Computer science skills across China, India, Russia, and the United States.

We assess and compare computer science skills among final-year computer science undergraduates (seniors) in four major economic and political powers that produce approximately half of the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics graduates in the world. We find that seniors in the United States substantially outperform seniors in China, India, and Russia by 0.76-0.88 SDs and score comparably with seniors in elite institutions in these countries. Seniors in elite institutions in the United States further outperform seniors in elite institutions in China, India, and Russia by ∼0.85 SDs. The skills advantage of the United States is not because it has a large proportion of high-scoring international students. Finally, males score consistently but only moderately higher (0.16-0.41 SDs) than females within all four countries.

Programming course for health science as a strategy to engage students during the coronavirus pandemic.

Programming is an important skill for different areas of knowledge. While in the past, programming skills were much more related to fields of computer sciences and engineering, today, professionals from different areas benefit from the ability to write codes for different applications. Furthermore, programming stimulates logical thinking, which impacts other personal abilities. Health science students have limited exposure to programming during their studies. Aware of this and considering the prolonged time in social distancing in Brazil due to the SARS-COV2 pandemic in 2020, we organized an outreach course dedicated to teaching introductory concepts of programming for health science students. The activity was developed fully online using the Zoom web conference agent, lasting 12 wk (8 synchronous classes, 15 synchronous hours in total), and attended by 27 undergraduate and graduate students from two different universities. A collaborative problem-based learning and group-learning methodology were developed through asynchronous homework and mainly online synchronous activities. In this article, we describe our approach and provide some suggestions for replicating the course in other universities. We observed that the activities of the outreach course improved programming skills and confidence for most of the students. More importantly, it piqued their interest enough to motivate them to continue to practice writing and testing their programs. We concluded that an outreach course dedicated to programming promoted improvements in programming skills in health science students. Furthermore, the program was an opportunity to keep the students active in science while working from their homes during the pandemic.

Chemoinformatics: a perspective from an academic setting in Latin America.

This perspective discusses the current progress of a chemoinformatics group in a major university in Latin America. Three major aspects are discussed in a critical manner: research, education, and collaboration with industry and other public research networks. It is also presented an overview of the progress in applied research and development of research concepts. Efforts to teach chemoinformatics at the undergraduate and graduate levels are discussed. It is addressed how the partnership with industry and other not-for-profit research institutions not only brings additional sources of funding but, more importantly, increases the impact of the multidisciplinary work and offers the students to be exposed to other research environments. We also discuss the main perspectives and challenges that remain to be addressed in these settings.

Falling off the bandwagon? Exploring the challenges to sustained digital engagement by older people.

OBJECTIVES: This study examines older people's use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) and identifies the factors which can prevent or promote their sustained use. METHODS: A mixed methods approach was adopted. Quantitative and qualitative data were collected by a survey of 323 older ICT users (aged ≥50 years) between 2011 and 2012. These data were supplemented by qualitative data obtained through in-depth interviews, focus groups and storytelling. Quantitative data were analysed using PASW including bivariate and multivariate analyses. Qualitative data were analysed using an inductive, thematic approach. RESULTS: The findings show that, contrary to some stereotypes, many older people are enthusiastic, competent and confident users of ICTs. However, they report a range of challenges in reaching and maintaining this situation. These include technological complexity and change, age-related capability changes and a lack of learning and support mechanisms. Intrinsic motivation and social support are important in enabling older people to overcome these challenges. DISCUSSION: Getting older people online has been a high priority in many countries over the past decade. However, little attention has been paid to whether and how their usage can be sustained over time. We discuss the implications of the findings for policy and practice.

Educational technologies in health sciences libraries: teaching technology skills.

As technology rapidly changes, libraries remain go-to points for education and technology skill development. In academic health sciences libraries, trends suggest librarians provide more training on technology topics than ever before. While education and training have always been roles for librarians, providing technology training on new mobile devices and emerging systems requires class creation and training capabilities that are new to many librarians. To appeal to their users, many health sciences librarians are interested in developing technology-based classes. This column explores the question: what skills are necessary for developing and teaching technology in an academic health sciences library setting?

