Women in Tech Need Outreach and Retention To Increase Numbers and Counteract Unwelcoming Culture

Director Dr. Jan Plane launching the
 Center for Women in Computing
Source: The Diamondback

Women are greatly outnumbered by men in the technology field, where the jobs require diverse and creative thought, and that needs to change in order to keep pushing the field forward. To increase the number of women in tech, schools need to introduce girls and women to computer science and support the women who are currently in the major. Growing the number of women in tech through outreach and retention will help change the culture that currently drives them away.

Women in Tech Need to Reach Back to the Next Generation

Increasing outreach is an important goal at the University of Maryland, where only 14 percent of students enrolled as computer science majors in the 2014 fall semester were women. Director of the Center for Women in Computing, Dr. Jan Plane, highlights the need for women in technology to reach back to the next generation to build up the community of women.

She talks about the need for a constant cycle of reaching back in order for the number of women in the field to actually grow. One of the university's solutions to this gender inequality is its participation in the Building Recruiting And Inclusion for Diversity (BRAID) initiative which funds programs that help recruit women and minorities to the field.

One outreach program is Computer Science Connect, which teaches middle school girls how to code. At the launch of the Center for Women in Computing, these girls showcased their projects and their new skills in programming. This is a strong example of how university students are introducing more girls to field of computer science by reaching back.

One retention program that is being created at the university is a group for female students in the introductory computer science course, CMSC131. Many young women are suddenly struck by the fact that there are very few students like them in their first major class, one that is challenging and requires support from peers. Dr. Jan says the group will provide support for these women and help them if they are struggling.

There are Few Women in the Tech Field Because of Its Culture

Source : Department for Professional
Employees

Statistics for Women in Professional Occupations in 2014 show that only 26 percent of workers in computing are women. This is in contrast to other fields such as business and life sciences, where the number of women is close to half. To explain this low number of women in the working as computer scientists, we have to look towards the culture of the current tech field.

According to Fortune's article on Why The Tech Culture Drives Women to Leave, over a quarter of the women 716 women surveyed experienced discomfort in their work environment. When women are the minority, they are more likely to experience more discrimination and feel like they don't fit in.

Only 3 percent stated they would like to return to the field although they almost all stated they enjoyed the work. This isolates the work environment as the reason why they left. Working in a place run by men that doesn't support a women's need for flexibility as a mother was definitely a factor for many women who decided to leave.

The first step to solving this culture problem is to fix the "broken pipeline", which causes the gender discrepancy in the first place. The pipeline is the stream of women entering the tech field, which is fueled by the number of female computer science graduates. This is in turn supplied by the number of girls interested in computing as a good career choice, which sits at a low 9 percent, hence the broken pipeline.

The outreach and retention programs like those at the University of Maryland are helping solve the pipeline problem. Increasing the volume of females interested in computer science will create a larger pool of future women working in the field. Organizations like the Association of Women in Computing (AWC) at Maryland  also help support women in the major and prevent them from feeling forgotten and falling through the cracks. Overall, increasing diversity will create a more welcoming and open culture that will benefit both the women and men in the field.

Interviewing Ramiz4 About JOUR289i

Learning About University Judiciary Trends

JOUR289i student talks about what she's been learning from her final project research.
 Need to practice:

• Louder audio
• Asking the interviewee to face towards the empty space

Tumblr Utilizes All Four P-I-C-K Elements with a Personalized, Interactive Dashboard

Tumblr is a micro-blogging site that demonstrates all four P-I-C-K model components with personalized post and blog suggestions, interaction with the community through the dashboard, contiguous multi-media posts, and no advertisements or re-direction kick-outs. The social media site engages its users through each of these elements, keeping them on the site with a personalized dashboard and easy interaction with other users.


Personalized Post and Blog Suggestions Based on Your Interests

You customize your Tumblr dashboard by following different blogs and their post streams, and Tumblr’s dashboard page personalizes it to add in other posts that you might like based on the blogs you follow and posts you like. They also recommend new blogs for you to follow based on who you already follow.

In addition, Tumblr will notify you specifically when someone you follow has reblogged one of your posts. It makes your experience very personal, addressing "you" in a way that makes your dashboard feel like your home.

