M.S. in Computer Science (OMS CS) program.

Online students were more likely to be certain in their knowledge, and they also reported significantly less time spent on coursework per week while attaining similar results in knowledge delivery (measured via pre- and post-course testing).

“Since this online CS 1301 course was the first of its kind, I wasn't exactly sure what to expect,” said Ben Wellington, a Georgia Tech undergraduate who completed the online CS 1301 course. “But the class was designed and executed nearly perfectly. Learning online was both effective and fun, and this was mostly because of the obvious effort that had been put into the creation of the lecture videos. It was intuitive to complete lessons, assignments, and tests, and the fact that you could learn at your own pace made the course superior to on-campus versions. This course made me go from disliking computer science to adding it as a minor.”

“We work hard to provide our students with the best learning experience. We proved it with OMS CS. We are now making enhanced online learning available to our undergraduate on-campus students," said Zvi Galil, John P. Imlay Jr. Dean of Computing at Georgia Tech. “Come, join the pioneers!”

The FAR serves as the liaison between the Institute and the Athletic Association on issues regarding rules compliance, developments at the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), and activities related to Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) membership. The position was previously held by Reginald DesRoches, the Karen and John Huff Chair and professor in the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, who is leaving Georgia Tech in July to assume the role of dean of engineering at Rice University.

“Charles is an engaged leader and innovator at Georgia Tech in numerous areas, and we are very fortunate that he has agreed to add the role as the Institute’s new faculty athletics representative to his responsibilities,” said Peterson. “On behalf of all of Georgia Tech, I would also like to thank Reggie DesRoches for serving us so well as our FAR for the past three years.”

Isbell has been a faculty member at Georgia Tech since 2002, but first came to Tech as a student to earn his bachelor’s degree in computer science. He also holds a Ph.D. in computer science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

His first institutional service role at Tech was with the Institute Undergraduate Curriculum Committee, where he worked with student-athletes returning to finish their degrees.

“Since the very beginning of being here as a faculty member, I’ve been interested in the way student-athletes interact with the rest of the institution,” he said.

Isbell hopes to continue events that DesRoches organized to facilitate faculty and student-athlete interaction. He also hopes to serve as a bridge for faculty members to pursue more research endeavors with the Athletic Association.

“I can’t tell you the number of conversations I’ve had with faculty members who have been interested in working with Athletics, but weren’t sure how to go about doing it,” he said. “I’m going to put energy into making those connections.”

For Isbell, understanding the experience of student-athletes is paramount to success in higher education. Athletic achievements can elevate a university’s profile to prospective students, and student-athletes’ relationship to the university is one that can be used as a model for the broader campus community.

“Anyone interested in higher education and how it has to grow and change has to understand how Division I athletics works at a university,” he said. “As higher education changes, we have to think of ourselves more as a community and consider what lets people build connections and keep coming back. It’s going to have to happen with all students, faculty, and staff, and athletics can be an example of how to do that well.”

While Isbell is a fan and frequent attendee of Georgia Tech athletic events, his support for student-athletes extends beyond the stands.

“I want the student-athletes to know I am here for them, and I intend to talk with them and be a resource for them,” he said. “I want them to know that and believe it, and know that I take it very seriously.”

Isbell’s research focuses on statistical machine learning and interactive artificial intelligence. He teaches several courses both to on-campus students and to students around the world in Tech’s Online Master of Science in Computer Science program. His three-year term as FAR begins July 1.

The 19 women were representing Georgia Tech’s online M.S. in Computer Science (OMS CS) program, and they’d converged from all corners of the United States at Grace Hopper—held Oct. 17-21 in Houston—for an opportunity to meet their OMS CS colleagues, build their knowledge and industry networks, and hail the achievements of women in their field.

“In the middle of my career, it’s so eye-opening to come here as a student,” said Eréndira Brumley, a software engineer at Verizon who’s currently taking her fifth OMS CS course. “It makes me remember when I was first a student—that feeling of discovery and learning about new things and the directions my career could take.”

Brumley and the rest of the group were traveling on scholarships awarded by the College of Computing, but they were far from the only OMS CS students in Houston that week. Many company representatives attending the conference were also enrolled in OMS CS, as were other attendees traveling to Grace Hopper on their own.

