CAPITAL EFFICIENCY OF FACILITIES AND EQUIPMENT

Agribusiness,

The Stack: Unplugged Activities for Teaching Computer Science

The Stack is a free open repository of learning activities for adults that illustrate computing principles without a computer. We explain the rationale behind its development, describe its content with an example, and discuss its applications in university teaching practice

Teaching Lab: Training Novice Computer Science Teachers

Student teaching assistants are not uncommon in computer science. However, their pedagogical training is often only superficial. This poster presents the Teaching Lab – a mature and fully developed training course for novice teachers (mostly undergraduate teaching assistants), its core principles, content and unique features as it evolved over five years. Our experience can be helpful to others intending to create or adjust a training program for novice teachers

Avalanche Effect in Improperly Initialized CAESAR Candidates

Cryptoprimitives rely on thorough theoretical background, but often lack basic usability features making them prone to unintentional misuse by developers. We argue that this is true even for the state-of-the-art designs. Analyzing 52 candidates of the current CAESAR competition has shown none of them have an avalanche effect in authentication tag strong enough to work properly when partially misconfigured. Although not directly decreasing their security profile, this hints at their security usability being less than perfect. Paper details available at crcs.cz/papers/memics201

Gender differences in entrepreneurship studies

The purpose of this study is to examine gender differences in entrepreneurial competencies and self-efficacy among middle school students in an entrepreneurship program. The study evaluates teamwork, innovation, marketing, feasibility, and impact skills. It also measures entrepreneurial self-efficacy pre-post program. Previous research shows that entrepreneurship is perceived as a male domain, yet girls exhibit strengths in skills like collaboration, creativity, and practical planning that predict entrepreneurial success. However, lower self-efficacy among girls undermines entrepreneurial interest despite proficiencies. Assessing multidimensional competencies beyond narrow metrics reveals overlooked potential in girls. Results of this study show that girls outperformed boys consistently across competencies, but boys had higher self-efficacy gains. This highlights the need to build broader skill sets and address biases that restrict girls from developing entrepreneurial self-concepts despite genuine capabilities. Fostering gender-inclusive learning and diverse role models can help girls translate competencies into greater self-efficacy. Providing equal skill-building opportunities and assessments capturing the full spectrum of entrepreneurial strengths is critical to tap the potential of both genders and achieve a gender-balanced entrepreneurial learning

Challenges Faced by Teaching Assistants in Computer Science Education Across Europe

Teaching assistants (TAs) are heavily used in computer science courses as a way to handle high enrollment and still being able to offer students individual tutoring and detailed assessments. TAs are themselves students who take on this additional role in parallel with their own studies at the same institution. Previous research has shown that being a TA can be challenging but has mainly been conducted on TAs from a single institution or within a single course. This paper offers a multi-institutional, multi-national perspective of challenges that TAs in computer science face. This has been done by conducting a thematic analysis of 180 reflective essays written by TAs from three institutions across Europe. The thematic analysis resulted in five main challenges: becoming a professional TA, student focused challenges, assessment, defining and using best practice, and threats to best practice. In addition, these challenges were all identified within the essays from all three institutions, indicating that the identified challenges are not particularly context-dependent. Based on these findings, we also outline implications for educators involved in TA training and coordinators of computer science courses with TAs