Improving engagement, diversity, and retention in computer science with RadGrad: Results of a case study, Philip M. Johnson, Carleton Moore, Peter Leong, Seungoh Paek.

RadGrad is a curriculum initiative implemented via an application that combines features of social networks, degree planners, individual learning plans, and serious games. RadGrad redefines traditional meanings of "progress" and "success" in the undergraduate computer science degree program in an attempt to improve engagement, retention, and diversity. In this paper, we describe the RadGrad Project and report on an evaluation study designed to assess the impact of RadGrad on student engagement, diversity, and retention. We also present opportunities and challenges that result from the use of the system.

The paper is available on ArXiv.

During the Fall of 2021, three undergraduates (Caliana Fortin, Jatin Pandya, and Shinya Saito) helped design and implement a new major release of the InternAloha System as part of capstone courses.

During the Summer of 2021, the RadGrad Project hosted 5 undergraduates from the University of Hawaii: Andre Ruiz, Shinya Saito, Caliana Fortin, Timothy Huo, and Trey Sumida. Four of these students were funded by the NSF Research Experience for Undergraduates program.

We presented RadGrad at the 2021 AAAS-IUSE Summer Labs "Project Office Hours" program on June 29. We received useful feedback on our project and enjoyed learning about other IUSE projects. Here's our slides (there is a difficult to see right arrow in the bottom right corner that you can use to advance through the slides):

We are delighted to welcome Andre Ruiz, Shinya Saito, Caliana Fortin, Trey Sumida, and Timothy Huo into our National Science Foundation Research Experience for Undergraduates program for Summer, 2021. They will be developing their software engineering and research skills throughout the summer by readying the RadGrad2 code base for deployment to two departments in Fall 2021, and by performing pilot studies to assess the usability of the system by students, faculty, and advisors.

The RadGrad team has published two articles this fall: "Beyond course work: expanding what's valued in computer science degree programs" in the Journal of Applied Research in Higher Education, and "Is GPA enough? A platform for promoting computer science undergraduates' pursuit of career related extracurricular activities", in the International Journal of Technology in Education and Science.

During the Summer of 2020, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, the RadGrad Project hosted 11 undergraduates from the University of Hawaii, including four students funded by the NSF Research Experience for Undergraduates program.

We are happy to announce the availability of RadGrad t-shirts for pickup to those students who completed their degree plan in December and filled out the form requesting a tshirt. Please email radgrad@hawaii.edu if you have not already received an email with instructions on how to pick up your t-shirt.

Many thanks to RadGrad undergraduate research assistant Mirabela Medallon for the design!

Are you an undergraduate student in ICS or Computer Engineering? Are you intrigued by the potential for RadGrad to improve the undergraduate experience? Do you want to help change RadGrad for the better? Do you need a paying job (up to $600/week) for the summer, with the possibility of extending it into next year? Would you like to gain research and development experience to improve your resume? Do you want to stay in Hawaii for the summer? Are you interested in a tech stack with IntelliJ IDEA, Javascript, Typescript, React, MongoDB, and Meteor? Do you want to work with a fun group of people? If so, please consider applying to join the RadGrad team as a summer intern!

The RadGrad Project is hoping to find several undergraduate students to participate in the NSF Research Experience for Undergraduates program starting in Summer, 2019.