Literature on women in computing points out that computer science is not being effective at attracting and retaining women. Introduction to Media Computation is a new CS1 aimed especially at non-majors which was designed explicitly to address the concerns of women in computer science, such as the lack of relevance and creativity. The course is contextualized around the theme of manipulating and creating media. Of the 121 students who took the course (2/3 female), only three students dropped (all male), and 89% completed the course with a grade C or better. This paper presents data from interviews with women in the Media Computation class, then contrasts with interviews in a more traditional CS1.

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Literature on women in computing points out that computer science is not being effective at attracting and retaining women. Introduction to Media Computation is a new CS1 aimed especially at non-majors which was designed explicitly to address the concerns of women in computer science , such as the lack of relevance and creativity. The course is contextualized around the theme of manipulating and creating media. Of the 121 students who took the course (2/3 female), only three students dropped (all male), and 89% completed the course with a grade C or better. This paper presents data from interviews with women in the Media Computation class, then contrasts with interviews in a more traditional CS1.

Academic librarians need reliable information on the needs of faculty teaching undergraduates about seeking and using information. This study describes information gathered from semistructured interviews of teaching faculty in the sciences from several Boston-area colleges. The interview results provided insight into science faculty attitudes toward student research skill and ability. Faculty articulated what they wanted from students seeking research articles, including finding where the gaps were. They described their concerns about threats to research integrity including conflicts of interest and Open Access publishing. Study results will prove useful for librarians trying to better serve the needs of their science faculty.In a recent lecture, Paul Sturges recounted a story about the gap between perception and user needs, which inspired this study. A development organization in Zimbabwe created toilets for a village; returning to the village some time later, they discovered they had been converted to grain stores.1 The development experts perceived a need for toilets, but the villagers needed grain stores, an error easily avoided by asking users about their needs. Instruction librarians sometimes make the same type of error. Librarians can approach information literacy instruction with their own perception of the type of instruction the students need without fully understanding the needs of faculty or students in the discipline. Additional information about what faculty expect from instruction will assist librarians in providing students with disciplineappropriate instruction.Information literacy (IL) is viewed as an essential skill for college students; it is defined as "a set of abilities requiring individuals to recognize when information is needed and have the ability to locate, evaluate and use effectively the needed information."2 The IL competencies can be seen as generic skills, consistent across disciples or specific skills within a disciplinary lens. The standards themselves use both the language of universality and discipline specificity.3 While the best way to achieve IL competency for students is through collaboration between disciplinary faculty and librarians, collaboration is not always seen in all situations. 4 The Association of College and Research Libraries has recently developed the Frameworks for Information Literacy