Cornell has been awarded nearly $600,000 by the National Science Foundation (NSF) for an innovative program to attract more people to computing careers. The project, "Worlds for Information Technology and Science" (WITS), will create a "virtual world" called CYCentr/CYFair (for "Cyber Youth") and a new undergraduate course, Computing in Context, in which noncomputer majors will learn computer skills and then become mentors to middle school students meeting in the virtual world.

The effort is a demonstration project in NSF's Broadening Participation in Computing program, which aims to increase the number of U.S. citizens and permanent residents receiving postsecondary degrees in the computing disciplines, with an initial emphasis on attracting women, underrepresented minorities and persons with disabilities.

"This grant will help us to not only attract Cornell students into computing but also will serve to build awareness of and excitement for computing in secondary schools," said David Gries, professor of computer science and associate dean for undergraduate programs in the College of Engineering, who will direct the program with Margaret Corbit, outreach manager for Cornell Theory Center (CTC). "At the same time, we will be learning about what does and does not work in teaching computing at these levels."

Like some 50 other "service learning" courses at Cornell, the Computing in Context course will combine classroom work with community service. Service learning has been shown to appeal to higher percentages of women and minorities, so the expectation is to involve these students at the college level.

CYCentr/CYFair will emulate CTC's SciCentr/SciFair outreach program, which uses online virtual worlds to teach science. CYCentr/CYFair will focus on computing and information science. In virtual worlds, the computer screen becomes a window into a three-dimensional environment in which participants are represented by figures called avatars that can move around and interact one-on-one or in groups, conversing via text messages and voice transmitted over the computer network. CYCentr will contain worlds created by Cornell to present learning experiences; in the CYFair environment, the middle school students will create their own interactive galleries and game-based experiences. The virtual world interface includes a Web browser, allowing participants to view Web sites together.

The Cornell students will learn about the Internet, user interfaces and other technologies, then meet in the virtual worlds with students in after-school programs at several regional schools.

"Kids use the Internet all the time," Corbit explained, "but they don't know what it is." Among other projects, mentors will show students how to use the Wayback Machine at the Internet Archive, which displays snapshots of current Web pages as they looked in the past.

Meanwhile, experimental programs based on the same program content will be launched at Pennsylvania State University, Virginia Commonwealth University and the San Diego Supercomputing Center.

"We want to see whether the program can be adapted to different settings," Corbit said. Rather than developing a course, for example, Penn State will draw volunteer mentors from its Women in Information Science and Technology club.

Evaluation of the project will be led by Jennifer Wofford, assistant dean of Computing and Information Science at Cornell. "Although WITS will focus on underrepresented groups, this project holds the promise of improving research, education and outreach for all students in computing," said Wofford.