The CIC has sought to design a data program that was additive to the field of options. The CIC’s Data Program supports schools in the collection and analysis of intersectional data with the goal of equipping computing departments with a deeper understanding of how students are faring in introductory computing courses and the major as a whole. Our course-by-course, term-by-term structure allows users to “zoom-in,” identify pain points, and track the effects of specific interventions.
If you are interested in learning more about and/or joining the CIC’s Data Program, please email khoury-cic@northeastern.edu.
Partially funded by Pivotal Ventures and U.S. National Science Foundation.
Data is visualized in interactive dashboards, enabling users to wade into intersectional, granular views to better understand the experience of individual populations of students.
Partner schools can access “at-a-glance” or “in-depth” views of dashboards and refine visualizations based on specific dimensions: race/ethnicity, gender, major, course, external transfer, and more.
Three screenshots that show samples of data from the CIC’s data dashboard. Clockwise from left: The first image shows outcomes from a computer science course; the second shows graphs with enrollments in the computer science major over time; and the third contains charts that show a program’s computer science graduates over time.
Universities can compare their data to that of peer institutions within the CIC portfolio, aggregated within comparison groups. These comparison groups are based on publicly available institutional data or characteristics, such as overall size of computing department, percentage of women in computing department, university access levels, university research levels, minority serving institutions, and more.
Every partner institution is invited to meet with members of the CIC team to discuss their data and consider potential courses of action. In these one on one meetings, we will review dashboards, highlight key points that may require attention or further investigation, consider curricular complexity, and discuss recommendations.
Schools collect and submit historic and current persistence, retention, and graduation data to our Data Collection Portal. Specifically:
Data is submitted into the CIC Data Collection Portal via file upload for two years (four reporting periods) prior to the start of funding and every subsequent funded term. Users download four file templates – CS1, CS2, CS3, and Retention & Graduation – and upload as .csv. If schools have more than one introductory course pathway, they may submit multiple CS1, CS2, and CS3 files. Fall and Spring or Fall, Winter, and Spring, for semesters and quarters respectively, are required and Summer files are optional.
A view of the data portal dashboard showing how data can be categorized by computer science courses.
The CIC provides a comprehensive Data Collection Handbook that details key terms and definitions and offers a step by step guide to entering the data. Schools also meet with a CIC Data Program Manager to review process, terms, and institutional context to ensure as much consistency as possible across the portfolio.
Validation rules are provided to users and run at the time of file upload. Users are provided details on any failed validation and files can only be successfully submitted after all validation rules are passed. All data points are validated within intersectional populations and certain data points are validated across multiple questions. For example:
Note that the CIC does not validate data across reporting periods. For example, in a given term a school will provide “the number of declared major computer science majors in the previous term” but this does not need to exactly match the number of declared majors listed in that previous term’s data upload.
Partner schools approach collecting and cleaning their data in a variety of ways. Regardless, members of the computing and institutional research departments will always be involved. In certain cases, schools have found it useful and/or necessary to involve HR and/or the registrar. The main point person will need to oversee such key tasks as setting up the data queries and accounting for any ‘anomalies.’
The first data submission is by far the most time consuming as it entails meeting with the CIC to understand the data points, work with internal partners, design and test queries, and import data into file template for four (4) historic reporting periods. In our experience, this set up can take up to 40 hours and subsequent data submissions average around 8 hours.
We welcome any institution that would like to participate in our Data Program. While we no longer have grant funding available, we are happy to help advocate to department leadership the importance and benefits of analyzing intersectional data and to support you every step of the way through technical assistance and consulting. Participation in the CIC’s Data Program can also be a great addition to a National Science Foundation grant proposal or supplemental funding request. We estimate adding $25,000 to proposals for this effort.
If you are interested in learning more about and/or joining the CIC’s Data Program, please email khoury-cic@northeastern.edu.
Action Analytics – an independent consultancy of industry-leading data and visualization experts.
Thank you to Shaun Davis at Action Analytics for not only designing and building the Data Viz Dashboards, but your brilliant thought partnership, patient teaching, and continued commitment to our mission.
Yeti – an IoT application development company
Thank you to the whole Yeti team for building a beautiful, user-friendly Data Collection Portal and making collecting data fun!
