Collaborative Research: Scaling the Early Research Scholars Program

全国计算机科学(CS)项目的注册人数比以往任何时候都要高，但有两个关键问题仍然存在。首先，尽管入学人数很高，但继续攻读研究生的美国学生相对较少。维持和改善国内博士队伍的健康状况是大学、公司和政府机构关心的问题。其次，攻读计算机科学学位的学生人数并不能代表美国人的多样性，女性和其他群体的比例一直偏低。早期研究学者计划(ERSP)旨在解决增加博士流水线和扩大计算机科学领域的参与的问题。ERSP是一个以团队为基础的学年研究学徒计划，特别强调在CS专业二年级指导女性和代表不足的群体。ERSP的指导框架包括研究导师和ERSP中央指导团队，为每个学生提供多方面的支持。此外，它的结构是为了让大量早期的CS学生参与到富有成效的、积极的CS研究体验中，而不会给个别研究顾问带来不必要的工作。通过让学生参与早期研究，ERSP旨在增加他们在本科生水平上的留存率，并招募他们进入研究生课程。该项目已经在加州大学圣地亚哥分校成功运行了四年。该项目将把ERSP扩展到其他大学，包括斯坦福大学、加州大学圣巴巴拉分校和伊利诺伊大学芝加哥分校。该项目还将研究ERSP对所有机构的学生和教职员工的影响。该项目包括两个部分：扩大企业资源规划和评价企业资源规划对参与者的影响。最初，ERSP将在三所研究密集型学校实施，并有一系列本科录取标准。每项执行工作都将根据机构的具体情况量身定做，提供一系列执行结构，作为如何成功执行机构风险管理计划的模式。在这一初步扩展阶段之后，该项目计划与另外两所学校合作，探讨如何在研究密集度较低的大学(如硕士院校)实施ERSP。本项目的第二部分是关于ERSP对学生参与者的长期影响的研究。具体地说，该项目旨在评估ERSP是否在参与者中促进了以下几点：与计算界的连接感、对研究的短期和长期参与、计算机科学知识和对计算的坚持不懈。研究渠道评估中心的评估员将使用他们的国家调查基础设施，收集ERSP学生和非ERSP学生在大学期间和离开大学后的经验数据。这些评估员还将对ERSP项目负责人、教师导师和学生进行访谈，并对没有参加ERSP的教职员工和学生进行控制。这些访谈将补充调查数据，帮助ERSP团队更好地了解ERSP的影响，并确定计划改进的新挑战和机会。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Enrollment in computer science (CS) programs across the nation is higher than ever, yet two critical problems persist. First, despite these high enrollments, relatively few U.S. students are continuing on to graduate school. Maintaining and improving the health of the domestic Ph.D. pipeline is a concern of universities, companies, and government agencies. Second, the population of students pursuing CS degrees is not representative of the diversity of people in the U.S., with women and other groups persistently underrepresented. The Early Research Scholars Program (ERSP) aims to address issues of increasing the Ph.D. pipeline and broadening participation in computer science fields. ERSP is an academic-year, team-based research apprenticeship program that places special emphasis on mentoring women and underrepresented groups in the second year of the CS major. ERSP's mentoring framework includes the research mentor and the ERSP central mentoring team, providing multifaceted support for each student. In addition, it is structured to engage a large number of early CS students in a productive, positive CS research experience without imposing undue work on individual research advisors. By engaging students in early research, ERSP aims to increase their retention at the undergraduate level and recruitment into graduate programs. The project has been running successfully at University of California San Diego for four years. This project will expand ERSP to other universities, including Stanford University, the University of California, Santa Barbara, and the University of Illinois at Chicago. The project will also study the outcomes of ERSP on the student and faculty participants at all institutions. This project has two parts: expansion of ERSP and evaluation of the impact of ERSP on participants. Initially, ERSP will be implemented at three research-intensive schools with a range of undergraduate admission criteria. Each implementation will be tailored to the specific context of the institution, providing a range of implementation structures as models for how ERSP might be successfully implemented. After this initial expansion phase, the project plans to partner with two additional schools to explore how ERSP could be implemented at less research-intensive universities (e.g., masters institutions). The second part of this project is research on the long-term impact of ERSP on student participants. Specifically, the project seeks to assess whether ERSP promotes the following among participants: a sense of connection with the computing community, short-term and long-term engagement in research, CS knowledge, and persistence in computing. Evaluators at the Center for Evaluating the Research Pipeline will use their national survey infrastructure to collect experiential data from ERSP students vs. non-ERSP students, as the students progress through college and after they leave college. These evaluators will also conduct interviews with ERSP program leaders, faculty mentors, and students, and control faculty and students who are not participating in ERSP. These interviews will supplement the survey data, and help the ERSP team better understand ERSP impact, as well as identify new challenges and opportunities for program improvement.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.