How to Build a Student-Centered Research Culture for the Benefit of Undergraduate Students: (Abstract Only).

There has been a dramatic increase in computer science undergraduate research activity at colleges and universities in recent years. However, developing a research culture that is explicitly designed to empower undergraduates (student-centered research) requires different models and objectives than those traditionally employed at more research-oriented universities. The goal of this BOF is to explore what effective techniques are employed by other primarily undergraduate institutions to build a culture of research that benefits undergraduate students. Some of the key issues covered in this BOF will be: defining student-centered research and its impact (How does student-centered research differ from traditional research? What secondary effects in the classroom and community might undergraduate research have?), redefining success metrics in student-centered research (How can we capture impact beyond publications and grants? How can we define measures that align with student impact?), exploring issues of accessibility and participation (How might student-centered research change models of student selection? How might it change faculty's scope and focus of research?), and structural mechanisms to empower student-centered research (Given constraints on time and/or resources, how can faculty enable undergraduate research?). Through this BOF, we also plan to build a sustainable community of interested academics leaders (using private Google+ or Facebook group) interested to share and collaborate on future undergraduate research efforts.