This Birds of a Feather session invites Black computing educators, students, and allies to contribute towards cultivating a sustainable support system for Black students and faculty in computing. Participants will share lived experiences, strategies, and challenges in navigating academic and professional spaces, especially with the current decisive, contentious political climate and its implications for the Black computer science education community. Grounded in Social Cognitive Career Theory, this session will focus on the three main tenets of this theory: self-efficacy beliefs, outcome expectations and personal goals through the presented activities. One example is the celebration of the achievements, both academic and non-academic, of all attendees. This contributes to all tenets: it addresses their self-efficacy beliefs and confidence in their ability to perform; it presents actual results addressing their outcome expectations and helps shape their goals as they see 'like' individuals achieving. The authors will foster collaborative, brainstorming, affirmative, reflective and collective exchange.

Given the underrepresentation of Black individuals in computer science education and research, this Birds-of-a-Feather (BOF) session at SIGCSE aims to foster a supportive and inclusive community for members of the Black computer science education community. By bringing together members of the community, students, faculty, and allies, we seek to create a space to celebrate achievements as well as discuss issues faced by Black individuals in the field that impact diversity, equity, and inclusion. Our goals include: 1) Creating a supportive community: Foster a sense of belonging and camaraderie among Black CS educators through witnessing a larger representation of Black computer scientists; 2) Address systemic challenges: Discuss and explore strategies to address systemic barriers and biases in computer science education; 3) Share best practices: Exchange ideas and experiences related to teaching, research, and mentorship; 4) Inspire the next generation: Acknowledge present Black CS Ed trailblazers and encourage students to pursue graduate education and careers in computer science academia. 5) Gain inspiration: Learn from the personal journeys and experiences of senior students and faculty, gaining valuable insights for perseverance in computer science; 6) Promote joining supportive Black CS communities: e.g. IAAMCS, AAPHDCSR.

This BoF session invites all that are interested in discussing the relationship between mentoring and professional socialization. We will identify common barriers to accessing mentorship and the specific challenges racial and ethnic minoritized (REM) students encounter, and contrast liberatory mentoring with "traditional" forms of mentorship. Students from REM groups often seek out same-race mentors for support; however, given the limited number of REM faculty, students from marginalized groups may encounter unique challenges in obtaining mentoring support, Attention needs to be paid on mentorship practices that create inclusive program environments that allow for successful matriculation into their programs and retention in the profession. Based on the relevant scholarship, the facilitators will afford discussions for providing liberatory mentoring practices to promote students' inclusion and retention.

This paper describes the design, implementation and evaluation of an interactive virtual human Dr. Chestr: Computerized Host Encouraging Students to Review. Game show hosts exert a unique personality that becomes the trademark of their respective game shows. Our aim is to create virtual humans that can interact naturally and spontaneously using speech, emotions and gesture. Dr. Chestr is our virtual game show host that exhibits a personality designed to increase user engagement. Dr. Chestr is designed to test users with questions about the C++ programming language and allows the user to communicate using the most natural form of interaction, speech. We present the architecture and user evaluations of the Dr. Chestr Game Show.

Manuals were designed to provide support and information about the usage and maintenance of the vehicle. In many cases user's manuals are the driver's only guidance. However, lack of clarity and efficiency of manuals lead to user dissatisfaction. In vehicles this problem is even more crucial given that driving a motor vehicle is, for many people, the most complex and potentially dangerous task they will perform during their lifetime. In this paper we present a voice interfaced driver manual that can potentially fix the deficiencies of its alternatives. In addition we aim to provide a case for the integration of such technology in a vehicle to reduce driver distraction, increase driver satisfaction, and manual usability, while also benefiting Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) in lowering costs and reducing the documentation process.

Through the influx of information content on the Internet, a number of image search methodologies have been presented and implemented to increase the accuracy of image retrieval including keywords, object classification and feature processing. Both keyword and object classification models rely heavily on human subjects, which is time-consuming and error-prone with inconsistency in word agreement. We propose two feature processing methods without human intervention. The feature collage algorithm compares images based on particular features such as color histogram whereas the feature independent algorithm considers each feature's dimension as independent contributors to the image quality. Using query-by-example, we organize images using rank aggregation methods, previously applied in text information retrieval. We show through empirical experimentation the benefits of our feature processing algorithms over traditional CBIR approaches.

As the Web's role in society increases, so to does the need for its universality. Access to the Web by all, including people with disabilities has become a requirement of Web sites as can be seen by the passing of the Americans with Disabilities Act in 1990. This universality has spilled over into other disciplines, e.g. screen readers for Web browsing; however Computer Science has not yet made significant efforts to do the same. The main focus of this research is to provide this universal access in the development of virtual learning environments, more specifically in computer programming. To facilitate this access, research into the features of dyslexia is required: what it is, how it affects a person's thought process and what changes are necessary to facilitate these effects. Also, a complete understanding of the thought process in the creation of a complete computer program is necessary.

Web based instruction is growing at an incredible rate. Teachers, instructors, trainers and several others are putting their instructional content online. The format, style and media types vary from instructor to instructor. In essence, Web based instruction is being done by an unknown number of people in an unknown number of ways, using different media types and platforms. An instruction repository is introduced that has the ability to unite all Web based instruction under one umbrella. The media types, platforms, instructors and formats will remain independent. The repository will create a new instructional model for Web based instruction.