Despite rapid investment in generative AI across higher education, how instructors create, evaluate, and implement course-specific AI tutors remain empirically underexplored, highlighting critical tensions between institutional adoption and instructional practices. Drawing on interviews with 20 instructors, teaching assistants, and instructional designers at a large U.S. research university, we examine how participants engaged with a university-wide platform for creating course-specific AI tutors. Our findings reveal how instructors’ epistemic beliefs and pedagogical orientations shaped their perceptions of appropriate and inappropriate AI uses, as well as how instructional challenges motivated tutor creation across disciplines, class sizes, and course levels. We also identified three key patterns in instructor evaluation of course-specific AI tutors, along with the pedagogical, technical, and ethical implementation challenges they faced. We contribute timely insights to inform research, platform development, and institutional policy toward the responsible and scalable integration of course-specific AI tutors in higher education.

As chatbots powered by artificial intelligence (AI) become increasingly integrated into the daily lives of older adults, it is essential to identify which interfaces best support their interaction preferences.Older adults are a diverse group with varying digital competencies and preferences.This research aims to inform the design of AI interfaces that accommodate this range of needs.We examine how three different chatbot interfaces, text-based, avatar-based, and call-based, affect older adults' perceptions of ease of use, accessibility, and reliability.Using a between-subjects experimental design, 101 participants were randomly assigned to interact with "Sally, " a generative AI (GenAI) chatbot, through one of the three interfaces, each delivering the same interaction flow.Analyses showed that the avatar-based interface yielded the highest perceived reliability, ease of use, and accessibility, based on changes in participants' pre-and post-survey responses.These findings suggest that avatar-based chatbots may offer a more trustworthy and user-friendly experience for older adults. CCS Concepts• Human-centered computing → Empirical studies in HCI; User interface design; • Social and professional topics → Seniors.

A key problem in achieving access to and sustained presence in computing and computing education (CEd) in the United States is environments that are all too often designed in ways that are harmful and inequitable toward systemically minoritized communities. While various scholars have explored ways to design equitable spaces within differing contexts, often, equity is framed merely as an issue of access. This dismisses the lived experiences of minoritized communities and can lead to shallow perspectives of equity that fail to address community concerns and further push these communities out of sustained participation and presence in computing and CEd. Drawing from a critical and abolitionist lens, we argue that equitable spaces must nurture community: where healing, joy, and care are centered, and participants can bring their full selves into the space. In this experience report, we present three case narratives highlighting the spaces we designed to build community. The case narratives describe: (1) conference workshops on centering equity in CEd, (2) a workshop series enabling marginalized people to share stories of their experiences in CEd, and (3) a podcast inviting voices from varied contexts, experiences, and backgrounds to share their stories and perspectives on themes related to equity within CEd. The case narratives point to the value of designing spaces that go beyond granting access, emphasizing spaces that nurture community. Our approach fostered a sense of comfort, mutual trust, and the bravery to (re)imagine other possibilities, empowering participants to discuss issues of equity within the spaces they occupy.

Ridesharing services have become a popular mode of transportation that holds significant benefits for people with disabilities unable to operate conventional motor vehicles. Prior work shows how these services enable people with vision impairments to travel independently without the use of public transportation or walking. We conducted a study in which we observed 17 blind or visually impaired participants using the Uber ridesharing service to explore the social and accessibility dynamics they perceived during their experiences. This paper presents a case study of the process used for our research, reflecting on aspects that considerably impacted the study. Key takeaways include study site considerations, recruiting participants, balancing realism with participant safety, and the unintended side effects of observations in a ridesharing context. The reflection points provided will help readers in considering important study aspects when conducting observations with participants with disabilities, particularly in a ridesharing setting.

Accessibility is a topic that is recognized as increasingly important in both industry and academia. In industry, there is a growing awareness of the importance of designing technologies that provide an optimal user experience regardless of the user's ability or impairment. At the university level, this awareness of the need for accessibility minded future technologists has encouraged the incorporation of accessibility and inclusive design content into a wide range of computer science and related courses. Despite this growing awareness, the actual process of teaching students about the needs and perspectives of persons with disabilities remains challenging. Within this paper we report on our experience teaching a graduate course on inclusive design with a specific focus on our experience incorporating a participatory design (PD) activity involving older adults as the course's concluding design activity. While students responded favorably to much of the course's content, learning was enhanced through the design activity which mirrored a real-world project and included three older adult (80+) co-designers. Despite the benefits of PD, students were at times overwhelmed by the workload and the logistical difficulties of working within a remote participatory design process. We believe that a review of our experience and student reflections may prove beneficial to those similarly teaching inclusive design and accessibility.

