Ann Gates | University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP) (original) (raw)

Papers by Ann Gates

International Journal of Software Engineering and Knowledge Engineering, Feb 1, 2007

2019 IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference (FIE)

We describe reforms to a highly engaging algorithm-centric introductory course in media programmi... more We describe reforms to a highly engaging algorithm-centric introductory course in media programming offered to pre-engineering students at the University of Texas at El Paso, an urban Hispanic-serving institution (HSI) as part of a required entering students program. In order to become eligible to attend the introductory programming course that begins the computer science degree plan at UTEP (“CS-1”), a large fraction of incoming freshmen must attend several semesters of preparatory “pre calculus” math courses. Most of these students will have limited if any prior exposure to programming or engineering. The initial implementation of our course was intended solely to provide an engaging first experience with programming, and followed Mark Guzdial’s “Media Computation” curriculum. Dr. Guzdial’s curriculum has successfully engaged Liberal Arts students in programming through the creation of aesthetically motivated multimedia projects. Attendees in pre-engineering and pre-professional p...

2018 Research on Equity and Sustained Participation in Engineering, Computing, and Technology (RESPECT), 2018

Proceedings of the 51st ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education, 2020

By 2026, the number of computing-related job openings in the US are expected to reach 3.5 million... more By 2026, the number of computing-related job openings in the US are expected to reach 3.5 million [1]. Yet even with an enrollment booming in many 4-year college computing programs, institutions of higher education have been unable to produce enough graduates to meet this growing demand. In addition, women and racial/ethnic minority students continue to be underrepresented in computing majors further reducing the potential computing workforce. Community colleges, because of their mission to serve their local communities, tend to have more diverse student populations. Yet, to date, they have not been considered a critical partner in the conversation on broadening participation in computing (BPC). To fill this gap, universities and community colleges need to work more collaboratively to bridge the workforce and diversity gaps [2]. In this BOF, participants will discuss strategies and resources for community colleges to participate more fully in the BPC community. Topics may include pathways from community colleges to 4-year computing programs, improving institutional culture to support advancement, providing role models so that students are encouraged to see themselves in computing, and strategies to recruit, retain, and motivate diverse students.

Proceedings of the 16th ACM/IEEE-CS on Joint Conference on Digital Libraries, 2016

Proceedings - Frontiers in Education Conference

FIE'99 Frontiers in Education. 29th Annual Frontiers in Education Conference. Designing the Future of Science and Engineering Education. Conference Proceedings (IEEE Cat. No.99CH37011

Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 2007

Productive design of scientific workflows often depends on the effectiveness of the communication... more Productive design of scientific workflows often depends on the effectiveness of the communication between the discipline domain experts and computer scientists, including their ability to share their specific needs in the design of the workflow. Discipline domain experts and computer scientists, however, tend to have distinct needs for designing workflows including terminology, level of abstraction, workflow aspects that should be included in the design. This paper discusses the use of a Model-Based Workflow (MBW) ...

International Journal of Software Engineering and Knowledge Engineering, 2007

This paper presents an approach to support run-time verification of software systems that combine... more This paper presents an approach to support run-time verification of software systems that combines two existing tools, Prospec and Java-MaC, into a single framework. Prospec can be used to clarify natural language specifications for sequential, concurrent, and nondeterministic behavior. In addition, Prospec assists the user in reading, writing, and understanding formal specifications through the use of property patterns and visual abstractions. Prospec automatically generates specifications written in Future Interval Logic (FIL). Java-MaC monitors Java programs at runtime to ensure adherence to a set of formally specified properties. Safety properties of a program are specified in the formal language Meta-Event Definition Language (MEDL). Java-MaC generates runtime components from specifications. The components are used to instrument the target program and determine whether the execution of the program violates any of the safety properties. This paper describes an algorithm for tran...

2020 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access Proceedings

Dr. Villa received her doctoral degree in curriculum and instruction from New Mexico State Univer... more Dr. Villa received her doctoral degree in curriculum and instruction from New Mexico State University; she received a Master of Science degree in Computer Science and a Master of Arts in Education from UTEP. She has led and co-led numerous grants from corporate foundations and state and federal agencies, and has numerous publications in refereed journals and edited books. Her research interests include communities of practice, gender, transformative learning, and identity.

2009 Annual Conference & Exposition Proceedings

The difficulty of writing, reading, and understanding formal specifications remains one of the ma... more The difficulty of writing, reading, and understanding formal specifications remains one of the main obstacles in adopting formal verification techniques such as model checking, theorem and runtime verification. In order to train a future workforce that can develop and test high-assurance systems, it is essential to introduce undergraduate students in computer science and software engineering to the concepts in formal methods. This paper presents an experiment that we used to validate the effectiveness of a new approach that can be used in an undergraduate course to teach formal approaches and languages. The paper presents study that was conducted at two institutions to compare the new approach with the traditional one in teaching formal specifications. The new approach uses a model checker and a specification tool to teach Linear Temporal Logic (LTL), a specification language that is widely used in a variety of verification tools.

For the United States to maintain its historic preeminence in the fields of Computing, Science, T... more For the United States to maintain its historic preeminence in the fields of Computing, Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (C-STEM)-it must produce, over the next decade, one million more STEM professionals (PCAST, 2012). According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, fewer than a third of the 1.4 million computing-related job openings expected by 2022 could be filled by U.S. computing graduates (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2013). This shortage can be addressed by investing in the recruitment, retention, and advancement of Hispanics/Latinos 1 in C-STEM. In spite of Hispanics being the nation's largest minority group and among its fastest growing populations, Hispanic representation in higher education remains low. While the college enrollment and graduation rate for Hispanics has increased over the last ten years, the number of Hispanics in professional STEM positions is still abysmal-Hispanics comprise only 5% of the professional workforce according to the Excelencia in Education's 2015 report, Finding Your Workforce: Latinos in STEM (Santiago, Taylor & Galdeano, 2015). In order to thrive-and even survive-in the globalized marketplace of ideas and innovation, the U.S. must aggressively meet the challenge of increasing the number of students who complete degrees in computing areas. It is critical for our economic and social health that we maintain a globally competitive computing workforce and expand our engagement of Hispanics.

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition Proceedings

Software verification is one of the most important activities in the software development cycle, ... more Software verification is one of the most important activities in the software development cycle, and testing remains the most common approach to verification used in industry. The goal of blackbox testing (functional testing) is to verify the system's adherence to specifications. The notion of patterns and scopes developed by Dwyer et al. provides a cohesive and rich set of examples to teach black-box testing strategies. A pattern describes a recurring software property, and a scope specifies the interval of program execution where a pattern must hold. A property specified using a pattern and scope combination has characteristics that must be satisfied if it is to hold. Based on these characteristics, there is a large set of behaviors that can be examined using black-box testing techniques. In a complementary fashion, the behaviors specified by patterns and scopes provide clear and simple examples that can enhance the understanding of these testing techniques. In this paper, we describe an approach and present general lessons and exercises that demonstrate how patterns and scopes can be used to teach boundary value analysis and equivalence class testing, which are two of the most commonly used black-box testing techniques. As a side effect of this approach, students are exposed to, and become familiar with, formally specifying system behavior.