“The first day of the conference was a little overwhelming,” said Erin Paciorkowski, a Grace Hopper Scholar who was awarded a scholarship from conference organizers. “Since then it’s been a lot of fun. It’s great to meet some of the other women in the OMS CS program. As a group of scholars, they’re great to know and hang around with, sharing Uber rides.”

Just as in past years, the College of Computing was an academic gold sponsor of Grace Hopper, bringing not only the group of 19 OMS students but also a contingent of on-campus undergraduate and graduate students. This year, Senior Associate Dean Charles Isbell—instructor of two OMS CS courses—also made the trip.

“It’s important not just to generally be in support of promoting diversity in computing—who wouldn’t be in favor of that?—but to provide visible support,” Isbell said. “That’s why the College of Computing has been a proponent and sponsor of things like Grace Hopper, the Richard Tapia Celebration of Diversity in Computing, and the NCWIT Pacesetters program. Computing as a field, and certainly we as a College, benefits tremendously from having as diverse a community as possible. We’ve made great progress. There’s still a lot of work to do.”

In addition to taking in Grace Hopper’s technical and career development sessions, several students also made time to visit Georgia Tech’s booth at the conference Expo and talk to prospective future classmates. And, following the first full day of the conference, everyone convened at a downtown Houston restaurant for an informal get-together over drinks and appetizers.

“Sometimes as a woman I feel like I don’t belong and nobody understands me—I know it’s shallow,” said OMS student Abida Haque. “But it’s neat to see people [at Grace Hopper] I can actually talk to. Their work is really important and makes me want to do important things. It’s inspiring.”

“Inspiring” was also the word Yasmine Elayyat chose to describe her time in Texas. A software engineer for Microsoft and located in Seattle, Elayyat is in her fourth semester of OMS CS and was getting the Grace Hopper experience for the first time. “You come here and see so many women doing great stuff,” she said. “I’m interested in artificial intelligence and machine learning. I went to one session and thought, ‘Yes, I learned this in class, I used that in a project.'"

“It would be great for middle- and high-level managers to come here and see that it’s all women giving the presentations—and nobody notices. We need to make that more normal,” Brumley said. “It’s like, when you’re alone, there’s a spotlight on you. When there are two of you, there’s a bit less of a spotlight. By the time there’s 50 people, it’s no big deal.”

Joshua Goodman, associate professor of public policy in Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, described the research he’s been conducting since 2014 that showed OMS CS has accessed a significant untapped market for advanced CS education. Comparing OMS CS applicants to a comprehensive database of college enrollments across the United States, the research found that the vast majority of applicants would not be pursuing their MS CS degrees at all if not for this program. By itself, the research predicts, OMS CS will raise the number of MS CS degree holders in the United States by 8 percent.

Collaborating with Goodman on the work was fellow Harvard faculty member Amanda Pallais, Paul Sack Associate Professor of Political Economy and Social Studies in the Harvard Faculty of Arts and Science, and Associate Professor Julia Melkers from Georgia Tech’s School of Public Policy.

“This is the first time I’ve ever had the opportunity to talk directly to my data points,” Goodman joked to the students in attendance. “Many of you are on a spreadsheet on my desk.”

Held in the headquarters of Macmillan Learning, 46 floors above New York’s Financial District, the reception was hosted by Macmillan Chief Operating Officer—and current OMS student—Ken Brooks, a two-time graduate of Georgia Tech.

In his opening remarks, Brooks revealed that he was probably one of those “OMS or bust” students described in Goodman’s research.

“I started my career a long time ago and thought that education was done for me,” said Brooks, who earned his bachelor’s (1981) and master’s (1982) in industrial engineering from Georgia Tech. Then, he heard that an online learning company called Udacity was offering courses in computer science via a new delivery format called “MOOCs.”

“This is great,” Brooks recalled thinking. “I’m going to [take those courses] before they go out of business.”

Not long afterward, Brooks saw that his alma mater had announced a MOOC-based MS CS program in collaboration with Udacity and AT&T, and he again jumped at the opportunity—and was rejected admission in the first cohort. Demonstrating trademark Yellow Jacket tenacity, Brooks applied a second time, and is now in his seventh semester as an OMS student, also serving as a teaching assistant this fall.

