This collaborative project builds a digital repository of educational resources and practices shown to be effective in increasing the participation of underrepresented groups in information technology. Three collaborating institutions, the University of Colorado - Boulder, the Colorado School of Mines, and the University of California - Berkeley are developing Practices Aggregation, Infrastructure, and Retrieval Service for Broadening Participation in Computing (PAIRS) resource. The project includes technical development of the resource engine as well as data organization, a rating system, and a review process. Central to the effort is the engagement of a user community to test the usability of the PAIRS resource as well as to pilot effective uses of the resource. PAIRS is to be made available to educators and others through a variety of dissemination methods and outreach programs.
The intellectual merit of this project lies in its potential to support both the research community conducting research on increasing the participation of underrepresented groups in computing as well as to provide essential evidence to those developing intervention implementations for broadening participation. The research and review in developing the best practice materials in the resource also provide a central source of effective strategies as well as a credible, research based body of information. The project team has excellent expertise in all aspects of this project and should develop a resource for which there is a great need within the computing community into which it will be integrated.
The broader impacts of the project lie with the potential to impact many projects aimed at broadening participation and thus fundamentally play a role in increasing participation in computing. While many effective practices for increasing participation in computing exist and are available, underrepresentation persists and continues to be a major challenge to developing the diverse computing workforce needed to meet our national needs for the future. PAID develops a set of quality materials and provides access and visibility to them, thus greatly increasing the opportunities for others to choose appropriate sound resources to address broadening participation in computing.
