Computer science (CS) students’ curricula is heavily focused on technical skills, and theory that CS ethics or usability is rarely introduced in the curricula. If these topics are introduced, they are disconnected from CS. Aside from all the technical skills CS students accumulate from the undergraduate curricula, students are not aware about how systems affect users and society. The students oversee the requirements of the end user during front end design. This kind of software is created with bias - created through the perspective of a computer scientist - when the only important perspective during software design it that of the intended users. As a result, students entering the workforce are inclined to design software that is highly inequitable. There is a need for the integration of inclusive design in the undergraduate curriculum.
This research, based on the foundations of equitable design methods, investigates a new approach to teaching CS. Equitable software design is embedded into computing courses for all four years of the undergraduate CS curriculum. To avoid changes to the curriculum, this new approach is “minimally invasive”, occupying very little classroom time, instead it is integrated into the course work that is already assigned. Will this new approach improve students’ ability to design equitable software? Will this approach create an inclusive software environment among peers, will this inclusiveness reduce the percentage of students who receive a D, receive an F, or withdraw (DFW)? How and to what extend is this embedded equitable design curriculum feasible to use?