Two Summer Research Experience for Teachers (RET) Opportunities with the Sketch Recognition Lab

(Applications Due April 1, 2015)

Two Research Experience for Teachers (RET) will be available for summer 2015 in the Sketch Recognition Lab, mentored by lab director Dr. Tracy Hammond. The two teachers will contribute to the ongoing NSF EEC project 1129525, titled “Collaborative Research: Enabling Instructors to Teach Statics Actively,” (PIs Tracy Hammond, Julie Linsey, Erin McTigue, Matthew Green) working with the Mechanix software project in the Computer Science Department at Texas A&M University.  Mechanix is a sketch recognition system that automatically corrects students hand-drawn homework assignments for trusses and free body diagrams. The Mechanix software for testing as well as a video tutorial can be downloaded from http://sketchmechanix.com. Applications are dues April 1, 2015.

The Mechanix Interface

About Mechanix:

Introductory engineering courses within large universities often have annual enrollments exceeding several hundreds of students, while MOOCS and online classes have even larger classes. It is very challenging to achieve differentiated instruction in classrooms with class sizes and student diversity of such great magnitude. In such classes, professors can only assess whether students have mastered a concept by using multiple-choice questions. However, in a multiple-choice scenario, students only have to identify the answer rather than create the answer, and the feedback received is only of a binary nature (right or wrong). Additionally, a growing concern among engineering educators is that students are losing both the critical skill of sketched diagrams and the ability to take a real system and reduce it to an accurate but simplified free-body diagram (FBD).

Mechanix is a sketch-based deployed tutoring system for engineering students enrolled in statics courses. Mechanix not only allows students to hand-draw solutions with planar truss and free body diagrams, just as they would with pencil and paper, but it also checks the student’s work against a hand-drawn answer entered by the instructor. It uses sketch recognition to determine both the component shapes and features of the sketched diagram and the relationships between those shapes and features. Mechanix then uses those relationships to determine whether a student’s work is correct and why it is incorrect, enabling Mechanix to return immediate personalized feedback to the student otherwise not possible in large classes. Additionally, because sketching is the preferred mode of problem solving for many professional engineers, producing a tool that utilizes sketching should increase the transfer of skills from the classroom to the real world. Finally, the iterative correction process facilitates student learning. Preliminary results suggest that Mechanix increases homework motivation in struggling students, and have shown that Mechanix is as effective as paper-and-pencil-based homework for teaching method of joints truss analysis. Focus groups have revealed that students believe Mechanix enhances their learning and that they are highly engaged while using it.

Currently, Mechanix can correct three different types of static homework problems: 1) Standard truss problems requiring calculations of method of joints, 2) Free-form free body diagrams, and 3) Creative Design problems. In creative design mode, the student must think creatively to create a viable truss that abides by the constraints. Creative design mode offers an infinite number of possible solutions for the student, and thus presents an interesting recognition problem. Additionally Mechanix contains three different interfaces: 1) the student interface, where the student answers the problem, 2) the instructor question creation interface, where the instructor enters the problem, and 3) the instructor review mode, where the instructor reviews the existing solutions (Figure 5 shows a mockup). To add questions, the instructor simply types the question, uploads an image, draws the answer, and types in the numerical answers. The drawn answer is then compared to the student’s answer for correction. Because the student needs to know where he or she is wrong, Mechanix performs sophisticated analysis on the student’s solution in an attempt to determine where the student has gone wrong. In the case of creative design mode, no solution is drawn, instead only constraints are specified, and Mechanix then uses these constraints to grade the student’s solution. Two types of feedback are given, that of a simple dropdown box, and that of a complete checklist for them to follow. We provide two types of feedback so that the instructor can provide more feedback on initial problems and less later, scaffolding the feedback.