As the computing job market continues to expand, the demand for eligible professionals to fill open positions has increased. In response, diversity efforts seek to broaden the participation of underrepresented populations in computing. This movement towards broadening participation includes blind or visually impaired (BVI) people who, historically, have faced barriers in succeeding in a primarily visually-oriented field. The present literature has examined modifying current tools for greater accessibility for BVI people and developing new, more inclusive learning environments. We argue, however, for additional investigation into the accessibility of computing education from the lens of instructors who teach computing to BVI students. Our paper reports on findings from interviews investigating the learning experience of BVI students in computer science courses from the perspective of teachers of the visually impaired (TVI). We interviewed K12 TVIs regarding their experience teaching students how to code, preparing lectures to accommodate their students' needs, and the resources they believe are necessary to help teachers provide more accessible instruction to the students. Our findings revealed that despite the recent improvements to increase accessibility in K12 computer science curricula, challenges still exist regarding the technology used by BVI students and the lack of accessible learning materials available to teachers. Additionally, our participants offer suggestions of resources to help K12 teachers in providing more accessible instruction to their students. The findings may benefit those interested in improving accessibility in computing education for students with disabilities.

Systems of power - such as structural racism, a system that upholds the ideology of white supremacy - are invisible and permeate our everyday lives and un/intentionally into our research. As these systems influence what counts as 'successful' work, CSEd researchers often have to assimilate ('whiten') themselves and their work into dominant ideals that uphold these structures. This workshop brings together aspiring and early-career CSEd researchers to critically examine and unpack the impacts of systems of power on ourselves and our research practices. Such examination is necessary to strive towards a critical consciousness in the field. We investigate critical questions like the following: What are systems of power? Who has the right to participate? Who has the right to exclude? We will use group-based activities that center historicities and 'outsider' knowledge to examine CSEd research practices and theories to answer these questions. We will draft a set of guidelines and recommendations available to the broader CSEd research community from the discussions and activities.

Self-driving vehicles have been described as one of the most significant advances in personal mobility of the past century. By minimizing the role of arguably error-prone human drivers, self-driving vehicles are heralded for improving traffic safety. Primarily driven by the technology’s potential impact, there is a rapidly evolving body of literature focused on consumer preferences. Missing, we argue, are studies that explore the needs and design preferences of older adults (60+). This is a significant knowledge gap, given the disproportionate impact that self-driving vehicles may have concerning personal mobility for older adults who are unable or unwilling to drive. Within this paper, we explore the design and interaction preferences of older adults through a series of enactment-based design sessions. This work contributes insights into the needs of older adults, which may prove critical if equal access to emerging self-driving technologies are to be realized.

The rapid rise and ubiquity of computing has led to tremendous growth in the field of software development; growth that has outpaced society's ability to fill available positions. The gap between this large number of openings and the decidedly smaller pool of qualified candidates available to fill them has created opportunities for individuals from non-traditional backgrounds to pursue careers in software development. Due to the nature of their disability, blind and low vision persons have not to date been heavily pursued as candidates for software development positions given the arguably visually demanding nature of the practice. As such, we argue, there are significant knowledge gaps as it pertains to how visual impairment may impact a developer's contribution to a software development team. To explore this issue we interviewed 11 visually impaired software developers about their experiences. Our findings suggest that workplace dynamics, project management practices, and tool accessibility are among the most significant challenges for these developers. We argue that this work furthers the understanding of visually impaired software developers which contributes to the movement towards accessible workplace environments and employment equity in software development.

Fully autonomous or "self-driving" vehicles are an emerging technology that may hold significant mobility potential for both disabled persons and for older adults unable to operate a conventional motor vehicle. It can be argued, however, that the needs, preferences and concerns of older adults and disabled persons regarding this technology have been insufficiently explored. Using focus group methodology, this study explores the sentiments of 39 older adults (55+) regarding self driving vehicle technology. Discussions from the focus groups revealed that although participants believed that self-driving vehicles can enhance their mobility and independence, they were concerned about their reliability and safety. Participants expressed additional concerns regarding their ability to purchase such a vehicle and the training required to operate it. Opinions were mixed regarding the consideration of older adults in the design of the technology.

Computing is not only a fundamental part of our daily lives - our national security depends on it. It is essential that members of the Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) be well-versed in computing techniques designed to combat cyber-attacks that continually improve in sophistication and frequency levels. Through computer science education, prospective military leaders are being taught the critical and analytical thinking skills necessary to address these threats. This paper outlines and discusses how underrepresented minority Naval Reserve Officer Training Corps (NROTC) midshipmen, with the majority having little-to-no programming skills or background, were taught the foundational aspects of computer science and exposed to specific cybersecurity concepts in a 15-week program. The program produced many insightful outcomes, one being the development of a tool that collected and analyzed publicly available social media data through the application of data mining algorithms and techniques. Additionally, interviews, which were conducted upon the completion of the program, documented notable findings on the program's effectiveness and on key concepts for teaching computer science to minority beginners.