In attendance on Sept. 29 were dozens of students just like Brooks—working professionals, many with families to support, earning a degree they may not ever have been able to attain without OMS CS.

“Everything [Goodman] said was right on the money,” said Scott Leitstein, who was admitted to that first cohort and graduated from OMS CS in May 2016. “If it wasn’t for this program, I would never have been able to do it. I didn’t realize I was basically quoting Josh’s research when I post and brag about this stuff.”

“This [reception] has been a great opportunity,” said student Yaroslav Litvak, who works full-time as a uniformed sanitation worker for the city of New York. “In the online process, what’s missing is the physical interaction, and that’s why it’s great to be able to meet and shake hands with the people you’re working with. I had no idea Charles Isbell was that tall.”

Indeed, Litvak got the measure not only of Isbell, senior associate dean and instructor for two OMS courses, but also of Zvi Galil, John P. Imlay Jr. Dean of Computing; Rich DeMillo, Charlotte B. and Roger C. Warren Professor of Computing and former dean of the College; and College faculty and OMS instructors David Joyner, Alex Orso, and Kishore Ramachandran.

“We are here because OMS CS has become a phenomenon,” Galil said in his remarks, citing the 12,000 applications the program has received in three years, as well as the 3,944 students enrolled this semester, the 111 graduates it’s produced to date, and the 900+ media articles that have covered OMS CS since it was announced. Galil also cited the fact that computing is a field in the United States that has many, many more job openings than there are qualified graduates to fill them.

“We might be one of very few universities addressing a national need,” Galil said.

Indeed, bearing this out is the fact that, unlike Georgia Tech’s residential MS CS program, OMS CS is comprised mostly of U.S. students and permanent residents, who make up 76 percent of the Fall 2016 enrollment—nearly the inverse of Tech’s on-campus MS CS enrollment.

“There is a lot of demand in total [for this program],” Goodman said, “and there’s a lot of demand in particular from Americans.”

Hosts Scott Jaschik and Doug Lederman, of the IHE editorial team, explored the impact technology has made on the higher ed community -- including flipped classrooms, massive open online courses (MOOCs), badging and learning analytics. Georgia Tech’s OMS CS was cited alongside MIT as an example of the way MOOC-inspired models have proven impactful in the evolving landscape of online learning.

Seminar materials featured, “Georgia Tech’s Next Steps,” a recent IHE story reflecting on the first two years of the OMS CS program and looking to the future of MOOC-inspired learning at Georgia Tech. Interviews with President Bud Peterson and College of Computing Senior Associate Dean and Professor Charles Isbell pointed to a world of possibilities for online learning for the university.

“I couldn’t be happier with where we are,” said Charles L. Isbell in an interview with IHE’s Carl Straumsheim. “When I say that the program is successful, I mean it by the financial measures -- we’ve got tons of students -- but to me the big success is we’ve been able to take a bunch of people who are already clearly qualified and the vast majority of whom would never have been able to get an advanced degree from a great place because they were not mobile. Now they can.”

Rich DeMillo, executive director of Georgia Tech’s Center for 21st Century Universities (C21U), weighed in on the impact of technology and the business of higher education in “MIT’s New Model,” a feature exploring stackable credentialing.

“My guess is that once learners find out that this is a better, more effective learning experience, they will come pouring in,” said DeMillo of MOOC-driven programs like Georgia Tech’s.

To find out more about the innovative OMS CS program, visit the degree website or explore the 2015 OMS CS Program Report.

Photo credit: Inside Higher Ed

Professors Gregory Abowd, Ashok Goel (School of Interactive Computing) and Constantine Dovrolis (School of Computer Science) each had proposals funded for academic year 2016-17. The Offices of the Provost and Executive Vice President for Research award funding annually to support new collaborative programs that are deemed to be innovative and potentially transformative.

To be eligible for consideration, each professor had to submit a research or educational project summary detailing their transformative idea and its potential impact, as well as a project budget for the estimated $40,000 award.