Interest/Applicability to K12 Teachers:

We have presented the Mechanix project to over 300 K-12 teachers and over 2000 high school students thus far.  There has been enormous interest from K12 teachers to include the Mechanix software as part of their curriculum.   Presentations to K12 teachers include: 2014 TAMU Teachers’ Summit Workshop: Mechanix Hands-On Workshop, 2014 WIPTTE (Workshop on the Impact of Pen and Touch Technology on Education) Mechanix You-Try-It,  ASEE 2012:  FIE 2012 Mechanix Workshop, TAMU Teaching with Technology Conference 2014, TAMU Assessment Conference 2011, Duke TIP High School Program, TAMU Recruiting (Aggieland Saturday, etc.), and TAMU 2014 CSE High School Contest on Tablet Computing.

Mechanix & Applicable TEKS Standards

§112.39. Physics (c) Knowledge and skills.

            (4) Science concepts.

      (E) develop and interpret free-body force diagrams

§111.35. Mathematics – Precalculus (c) Knowledge and skills.

          (6) The student uses vectors to model physical situations. The student is expected to:

                  (A) use the concept of vectors to model situations defined by magnitude and direction;

                  (B) analyze and solve vector problems generated by real-life situations.

What will Teachers Do During the RET?

The teachers will participate in the work required to achieve the following research objectives from that project:

1)    To provide instructors with a software tool where instructors can create their own custom questions that are automatically evaluated. This will allow for more open-ended questions instead of multiple-choice questions to be used on exams and quizzes in large classes.

2)    To scale Mechanix up to multiple sections and multiple schools. Mechanix has been implemented at TAMU and LeTourneau on first year engineering students, this RET would give the opportunity to also test the software at a high school level.

3)    To develop and refine the instructor interface that includes (1) An easy way to add problems, (2) automatic grading and student assignment and (3) review collation of student performance to aid in teaching. The RET teachers will provide feedback and assist with general design of the instructor interface

4)    To measure the generalizability of the student learning effects observed with Mechanix at TAMU to other institutions, specifically high school classes.

5)    To create a database of questions for use by a wide variety of instructors.

The teachers will gain research experience through the completion of the following tasks:

1)    Evaluate and help design improvements to the instructor and student sides of the interface

2)    Design a course plan using Mechanix in their classroom that aligns with their curriculum needs for the following year.

3)    Create problems and assignments for use in their classroom and add these to the Mechanix problem database.

4)    Evaluate Mechanix in their classroom and analyze the data along with a graduate student.

5)    Write a research paper describing their experience in the classroom.

In addition to participating in the research activities in the Sketch Recognition Laboratory, the RET teacher will participate in the professional development activities associated with the E3 program. This includes sessions to aid the teacher in preparing an engineering-related inquiry-based project for implementation in the high school STEM classroom.

Transfer of New Knowledge to the Classroom

The teacher will develop a classroom activity based on his/her research experiences in the laboratory. The classroom project will be implemented in the teacher’s high school classroom during the subsequent academic year. The teacher will be required to submit a final report to the E3 team which will outline best practices and lessons learned with their classroom implementation. The PI’s research in Mechanix would become part of the outreach and dissemination.

RET Program for the Dwight Look College of Engineering  (COE) at TAMU

The teacher(s) will participate in professional development activities of the E3 program in addition to working with the research team. Historically, the E3 activities have included engineering research, educational discussion sessions to facilitate transfer of research into the public high school classroom, industry field trips, leading edge engineering discussions, and teacher presentations.

The TAMU Enrichment Experiences in Engineering (E3) RET program brings high school science and mathematics teachers to the university campus for a summer residential experience where the teachers are mentored by engineering faculty. The teachers learn about engineering research, gain heightened awareness of engineering career opportunities for their students, and develop an engineering project for classroom implementation. The E3 program has been an integral component of the College of Engineering’s outreach plan, which has the overarching goal to increase the pool of undergraduate engineering applicants into the College, as well as to build a network to recruit partner teachers.

E3 Schedule: http://easa.tamu.edu/e3/docs/2015%20E3%20Sample%20Schedule.pdf

Based on past E3 participant responses to online post-program surveys, indicators of E3 program impact on the teachers include (1) Increased awareness of engineering careers; (2) Improved knowledge of engineering as an academic discipline; (3) Better able to promote the field of engineering to their students, and (4) Better understanding of attributes assets needed for engineering (e.g., creativity, team player, problem solver, desire to contribute to society).

