As more colleges and universities develop programs to support first-generation or low-income undergraduate Computer Science and Engineering students, retention and completion rates have empirically risen for students within such group. Despite this success, financial support for these programs has become increasingly uncertain due to the recent shift in United States government priorities, tightening of corporate coffers, and state budget shortfalls. This panel will probe the experiences of four faculty from diverse institutions regarding the fundamental components that have been successful in their programs. We aim to clarify how institutions can provide quality support to first-generation and low-income students during these trying financial times.

Computing is often perceived as abstract, e.g., writing code on screens. In contrast, fabrication (making) produces tangible artifacts. Integrating these domains creates CS+X interdisciplinary experiences that increase student interest and confidence in both computing and another field in which they have an interest. Prior work has also demonstrated how making enhances computing curriculum and how fabrication technologies attract diverse student populations, including those with disabilities. This BoF will bring together educators who are or wish to incorporate hands-on fabrication into computer science courses, particularly at introductory levels in K-12 and higher education. We aim to broaden participation by reaching students who might not otherwise engage with traditional computing instruction. BOF leaders will encourage small-group discussions on topics including: existing hands-on approaches and their outcomes, evaluation methods for fabrication components in CS courses, learning objectives these approaches support, and optimal curriculum placement (e.g., intro courses, K-12, early learners). We will collaboratively develop frameworks for implementation and assessment to better understand fabrication's impact on CS education and goals for broadening participation.

This BOF is for Computer Science Teachers Association (CSTA) chapter leaders and participants from Oregon, Washington, California, and Nevada (the CSTA Western region) to come together, explore ideas for connecting and strengthening our chapters, and discuss possible opportunities for regional cooperation across chapters, such as a western regional conference. Our goals for this BOF are to build and strengthen relationships with other chapter leaders and members, share best practices from our chapters, and scope possible areas of cooperation. We'll document our shared learnings and write up a report to be sent to all regional chapters and the CSTA leadership, with the possibility of presenting our findings at the 2024 CSTA Chapter Leadership Summit to support other regions in developing similar models of regional cooperation.

Conference presentations usually focus on successful innovations: new ideas that yield significant improvements to current practice. Yet we often learn more from failure than from success. In this panel, we present five case studies of "good ideas" for improving CS education that didn't go as planned, related to offering additional help to students. Each contributor will describe their "good idea," the situation that resulted, and wider lessons for the CS community.

Long hours, pressure to meet deadlines, lacking a sense of belonging, and fear of failure are just some of the stressors that affect Computer Science students and professionals alike, leading to burnout, anxiety, and depression. Although this issue is by no means unique to the field of computing, there is significant need for awareness and support around student mental health in the CS education community. In this timely and important session, panelists will discuss the mental health issues that affect CS students, present resources that are available to students and educators, and describe their efforts to create and foster a culture of understanding and support within their communities.

We present GitGrade, a system for accepting and automatically grading programming assignments. GitGrade allows instructors to provide coherent and timely feedback to students. GitGrade is similar to other grading platforms in that it accepts student work and allows modifiable grading rubrics. Furthermore, it is fast, extendable, can run auto grading scripts on programs, is free, and has a modern look and feel. GitGrade is built on top of the school's Gitlab instance which is used in many courses as a VC code repository as is done in industry. By integrating with Gitlab, we are able to distribute assignment starter code and specifications very easily. GitGrade has been in development since Autumn 2018, and to date it has been used to grade more than 5000 student repositories between our full-stack Web Development (CSE154) and Interaction Programming (CSE340) courses with positive feedback from graders and students. Feedback from students and course staff has since been actively incorporated to provide a workflow experience for students and instructors that is streamlined and easy to use in any programming course.

1. ABSTRACT This paper describes a shared virtual world with four key goals: a reasonable economic model; low latency for world synchronization; a hospitable environment for users; and affordances for social interaction. The first goal is supported by examining economic issues related to the design of commercially viable 3D virtual environments including issues such as allowing use of currently developed Web based content. The second goal is supported by underlying network support that combines a mixed set of Internet protocols and a mixed model of a central server for universal resource management and multicast based transaction distribution. The final two goals are supported through architectural design patterns and a literature review of social issues and personal representation in virtual worlds.