Interact with Tumblr Community Through Your Dashboard Posts

Each post on the dashboard can be liked, reblogged onto your own blog, or shared elsewhere. When you reblog a post, you can also add your own comments, attachments, and tags. This becomes a form of communication with other users through reblogging and adding comments in a conversation.

Interaction with other users who commented on a drawing and added their own drawing.

You may also tag your posts with hashtags that make them public to a stream of all posts with that tag, which is how you interact with a certain "fandom" of people who all like a particular show or artist. You can search for an track a certain tag that you like to receive posts from that tag and interact with new blogs that you don't necessarily follow.

Contiguous Posts with Integrated Media through User Coordination
Tumblr is also very coherent in that each media post can contain text and embedded images or animation within a post in a multimedia format that engages the user with interesting content. It is contiguous because the words and pictures are coordinated simultaneously to be read in integrated chunks, but this is the least strong of the P-I-C-K elements because it must be coordinated by the creator of the post. A feature that would improve the contiguity is to make a post format that is specific for a text-picture-text-picture format. Below is an example of a contiguous post with broken downs points integrating animated celebrity quotes to support the paragraphs.

No Advertisements and Few Outside Content Re-Direction Kick-Outs
Lastly, there are close to zero kick-outs on Tumblr with no sponsored posts or advertisements on the dashboard and very few re-directs to content outside of Tumblr. The only content they show is the ones that you pick for yourself or the ones that they accurately personalize for you. Even when viewing another blog, Tumblr has implemented a feature to preview it on the side of your dashboard without opening another window, allowing you to return back to where you were on the dashboard. You can scroll down the dashboard infinitely without having to leave.

UMD Geologist Lekic Wins Packard Award for Ground Vibration Research

(1) Important News
In recognition of Vedric Lekic’s efforts to integrate computer science and geological studies, Lekic joined the ranks of 17 other early career U.S. scientists and engineers who were awarded a Packard Fellowship for Science and Engineering last week.

(4) Important News
Lekic is now one of five alumni faculty members who have received the award while at this university, and he will be given access to unrestricted funds of $875,000 over a five-year period to support his extensive research on Earth’s inner structure.

(10) Important News
Lekic’s research is based on ground vibration recordings, which he and his students use to detect the scattering of seismic waves across the North American tectonic plate. In conjunction with the National Science Foundation’s EarthScope Facility network, the data is collected from the 49 states and Puerto Rico and makes up about 3.8 million square miles, Lekic said.

(16) Important News
“We are both interested in the energy that moves the tectonic plates and creates the magnetic shield around the planet,” geology professor William McDonough said.

(17) Important News
Lekic and McDonough are attempting to harness that energy to create another way to build a model of the Earth.

(13) Explanation
“What we do is comparable to how an ultrasound let’s us see through our bodies,” Lekic said. “But this lets us see through the Earth.”

Seismic Wave Recordings Used to Make Map of Earth's Layers

(7) Explanation
Nearly 2 million data lines fill the screen of Vedran Lekic’s computer every day, each representing seismic waves that are detected from of the more than 1,700 seismic stations around the U.S.

(5) Explanation
From this data, Lekic is creating a map that will not only cover all 48 contiguous states, Alaska and Puerto Rico, but also dive deep into the Earth’s crust and core.

(2) Explanation
Lekic has already used the seismic information to investigate why and how the crust moves over the Earth’s mantle. As of now, the deepest any machine has been able to dig was about 12 kilometers into the Earth’s crust, a minuscle fracture of the roughly 6,730 kilometers it takes to get to the Earth’s core. Using the seismic information helps geologists see the shapes and sizes of the Earth’s layers.

Lekic Has Won Other Awards for Prior Geology Research

(15) Background
Now that a large fund has been granted to his work, he hopes to spend more time plotting the seismic information in graphs and models so that he may better understand the Earth, Lekic said.

(9) Background
“The great thing about this fellowship is its flexibility to go chase a really good idea to wherever it leads,” said Orr, a Stanford University professor.

(14) Background
Lekic has received several other early career awards besides the Packard Fellowship.