Sustained Follow-Up

Typically, the E3 teachers are invited to participate in the annual Teacher Summit hosted by the TAMU Colleges of Engineering and Science. This professional development opportunity has been hosted since 2008, and has been very well received by attending teachers. In addition, an annual E3 Workshop has been hosted immediately after the Summit concludes. This half-day workshop allows the E3 teachers to reconnect with each other and to stay engaged with TAMU College of Engineering. PI Hammond presented Mechanix on January 31, 2014 at the TAMU Teacher’s Summit Workshop. ): Through four sequential 1-hour sessions, 120 K-12 STEM teachers were introduced to the Mechanix system and each solved 6 problems through the system. Numerous instructors requested to participate in the Mechanix program and wished for help in integrating Mechanix into their curriculum (which is what provoked this RET submission). Participating teachers could also help present at future Mechanix presentation and hands-on interactive sessions.

Application Process:

Teachers should apply through the E3 website: http://easa.tamu.edu/e3/app-teacher.htm

More information about the E3 program can be found here: http://easa.tamu.edu/e3/info.htm

Please note your interest in this project somewhere on the application.

Applications are due April 1, 2015.

                      

Any teacher supported under RET should be a US citizen or a permanent resident; all teachers considered for RET support will meet this eligibility requirement. STEM teachers from high schools with high achieving, majority minority students who are predominately first-generation college and economically disadvantaged are particularly encouraged to apply.

Timing and Funding:

TAMU Onsite E3 2-week session: June 17- July 1  ($3,000)

TAMU Onsite SRL-Extended 2-week session June 7^th - July 4^rd ($6,000)

Additional $1,000 stipend for follow up activities during academic year.

Supplies include a Tablet PC for use in the classroom implementation.

Additionally, a limited amount of funds will be available to support presentation at national conference.

Sketch Recognition Lab Presents to Texas A&M Computing Society

On Tuesday, February 24, 2015, Sketch Recognition Lab members Raniero Lara-Garduno, Seth Polsley, Larry Powell, Paul Taele, and David Turner were on hand to present and discuss several of the lab's latest on-going research projects in front of a room-filled audience of students from the Texas A&M Computing Society (TACS), the representative undergraduate student organization for the Department of Computer Science & Engineering. The Sketch Recognition Lab, directed by Dr.Tracy Hammond, was invited by TACS to present to the undergraduate students as part of a series of guest talks and workshops to improve and broaden students' understanding of opportunities that exist in the computing field.

(Trevor Nelligan, Raniero Lara-Garduno, Paul Taele, Seth Polsley)

The SRL members began the invited talk with doctoral student Taele first introducing the lab and the present lab members. First-year Master's student Polsley then proceeded to present on Mechanix, an SRL project on an intelligent sketch educational application that is designed to assist civil and mechanical engineering students in learning about foundational engineering concepts of trusses and free-body diagrams from the application's automatic interpretation, understanding, and critique of the students' hand-drawn diagrams.

With Mechanix, a student can using a touch-enabled tablet or touchscreen monitor to draw their homework solutions, and Polsley and fellow Master's student Turner drew a truss example to demonstrate Mechanix's ability to automatically recognize, label, and critique the sketched input. In addition to drawing diagrams such as trusses and free-body diagrams, engineering students can also use Mechanix to input forces in any direction and subsequently calculate the value of any of its variables. Ultimately, the motivation behind the application is to enable engineering students to receive instantaneous critique and grading from completing statics homework exercises step-by-step, since students lack such personalized feedback on homeworks done on pen-and-paper for classes ranging from a hundred to a thousand students.

