The Colorado School of Mines proposes to pilot an intervention, called CONNECT: Creating Open Networks aNd Expanding Connections with Technology, that will help students attending the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing 2008 to develop support networks and, more importantly, to sustain those connections after the conference ends. Conference registrants choosing to participate will complete a questionnaire about their networking goals at registration; these participants will then receive a colored barcode on their badge at the conference, signaling ?Ready to Network?. Participants who meet at the conference will have the opportunity to have that interaction noted electronically. At the end of each day, participants will be sent the names and contact information for the people they networked with along with an assessment of how they are doing on their pre-meeting goals. If successful, this pilot will lead to a larger program aiming to (1) encourage attendees to reach their networking goals, (2) precipitate post-conference communication from faculty and computing professionals to undergraduate and graduate students met during the conference, (3) assist future organizers of GHC and other conferences by providing data on where/when attendees met their networking goals, and (4) evaluate the long-term realization of social networks that develop at professional conferences.
