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The benefits of service learning in computer and information science (CIS) are believed to be significant, ranging from providing students with real-world experiences to retaining students to positively impacting community partners. Although there are many benefits of service learning, the CIS domain does impose unique costs for integrating service learning into the curriculum. Yet there is little systematic research to help the CIS community understand best practices for maximizing benefits while minimizing costs. Experience reports about service learning courses in CIS have appeared in the literature annually since 2000, and thus we address this gap in knowledge by conducting a systematic review and content analysis of 84 experience reports from theThe ACM Guide to Computing Literature. We synthesize the current state of service learning in CIS as well as derive recommendations for best practices and future research directions. 

Service learning—an educational experience in which students provide service to a community partner while learning content knowledge, professional skills, and critical thinking—can provide significant benefits to students and the community. We present survey results from 227 postsecondary students in computing to provide insights into their attitudes toward service learning, and how these relate to course-taking motivations and sense of civic duty. Based on the survey results, we argue that service learning should be required in an undergraduate computing major. However, we problematize this provocation based on three types of pitfalls: courses that do not prepare students to understand social contexts in which technical solutions are promoted, lack of resources for faculty teaching the courses, and the potential to harm both community partners and students.