(The Mechanix software system)

Turner followed up the presentation on Mechanix by describing the challenges that in exist in creating such a system, including how since everyone draws in different styles and habits, the application would need to able to recognize various sketched figures regardless of drawing behavior or order. Additionally, such an application would need to be able to recognize the sketch as the student intended, and does so by using perception-based algorithms such as geometric primitives recognizer PaleoSketch that was developed by the Sketch Recognition Lab.
Polsley and Turner transitioned the presentation from Mechanix to one of SRL's more recent research work in PerSketchTivity for engineering sketching. The application enables students to gain experience and practice in three-dimensional drawing by first guiding students in focusing on building muscle memory of two-dimensional shapes like squares, lines, circles, and ellipses, and then teaches them perspective drawing using vanishing points, since both muscle memory and perspective drawing skills are crucial for improving engineering mastery, constructing blueprints, and so on. The PerSketchTivity project is a collaboration project between SRL and researchers Dr. Julie Linsey, Dr. Wayne Li, and Master's student Blake Williford.

(The Persketchtivity software system)

The SRL presentation shifted focus away from engineering sketching, with doctoral student Taele introducing SRL research projects that target other domains. Two projects that Taele briefly touched upon was prior and on-going research work in recognizing sketches made from scratching sounds made on physical surfaces and predicting the age level of a sketcher based on handwritten symbol input on tablets, respectively. Taele then transitioned to language sketching projects such as Hashigo that focus on assisting students in learning written symbols and characters in East Asian language symbols such as Chinese, Japanese, and Korean. Similar to the engineering sketch projects, students are able to receive feedback on the visual correctness of their sketched inputs, but the language sketch projects also focus on writing elements such as stroke order and direction that is important in East Asian languages.

Turner continued off from Taele's presentation on SRL's language sketch to briefly introduce another of SRL's on-going project called CourseSketch, a course management system for sketch recognition-based assignments similar to Mechanix but that generalizes to a variety of courses. One significant motivation is to enable students to go through homework exercises that require sketching and then receive instantaneous feedback. CourseSketch is currently employed in a philosophy course called Introduction to Logic at Texas A&M University to provide students with practice over drawing logic proofs.

Master's student Powell completed the invited talk with his presentation of SRL haptic research projects by first briefly describing GeoTrooper, a prior work that assists army paratroopers in navigating to waypoints using haptic feedback. Powell then described another SRL haptic research project called HaptiMoto that provides similar functionality for motorcycle navigation, which was supplemented by showcasing Discovery Daily Planet video segment (http://www..discovery.ca/Video?vid=531190) highlighting both GeoTrooper and HaptiMoto. Following the video showcase, Powell demonstrated one of the haptic vest prototypes to the audience, which uses vibrotactile sensors and a Bluetooth receiver for hands-free GPS navigation, and described the vest's usage and the progression of the vest's creation and design. Powell described the vest's navigation capabilities as originally being handled by mobile device-input setup, but were moved to a hands-free system via Bluetooth and vibrations provided on either or both shoulders on the vest for safer navigating.

With the end of Powell's presentation, the SRL members successfully completed their invited talk to the TACS audience on SRL's collection of prior and on-going research projects, and hoped that the undergraduate students gained better insight of the types of exciting research opportunities that are available to them and that take advantage of the knowledge that they learned from their computer science coursework.

(Cassandra Oduola, Trevor Nelligan, David Turner, Seth Polsley, Raniero Lara-Garduno)

IRB Workshop on Internet-based Research

On March 9, 2015, the Texas A&M University Division of Research Human Subjects Projection Program hosted an IRB Workshop on Internet-Based Research. Research involving different internet modalities – for example, social media and survey platforms – is becoming increasingly popular. The purpose of the workshop was to have researchers from various fields of study describe their experiences and strategies with IRB approved internet-based research. Dr. Hammond, Director of the Sketch Recognition Lab and Associate Professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, was one of five faculty to share their perspectives, along with Dr. Heidi Campbell (Department of Communication), Dr. Trey Marchbanks (Public Policy Research Institute), Dr. Rebecca Schlegel (Department of Psychology), and Dr. Debra Fowler (Center for Teaching Excellence).

While cold rain poured down in buckets outside, five speakers, who were chosen from a diverse background of academic areas, warmly shared their expertise about internet-based research to a small and attentive audience. The workshop was moderated by Dr. Cynthia Riccio (Department of Educational Psychology) and organized by Dr. Catherine Higgins (Human Subjects Protection Program).

