Communications of the ACM
DARPA-Funded Project to Spark Computer Science Education
The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) recently awarded TopCoder a contract to develop a virtual community featuring competitions and educational resources in order to boost computer science education and help middle and high school students improve their science, technology, engineering, and math skills. DARPA's Melanie Dumas says the virtual community is needed to help reverse the decline in the number of students pursuing computer science degrees, including a 70-percent reduction since 2001.
"We've seen staggeringly disappointing results as far as the U.S. population is concerned, both in terms of participation and then, once they do participate, their actual performance," says TopCoder's Robert Hughes. TopCoder will construct a virtual community focused on computer science activities, including logic puzzles and games. "The intent isn't necessarily to improve the quality of education that's out there right now, but more to attract and then retain students . . . in computer science," Hughes says.
Hughes hopes the project also will help get students interested in computer science jobs. "The lack of qualified technologists has really driven the prices [of hiring] to almost a prohibitive level, where new technology development is almost prohibitive because of the cost," Hughes says.
From eSchool News
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