Improving usability and accessibility of cheminformatics tools for chemists through cyberinfrastructure and education.

Some of the latest trends in cheminformatics, computation, and the world wide web are reviewed with predictions of how these are likely to impact the field of cheminformatics in the next five years. The vision and some of the work of the Chemical Informatics and Cyberinfrastructure Collaboratory at Indiana University are described, which we base around the core concepts of e-Science and cyberinfrastructure that have proven successful in other fields. Our chemical informatics cyberinfrastructure is realized by building a flexible, generic infrastructure for cheminformatics tools and databases, exporting "best of breed" methods as easily-accessible web APIs for cheminformaticians, scientists, and researchers in other disciplines, and hosting a unique chemical informatics education program aimed at scientists and cheminformatics practitioners in academia and industry.

Working women's lifestyles and quality of life in the information society.

We investigate the lifestyles of Spanish women workers engaged in the information and communication society and analyze key indicators of lifestyle as predictors of their quality of life. In this study, 207 women aged between 19 and 54 years responded to questions related to daily activities and to a quality-of-life questionnaire. We concluded that Spanish women in this study show regular and healthy habits in diet and prevention behaviors, and we also identify important quality-of-life predicting factors in issues related to personal time management.

Interactions of construal levels on programming ability and learning satisfaction: A case study of an Arduino course for junior high school students.

Programming is one of the most crucial abilities for students in science and technology courses. Few studies on programming ability have considered the effect of students' construal levels on their learning performance. Therefore, the effects of students' construal level were explored in this study to fill this research gap and open a new avenue for the improvements in programming ability. The research participants were 110 seventh- and eighth-grade students with basic programming abilities taking an Arduino course. Data were collected from online questionnaires and analyzed using two-way analysis of variance and structural equation modeling to investigate the relationships among construal levels, programming ability, and learning satisfaction. The results revealed that students' construal levels affect their learning satisfaction and programming ability. These findings indicate that teaching strategies could effectively improve the learning satisfaction and programming ability of junior high school students.

The European computer driving licence and the use of computers by dental students.

The use of computers within the dental curriculum for students is vital for many aspects of their studies. The aim of this study was to assess how dental students who had obtained the European computer driving licence (ECDL) qualification (an internationally-recognised standard of competence) through taught courses, felt about the qualification, and how it changed their habits vis-à-vis computers, and information and communication technology. This study was carried out as a descriptive, one-off, cross-sectional survey. A questionnaire was distributed to 100 students who had successfully completed the course, with questions pertaining to the use of email, word processing and Internet for course-works, Medline for research, computer based learning, online lecture notes, and online communication with members of staff, both before and after ECDL qualification. Scaled responses were given. The attitudes of students towards the course were also assessed. The frequencies and percentage distributions of the responses to each question were analysed. It was found that dental students who follow ECDL teaching and successfully complete its requirements, seem to increase the frequency with which they use email, word processing and Internet for course works, Medline for research purposes, computer based learning, online lecture notes, and online communication with staff. Opinions about the ECDL course varied, many dental students finding the course easy, enjoying it only a little, but admitting that it improved their computer skills.

[Assessment and correction of psychophysiological features in adolescents at the information science lesions].

The adaptation of teenagers to an educational process in a computer class with the optimum hygienic parameters was studied. The modified procedure "Examinees' emotional assessment of musical tracks" was established to efficiently prevent autonomic dysfunctions and emotional disorders.

Assessment of problem solving ability in novice programmers.