Fourth in the string of five presenters, was Dr. Tracy Hammond, the director of the Sketch Recognition Lab, who began her presentation with a reference to the downpour outside. “Hopefully we’ll get lucky and survive the rain,” she joked. “I don’t know how many of you have been outside in the last half-hour, but we have flooding in the streets, so be forewarned about that.” With that, she began her presentation on, “Internet Studies and the IRB.” She started with a background of her relationship with the IRB process; "Currently I have 18 active studies, 9 pending studies that are actively undergoing revisions, and 5 studies in draft form. In the last week alone, I have received 91 emails from the IRB staff." Why so many? Hammond regularly teaches senior capstone design, resulting in a number of group projects, and has over 20 graduate advisees with their own personal research projects. Hammond says she has all students who have enrolled in a project class with her complete CITI training even if they are not certain that they will be participating in a project that requires IRB approval.

(Dr. Tracy Hammond)

“What I decided to talk about today are the non-intuitive IRB stipulations that I tell each of my graduate students when they are submitting their IRB proposals,” she smiled as she introduced her topic.

In her presentation, Dr. Hammond focused on tips and her experience with the Institutional Review Board (IRB) as well as sampling strategies. Dr. Hammond took the time to also stress the importance of the consent process. Even if the consent form is waived, consent still must be obtained (e.g., "Your participation in this project implies your consent. Click here to consent and continue.") A waiver of documentation of consent does not mean you no longer have to obtain consent, on the contrary, it just means they don't have to sign and write their name to provide consent. This is very useful if you want to collect anonymous data, in cases where the consent form would be the only personal information that would tie their identity to their data.

The IRB stamp information (IRB number, approval date, expiration data) must be included on the consent page and in all recruitment material. Any paper forms (such as fliers and consent forms) must be the exact PDF uploaded in imedris.com with the official stamp on it. Even more all forms questionnaires, recruitment scripts must be exactly the same as the one for which IRB was approved. If a typo is found in any of the material that had previously been approved by the irb, the updated version must be uploaded and approved. (Note that such changes can sometimes be approved in a single day, so there is no excuse for not doing it.)

(Sample IRB Stamp that needs to be located on all recruiting flyers, consent forms, questionnaire forms, and at the start of your internet study.)

When researching, there are multiple sampling strategies that can be implemented. The most common in internet surveys is opportunistic, which is characterized by studies that allow anyone willing to participate take the surveys. In situations where you have a control and testing group, researchers traditionally divide users in one of two ways: round robin or randomized sampling. In round robin sampling, as users come in, you simply assign them to alternating groups, e.g., first person is assigned to the control group, the next the test group, the next the control group, etc.  In random sampling, users are assigned to either the test or control group with 50% probability. With randomized sampling, your group sizes will not be perfectly equal, but they will be approximately equal, and they will be closer to equal with greater probability as the group sizes increase.

After briefly describing different platforms to conduct Internet-based research, Dr. Hammond moved on to discuss the best practices in regard to being approved by the IRB.
She emphasized that is crucial to be consistent and concise. Do not say that an experiment was conducted for 20 – 40 minutes and later state it was done over 30 minutes. While this may seem the same in an informal atmosphere, the IRB will send back projects for corrections regarding inconsistencies.

To professors and advisers, Dr. Hammond suggested starting the process early and making sure to review student’s work before submitting the IRB – make sure that it looks right and is filled out correctly. Dr. Hammond concluded her section by thanking the members of the Sketch Recognition Lab for their help and support.

One woman spoke to Dr. Hammond after her presentation, "I just submitted my IRB last week. Your talk had everything I needed to know. Now I think I need to go back and resubmit." Four others sent emails requesting a copy of the slides, including a request from a liaison from the Texas A&M IRB office for use in "presentations periodically given to faculty or graduate classes." Dr. Hammond responded that she is willing to share the slides with anyone who requests them, and she plans to put a revised version online for public consumption.

____

Dr. Heidi Campbell, an Associate Professor in the Department of Communication, started off the workshop with a presentation titled “Reflections on Digital Methods & Ethics in Internet Studies.” In her presentation, Dr. Campbell discussed the growing of new media as well as how the internet has affected religion and digital cultural studies – a topic which she has done numerous studies on.