Abowd will use the award to fund ongoing research into ubiquitous computing and his vision of “catalyzing the next generation of information technology” with “computational skin” that may cover everyday objects. Goel’s GT FIRE funding will support his continuing work to develop virtual teaching assistants like the now-famous “Jill Watson” from his Spring 2016 artificial intelligence online course.

Dovrolis is part of an interdisciplinary team that includes members from the Schools of Biomedical Engineering and Electrical and Computer Engineering. Their project goal is to develop methods needed to build a multi-layer model that can characterize the paths of the brain’s activity over time.

Revolution in Higher Education: How a Small Band of Innovators Will Make College Accessible and Affordable

The roundtable, “Technology and the Future of Online Higher Education,” was held at the Carnegie Corp. headquarters in New York City.

Georgia Tech stands at the cutting edge of employing the latest technologies in the higher education realm. Notably, the College of Computing in January 2014 year began offering an online master’s degree in computer science (OMS CS), making Georgia Tech the first major university to offer a full-fledged, accredited CS master’s degree to an online audience.

Panelists for the roundtable included:

· Anant Agarwal, CEO of edX, an online learning destination funded by Harvard and MIT

· Nelson Baker, dean of professional education at Georgia Tech

· Rafael Bras, provost and executive vice president of academic affairs at Georgia Tech

· Molly Corbett Broad, president of the American Council on Education

· Rich DeMillo, director of the Center for 21^st Century Universities at Georgia Tech

· Zvi Galil, the John P. Imlay Jr. Dean of the Georgia Tech College of Computing

· Vivek Goel, chief academic strategist for Coursera

· Dewayne Matthews, vice president for strategy development at Lumnia Foundation

· Jason Palmer, deputy director of postsecondary success for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

· Amin Saberi, founder and CEO of NovoEd

· Scott Smith, senior vice president for human resources operations at AT&T

· Sebastian Thrun, CEO and founder of Udacity

· Nathan Urban, the Dr. Frederick A. Schwertz distinguished professor of life sciences and interim provost at Carnegie Mellon University

Education reporters from some of the nation’s leading news media outlets also participated in the roundtable.

Georgia Tech’s position on the role technology can and should take in higher education is available here.

Offered in collaboration with Udacity and AT&T, the program marks one of the most significant innovations to date in the area of online learning. Most students will pay less than $7,000 for a graduate degree from Georgia Tech’s top 10 College of Computing. The traditional master’s program can cost nearly $45,000 for on-campus students.

“Since we announced the online Master of Science in Computer Science last May, our goal has been to create the best possible academic experience for our online students, just as we try to do for all of Georgia Tech’s residential students,” said Georgia Tech Provost Rafael L. Bras. “Today marks the culmination of several months of extremely hard work by faculty, administrators and staff at Georgia Tech and the beginning of a new opportunity for lifelong learners.”

OMS CS received 2,360 applications during a three-week period in October, which is approximately 75 percent more applications than are received for the on-campus program during an entire year. Of those 2,360 applicants, 401 students were offered admission during the Spring 2014 semester (additional applicants will be admitted for subsequent terms). With about 375 students enrolling, and several more deferring admission for summer or fall, OMS CS’ first admissions class boasts a yield rate of greater than 95 percent.

“The United States and the world need more computing professionals, and I’m proud that Georgia Tech and our college are leading the way to help educate them,” said College of Computing Dean Zvi Galil. “We will treat all of our OMS CS students, and especially this first cohort, as partners in helping to optimize the courses and infrastructure required to support them.”

Of the approximately 375 students for Spring 2014, about 330 are U.S. citizens or permanent residents, in contrast to Georgia Tech’s on-campus MS CS students, about 90 percent of whom are international. OMS CS students’ average age is 34.8, about 11 years older than their on-campus counterparts.

“This program addresses a clear and growing need globally: to provide flexible, high-quality education in vital fields for a price that’s affordable for working professionals,” said Nelson Baker, Georgia Tech’s dean of professional education. “Almost every student enrolled this spring is also working full time, something that would be extremely difficult to do in a traditional program. OMS CS represents a valuable option to a population of students who need it.”

More than 80 of the initial students are employees of AT&T, which provided $2 million to support program costs. The company intends to use OMS CS as a significant training option for its workforce.