Problem Solving (PS) skills allow students to handle problems within an educational context. PS is a core competence of Computer Science education and affects programming success. In this vein, this paper aims to investigate PS ability performance in primary school pupils of a computer course, implemented according to the Neo-Piagetian theory of cognitive development. The study included 945 Slovenian pupils, ranging from fourth to sixth grade. The effects of gender, age and consecutive years of attending the course were examined on pupils' PS ability at the pre-operational and concrete operational stages. Pupils completed a survey questionnaire with four types of tasks (a series of statements, if-statements, loops and variables) at both stages. The analysis revealed three findings: the performance of PS ability in all tasks was, at the pre-operational stage, associated positively with performance at the concrete operational stage; there were no gender differences in PS performance at both stages, and both the grade and consecutive year of taking the computer course had an effect on PS ability performance at both stages. Those in the lowest grade and those taking the course for the first year reported lower performances than their older counterparts. These findings may help curriculum designers across the world develop efficient approaches to teaching computer courses.

Automatically assembling a full census of an academic field.

The composition of the scientific workforce shapes the direction of scientific research, directly through the selection of questions to investigate, and indirectly through its influence on the training of future scientists. In most fields, however, complete census information is difficult to obtain, complicating efforts to study workforce dynamics and the effects of policy. This is particularly true in computer science, which lacks a single, all-encompassing directory or professional organization. A full census of computer science would serve many purposes, not the least of which is a better understanding of the trends and causes of unequal representation in computing. Previous academic census efforts have relied on narrow or biased samples, or on professional society membership rolls. A full census can be constructed directly from online departmental faculty directories, but doing so by hand is expensive and time-consuming. Here, we introduce a topical web crawler for automating the collection of faculty information from web-based department rosters, and demonstrate the resulting system on the 205 PhD-granting computer science departments in the U.S. and Canada. This method can quickly construct a complete census of the field, and achieve over 99% precision and recall. We conclude by comparing the resulting 2017 census to a hand-curated 2011 census to quantify turnover and retention in computer science, in general and for female faculty in particular, demonstrating the types of analysis made possible by automated census construction.

Crossing disciplinary boundaries in end-of-life education.

There is a tremendous need to educate professional nurses and other health care providers in the care of the dying person. Both nurses and physicians have begun to recognize the need to cross traditional disciplinary boundaries to provide the complex care required during the last human transition. This article describes the evolution of a unique interdisciplinary graduate course on end-of-life issues at Wayne State University. Using a new model centered on narrative and culture, the course focuses on the synthesis of concepts from many of the stories told by and about dying people, their families and communities, and their various caregivers. The effects of 5 years of experience with the course on students, faculty, and the university community are described, and future directions are suggested.

A multi-method approach to assessing health information systems end users' training needs.

Many existing training programs for Health Information Systems (HIS) do not adequately satisfy end users' needs nor meet training objectives. This is because they do not envisage the problems that users may encounter when performing specific tasks. Therefore the first priority for the development of an effective training program is to precisely assess the end users' training needs, a process called Training Needs Assessment (TNA). Applying traditional approaches for TNA, such as interviews or surveys alone, however, may be insufficient because they are limited in their capacity to reveal the cognitive processes of end users. Usability testing, with its ability to gather data about human computer interaction, overcomes the deficiencies of these traditional approaches. This paper proposes a multi-method approach, which combines usability testing together with traditional methods, such as interviews or questionnaire surveys to assess HIS end users' training needs. This innovative method is able to precisely reveal the training needs for different levels of HIS users. A case study, which applied this method to assess the training needs for users of a nursing information system demonstrates its feasibility.

Making health informatics competencies useful: an applied health informatics competency self-assessment system.

Years ago we undertook to define Health Informatics (HI) competencies. This effort resulted in the creation of a document that articulated HI roles, the challenges faced by HI professionals, the high-level tasks that they needed to undertake to address these challenges and the competencies (skills, knowledge, and experience) they needed to complete these tasks. Unfortunately, in so doing we created what is arguably the most boring book in history, shoes contents are very difficult to extract, use, maintain and improve. We report here the completion of a pilot of a system that we believe corrects this situation. It is a webbased tool that incorporates all of the material, from roles to detailed competencies, enabling them to be accessed and used for a variety of purposes, the most notable of which is professional self-assessment.