(IDr. Heidi Campbell)

Through memes and applications that can be downloaded onto cellphones, the internet and users are able to portray and express religious preference – both in a satirical fashion and a serious. As a few examples, student A may be using the internet to connect with other people from his or her religious background and download mobile applications that allow access to holy texts. Student B may create a meme to poke fun at something that he sees as flawed in religion or an experience that he had with people of the same or different religions than he.

(Image taken from Dr. Campbell’s presentation as an example of a religious-based meme)

In regard to conducting religious and cultural studies online, Dr. Campbell stressed the importance of understanding the ethical and methodological considerations that must be accounted for. Firstly, researchers should identify and realize that content creators online function in a "prosumer" (acting as a producer and consumer simultaneously) and viral culture. This separates them from offline creators. Secondly, one must manage the data collected responsibly – know where the boundary for mobile applications and text based resources exists. Just because something is online, does not make it ethically usable to everyone. Finally, researchers must consider the difference between private and public information. In doing so, they must respect their human participants in each study and in mapping digital footprints.

____

With this information set in place, Dr. Trey Marchbanks, an Associate Research Scientist at the Public Policy Research Institute, took the battalion and ran with it. His presentation, simply titled “Online Research,” consisted of the advantages, disadvantages, and lessons learned from researching and surveying online. 

(IDr. Trey Marchbanks)

Online surveying comes with many advantages – it is cost efficient, the sample size can be as large or as small as the creator needs, and it is quick to create and send out. This instantaneous availability of online surveys allows the creator to gain much needed research information in a timely fashion – something that was nearly impossible when surveys could only be done in person or by mail.

Furthermore, with access to the internet – and by extension, the surveys conducted online – being almost limitless, the participants in studies are able to fill out their information whenever is most convenient for them (within a time frame, of course – gaining subject information after the research is concluded is not helpful). Although these advantages are important to present and future means of research, it is imperative to be aware of the disadvantages to online surveying as well.

Being that online research is digital in nature, there is always the possibility of technical difficulties. Will the survey link actually work? Will participants be able to easily fill it out? Will there be glitches that affect the outcome of the research? All of these, and more, are important questions to keep in mind when conducting Internet-based research with human subjects.

Additionally, the response rate to surveys is not that high – many people see surveys as time wasters or spam messages. Thus, responses to questions may be bias or made in a rush to finish or to make the user feel better about themselves - always take survey answers with a grain of salt. Furthermore, some people may begin the survey, only to either not finish or start answering questions at random out of non-interest. Finally, there must be some means of contacting people further for Internet-based research. It can be difficult to get accurate details about individuals.

Based on experience, Dr. Marchbanks offered the workshop valuable lessons that he has learned with online surveying. His first piece of advice was to work with the IT staff early for in-house and in-field research. Preview the survey with others before sending it to participants – pilot it to make sure that it will not be seen as spam and the results will be comparable. Always give the people involved with the survey plenty of time to respond – just because they have instant access to it does not mean that they will instantly fill it out. Finally, have an opt-out link installed. If subjects do not wish to continue or complete the survey, let them have a way out of the research – after all, they are volunteers and are willingly helping the researcher. Do not take that for granted.

____

Dr. Rebecca Schlegal, an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology, followed, discussing various ways of surveying human subject via online sources, but also stressed the good and the bad that comes based on paid surveys and research – such as Amazon Mechanical Turk. In some such research, possible participants fill out a simple and straightforward questionnaire – covering demographics such as marital status, name, age, education level, etc. This pre-survey allows the researcher to narrow the audience of their internet survey. If a person has all the traits that the researcher wants – for example, 55- to 60-years-old, married, with some college education – that person will be sent a link (or transferred to a different page) that gives access to the full survey. On the other hand, if a person does not have the traits needed to participate in the study, they will not gain access to the survey and will not be paid. 