(18) Background
As a doctoral student at the University of California, Berkley, Lekic formulated higher-resolution images of the Earth’s mantle structure, stemming from his creation of a global seismic velocity model. Not only is the model able to give geologists a better understanding of plate tectonics, but it also helps explain the movement of continental plates and their evolution, Lekic said.

Lekic's Research Interests Expand to New Type of Particle

(3) Related News
Other than his seismology research contributions, Lekic is also a forerunner in the new geological field of neutrino geoscience.

(6) Related News
Neutrinos are a type of electrically neutral subatomic particle that are created during radioactive decay or some kinds of nuclear reactions. The particle, which was only discovered geologically in 2005 and physically detected for the first time last year, moves through every kind of object, McDonough said.

(11) Related News
“It sounds magical; it’s like a particle that exists but you can’t really see,” Lekic said of neutrinos.

If you're interested in more information about geology and seismology, look at this site with animated faults and seismic waves.

Daily Diet Soda Consumption Leads to a Higher Risk of Type 2 Diabetes

Daily Diet Soda Drinkers at Higher Risk of Type 2 Diabetes

Daily consumers of diet soda are over 3.5% more likely to have type 2 diabetes than those who rarely or never drink diet soda. The risk factor for type 2 diabetes was 67% greater for daily consumers over nonconsumers of the same demographic in the study Diet Soda Intake and Risk of Incident Metabolic Syndrome and Type 2 Diabetes in the Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis. In addition, the risk of metabolic syndrome was 36% greater for people consuming more than 1 serving of diet soda a day. The link between diet soda and risk for type 2 diabetes was stronger than the link between diet soda and metabolic syndrome. 

Diet soda was associated with a high fasting glucose and high waist circumference. However, the association could also be due to weight gain and general overconsumption. In addition, those drinking diet soda may be biased to be heavier because of an effort to actually lose weight, hence, consumption of the diet version. Overall, the study suggests that its findings represent a connection between diet soda consumption and type 2 diabetes, with weight gain, impaired glucose control, and poor dietary behaviors as other possible effects.

2014 Marks an Increasing Amount of News Consumption on Mobile Devices and Social Media

Jacqueline15 and Susann48 According to the Reuters Institute Digital News Report, there's an increase in news consumption through mobile devices and social media in 2014. The UK and the US show similar trends in app and device usage.
News Apps Usage Is Increasing Compared to News in the Browser in the UK and US

The US and UK have similar habits in their use of news apps to access news. Almost 50% of smartphone users in the UK use news apps to access their news, which has risen compared to access on mobile browsers. In general, 16% of UK users use news apps, which is similar to 15% of users in the US. The rise of news apps, despite news organizations optimizing their sites for mobile browsing, may be due to the increase in Apple phones in the UK, which favor using apps over browsing.

Similar Mobile Device Usage for News in the UK and US

This trend between the 2 countries continues in their device usage, though the UK seems to be changing at a faster rate. Both the US and the UK showed an increase in using a smartphone for news, currently at 31% and 33% respectively. However, tablet use increased 7% over the last year in the UK compared to an increase of 3% in the US. In addition, the percentage of people in the UK who only use 1 device for news dropped 5% to 49%, while the percentage for the US dropped only 1% to 55%. The 2 countries have similar usage, but the UK shows slightly more diverse device usage in 2014.

Facebook and Other Social Media Are Used to Spread National and Local News

In the US, news is spread using social networks such as Facebook. In this Powerpoint, we can see how social network sites are used to share news in the US and in various countries in general. In all cases, around 35% of people use Facebook to share news. In the US, Yahoo is one of the most popular brands used to access news online, with the second most popular being local news sites. Overall, people have the highest interest in and consume the most national news. As for local news, there is a high level of interest, but a significantly lower consumption rate.

Mobile Device Users Still Use Other News Sources Often

Despite smartphone and tablet users using news apps and social media for their news, a whopping 84% still use TV News as another news source. In addition, around 40% still read newspapers, and around 35-40% still listen to radio news. Mobile devices have not taken over our news consumption yet, although they have added another device that news can be accessed on.