The CIC has sought to design a data program that was additive to the field of options. The CIC’s Data Program supports schools in the collection and analysis of intersectional data with the goal of equipping computing departments with a deeper understanding of how students are faring in introductory computing courses and the major as a whole. Our course-by-course, term-by-term structure allows users to “zoom-in,” identify pain points, and track the effects of specific interventions.
If you are interested in learning more about and/or joining the CIC’s Data Program, please email khoury-cic@northeastern.edu.
Partially funded by Pivotal Ventures and U.S. National Science Foundation.
Data is visualized in interactive dashboards, enabling users to wade into intersectional, granular views to better understand the experience of individual populations of students.
Partner schools can access “at-a-glance” or “in-depth” views of dashboards and refine visualizations based on specific dimensions: race/ethnicity, gender, major, course, external transfer, and more.
Three screenshots that show samples of data from the CIC’s data dashboard. Clockwise from left: The first image shows outcomes from a computer science course; the second shows graphs with enrollments in the computer science major over time; and the third contains charts that show a program’s computer science graduates over time.
Universities can compare their data to that of peer institutions within the CIC portfolio, aggregated within comparison groups. These comparison groups are based on publicly available institutional data or characteristics, such as overall size of computing department, percentage of women in computing department, university access levels, university research levels, minority serving institutions, and more.
Every partner institution is invited to meet with members of the CIC team to discuss their data and consider potential courses of action. In these one on one meetings, we will review dashboards, highlight key points that may require attention or further investigation, consider curricular complexity, and discuss recommendations.
Schools collect and submit historic and current persistence, retention, and graduation data to our Data Collection Portal. Specifically:
Data is submitted into the CIC Data Collection Portal via file upload for two years (four reporting periods) prior to the start of funding and every subsequent funded term. Users download four file templates – CS1, CS2, CS3, and Retention & Graduation – and upload as .csv. If schools have more than one introductory course pathway, they may submit multiple CS1, CS2, and CS3 files. Fall and Spring or Fall, Winter, and Spring, for semesters and quarters respectively, are required and Summer files are optional.
A view of the data portal dashboard showing how data can be categorized by computer science courses.
The CIC provides a comprehensive Data Collection Handbook that details key terms and definitions and offers a step by step guide to entering the data. Schools also meet with a CIC Data Program Manager to review process, terms, and institutional context to ensure as much consistency as possible across the portfolio.
Validation rules are provided to users and run at the time of file upload. Users are provided details on any failed validation and files can only be successfully submitted after all validation rules are passed. All data points are validated within intersectional populations and certain data points are validated across multiple questions. For example:
Note that the CIC does not validate data across reporting periods. For example, in a given term a school will provide “the number of declared major computer science majors in the previous term” but this does not need to exactly match the number of declared majors listed in that previous term’s data upload.
Partner schools approach collecting and cleaning their data in a variety of ways. Regardless, members of the computing and institutional research departments will always be involved. In certain cases, schools have found it useful and/or necessary to involve HR and/or the registrar. The main point person will need to oversee such key tasks as setting up the data queries and accounting for any ‘anomalies.’
The first data submission is by far the most time consuming as it entails meeting with the CIC to understand the data points, work with internal partners, design and test queries, and import data into file template for four (4) historic reporting periods. In our experience, this set up can take up to 40 hours and subsequent data submissions average around 8 hours.
We welcome any institution that would like to participate in our Data Program. While we no longer have grant funding available, we are happy to help advocate to department leadership the importance and benefits of analyzing intersectional data and to support you every step of the way through technical assistance and consulting. Participation in the CIC’s Data Program can also be a great addition to a National Science Foundation grant proposal or supplemental funding request. We estimate adding $25,000 to proposals for this effort.
If you are interested in learning more about and/or joining the CIC’s Data Program, please email khoury-cic@northeastern.edu.
Action Analytics – an independent consultancy of industry-leading data and visualization experts.
Thank you to Shaun Davis at Action Analytics for not only designing and building the Data Viz Dashboards, but your brilliant thought partnership, patient teaching, and continued commitment to our mission.
Yeti – an IoT application development company
Thank you to the whole Yeti team for building a beautiful, user-friendly Data Collection Portal and making collecting data fun!