(IDr. Rebecca Schlegal)

Places like Amazon Mechanical Turk are outlets to paid research. It allows individuals, researchers, and businesses to post HITs – Human Intelligence Tasks – that computers are currently unable to do, such as choosing between photographs or writing descriptions. Participants can browse these posted tasks and complete them for monetary payment. Payment in surveys acts as a motivator to people who may otherwise not be interested in completing research for nothing to make up their time spent on it. However, payment is low – typically between mere pennies to a dollar. It is a system of positive reinforcement for willing volunteers – a way to show gratitude while allowing the participant to walk away with something of their own. 

(Screenshot of Amazon Mechanical Turk from Dr. Hammond's presentation)

One main issue of these surveys, as Dr. Schlegal described are “super users.” Super users have made filling out Amazon Mechanical Turk their full time job. As such, they have seen many of the same classic questions over and over again on different surveys. For instance, super users have reported answering the following question on upwards of 23 surveys. 

"A hammer and a nail cost $1.10, and the hammer costs one dollar more than the nail. How much does the nail cost?"

When a user has already seen a question 23 times, you are not getting the same answer they might give otherwise. It is important to realize that the Amazon MTurk user base is not necessarily representative of the general population.

____

To finish the workshop's presentations, Dr. Debra Fowler, the Associate Director of the Center of Teaching Excellence, shifted the focus from research based on students to that based on faculty and feedback. While she described the methods she talked about as simple compared to other presentations, her expertise brought with it a new light for the subject of internet-based research. 

(Dr. Debra Fowler)

Dr. Fowler’s honed in on surveys taken by faculty and students that offer feedback and ratings – such as end of the year professor reviews. The information that is collected based on these surveys allow the Center of Teaching Excellence to better understand what changes need to be made at the university to benefit and support students and faculty alike.

While many such surveys are taken by people at Texas A&M University, Dr. Fowler also mentioned that there is research conducted from afar. Surveys are sent to outside universities that allow for professors to rate how well graduates of Texas A&M University perform in their classes. This allows for feedback that can be compared to how well students are learning their area of study while attending university. Furthermore, the collection of this data gives the Center of Teaching Excellence an idea about how well the university is serving its students and if there are any imminent changes that need to be made to better the university as a whole – thus allowing for the upkeep the reputation that Texas A&M University students are excellent workers and scholars.

Dr. Fowler concluded the afternoon of presentations with a final point that can be applied to anyone who is a part of a research team or project – the hardest part of the information and survey process to get participants to understand the importance and necessity of it. People who are not directly influenced by the research may think that it is just a time consuming process that can be ignored or that it is not worth going through trouble to fill out a survey.

For any project to move forward – regardless of the field of study or line of work it is in – true information must be gathered and carefully analyzed. While it may be impossible to thank every participant individually, researchers will always be grateful to everyone who helps them along the way.

Vijay Rajanna's Reflections of the 2015 Tapia Conference

The 2015 Richard Tapia Celebration of Diversity in Computing Conference was held over February 18 – 21 in snowy Boston, MA. Several students from the Sketch Recognition Lab, directed by Dr. Tracy Hammond, attended.

“It was very cold in Boston,” Vijay Rajanna, a second year doctoral student who attended the conference, laughed. “I had never seen snow in my life – well, I’ve seen snow, it ‘snowed’ once in College Station, but it was only for a few hours and did not stick. I really wanted to see what it was like when there were three or four inches of snow. It was really amazing. Even though it was extremely cold, I really liked it.”

  (The view of Boston, MA - courtesy of Vijay Rajanna)

The conference is named after Dr. Richard Tapia, a mathematician and professor in the Department of Computational and Applied Mathematics at Rice University in Houston. He is a nationally acknowledged leader in diversity and has given many addresses at national and international conferences.

The goal of the Tapia Conferences is to bring together the community of people involved in computing to celebrate diversity and connect with one another. The conference also serves as a way for participants to network and be inspired by presentations and conversations held there.  

“Tapia is always a fun,” Rajanna nodded as he spoke about a networking experience he had. “I got connected to a computer interface and research woman from Google – Nancy – and she cared enough to look at my resume and give feedback on what was good and what needed work. We talked about my research and she gave feedback on that, too.”