“This new approach is a huge step toward revolutionizing higher education by making an advanced technical curriculum more accessible and affordable,” said Bill Blase, senior executive vice president for human resources at AT&T. “We need highly skilled software engineers, network engineers and data scientists. Through this program, we will enhance training for our current workforce and ensure a great pipeline for these roles and others going forward.”

The five initial OMS CS courses were developed according to the Udacity model for massive online courses. They include courses on Advanced Operating Systems, Computer Networks, Software Development Process, Machine Learning and AI for Robotics.  Udacity has hired additional staff to support the technical infrastructure and answer student questions about accessing course materials. Georgia Tech will provide support personnel for all academic and enrollment questions.

“Today, every industry, from healthcare and commerce to automotive and agriculture, is transforming and creating a huge unfulfilled demand for technical skills,” said Sebastian Thrun, founder and CEO of Udacity. “At Udacity, our mission is to set up students for success. Today’s announcement is historic and sets the foundation for a new way to approach and deliver education to students across the globe.”

Georgia Tech has scheduled two additional application periods for OMS CS: March 3-23 (admission for Summer 2014) and April 21-May 11 (admission for Fall 2014). Visit www.omscs.gatech.edu for more information on the program.

Some 2,361 individuals applied to the program during a three-week application period in October. That number exceeds the total number of fall 2013 applicants (1,806) to all of the college’s on-campus MS programs and is a 74 percent increase over the applications received for the on-campus MS CS program.

Another interesting statistic is that 85 percent of applications were from U.S. citizens or residents — almost exactly the inverse of the U.S./international ratio among applicants to the on-campus program.

“We thought we might get 1,000 applications, perhaps 1,500 if we were lucky,” said College of Computing Dean Zvi Galil. “The fact that we almost doubled the number of MS CS applications shows that this program is addressing a real gap in computing education, not to mention a tremendous need on the part of students.”

Of the roughly 1,950 students not admitted for spring 2014, several hundred may be offered deferred admission in subsequent terms. Prior to the application period, the college had planned to enroll about 150 students in each of the five courses to be offered next spring. Given that many students will take more than one course, the approximately 400 spring admissions keep the college right on target.

The new program (informally dubbed OMS CS, for online MS in Computer Science) is being launched jointly by the College of Computing and Georgia Tech Professional Education, with significant contributions from nearly every academic support unit on campus.

“Since we first conceived of OMS CS as a model to deliver an elite computing education to a specific population of students, nothing we’ve seen in the marketplace has proven us wrong,” said Provost Rafael L. Bras. “We continue to be thankful to our collaborators, Udacity and AT&T, and I’m excited to see how the first OMS CS students perform.”

OMS CS course materials will be delivered over a platform managed by the online education provider Udacity, which also will collaborate in hiring the individuals engaged in student support roles. AT&T provided an unrestricted gift of $2 million to help get OMS CS off the ground.

Soon, the program will offer additional credential tracks for students who are not interested in or do not qualify for the degree program, and many of the current applicants denied admission to the degree program will specifically be directed to these noncredit options.

“We’re thrilled to add this program to Georgia Tech Professional Education’s portfolio of educational offerings for nontraditional students such as working professionals, active military, and others who need alternative models to continue their education,” said Professional Education Dean Nelson Baker. “It’s been a tremendously cooperative effort to launch this program in a very short timeframe, and both Dean Galil and I are very appreciative of the tireless efforts of many Institute staff and faculty who have made it possible.”

“One of the ways that colleges and universities can offer affordable educational opportunities to more students is through ‘technology assisted education.’ Georgia Tech is partnering with industry to offer an Online Master of Science in Computer Science that will help address the nation’s growing shortage of qualified workers in STEM fields and provide promising career opportunities to thousands of students.

As one of the leading technological universities in the US, Georgia Tech is committed to helping students maximize the value of their educational investment. To this end, we’re implementing measures to help improve college completion rates, control costs, continuously improve quality, and offer online education for lifelong learning.”

— Georgia Tech President G. P. “Bud” Peterson

Additional information on Georgia Tech OMS CS: http://www.omscs.gatech.edu/
FAQ on the OMS CS: http://www.omscs.gatech.edu/faq/