He went on to reflect and discuss how Tapia also allows for networking with people apart from experts.

“You get to bond with the students there because most of them are graduate students or working on their doctorate. So, they share their research and give you feedback on yours. There is a lot of opportunities in collaborative work.”

The theme of the 2015 conference was “Diversity at Scale.”

As quoted from the Tapia website, this theme is in celebration of the “efforts to move diversity in all aspects of computing beyond conversation and study into full practice and implementation.” 

It is important foundation of the conference to celebrate the push to diversify the field of computing and value the differing backgrounds, beliefs, and opinions that make up the larger community at whole. 

Rajanna agreed that there was importance in the connection between different areas of study and diverse opinions in regard to the computing industry and Human-Computer Interaction (HCI).

“HCI is quite wide. Computers can be anything - the sensors in phones or watches,” he explained, gesturing to his own cell phone’s screen. “If you are developing anything around that, it can be called HCI, and that can be applicable to different domains, like fashion, transport, or food processing. It all becomes HCI applications.”

While Rajanna did not present at the conference this year, he enjoyed many presentations and speeches.

He enthusiastically described two in detail and gestures.

The first was a talk given by Dr. Shaun Kane titled ‘Superhuman Computing: Designing Custom Software and Hardware Interfaces to Support Our Natural Abilities.’ In his presentation, Dr. Kane covered his lab’s recent efforts in creating more accessible technologies and aids for disabled people, ranging from vision impairment to physical disabilities. 

“They do an incredible job on incredible projects,” Rajanna concluded the first description. “It’s excellent. I really liked it.” 

The second presentation discussed was by Dr. Dilma Da Silva, the Department Head of Computer Science and Engineering at Texas A&M University. Titled ‘Challenges in Mobile Cloud Computing,’ the presentation covered a lot of information. It included discussion about technical and business aspects of Cloud that allowed it to become as revolutionary as it is today, issues the system faces, and how advancing and changing mobile devices may cause new challenges to arise for the system.  

As a family, the SRL members made sure to keep in contact and spend time with one another while at the convention. It only seemed fitting that the main way that the group kept in contact with one another when apart was through technology.

(Members of the Sketch Recognition Lab gathered for a group picture)

“We have Google Hangouts. We chatted on that all the time,” Rajanna explained. “So we decided on the presentations that we wanted to attend like that. Most of us attended most of the presentations together.”  

While in Boston and on an off-day for the Tapia Conference, Rajanna explored MIT and Dr. Hammond’s old lab out of curiosity about the labs and where the director of the Sketch Recognition Lab once worked. 

“I really wanted to visit MIT and two labs, there. One is MIT Media – a prestigious, world known lab – and MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab (MIT SCAIL),” he commented. "These are world famous labs. It was really cool.” 

Looking forward to the future of his studies and his work, there are many lessons and aids that Rajanna has taken away from the Tapia Conferences. 

“If you are attending Tapia Conferences, there are two tracks you can concentrate on,” he began. “One is where you meet all the experts and all the students that have a similar interest as you and network with them and collaborate with them. The other track is, basically, networking with the companies and research labs. So you already are in contact with all these researchers and experts. This makes it really easy to approach them once you graduate and are looking for jobs.” 

He has also obtained a feeling of positive competition from the conference. 

“If you look at other students' posters, you can see what they’ve done and where they are and where you are. You can evaluate yourself,” he concluded. “It triggers a sense of competitiveness in you. If you don’t do it by next year, someone else will do it. And that’s important and has really impacted me.”

Dr. Hammond's thoughts on the conference? "Tapia is one of my favorite conferences. It is a great networking conference, but more than that, I have seen multiple people come back transformed from their experiences there, filled with increased self confidence, efficacy, and inspirational advice for others. I always encourage all of my students to attend." 

Why didn't she attend this year? "I am really saddened that I couldn't make it this year. It is perhaps my favorite conference to attend. The sense of community is amazing."

What did she miss most? "Last year I spent hours in the lobby playing piano and singing with Armando Fox, David Patterson and Celine Latulipe. The reunion will have to wait for next year."