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Computer science (CS) and information technology (IT) curricula are grounded in theoretical and technical skills. Topics like equity and inclusive design are rarely found in mainstream student studies. This results in graduates with outdated practices and limitations in software development. A research project was conducted to educate the faculty to integrate inclusive software design into the CS undergraduate curriculum. The objective is to produce graduates with the ability to develop inclusive software. This experience report presents the results of teaching inclusive design throughout the four-year CS and IT curriculum, focusing on the impact on faculty. This easy-to-adopt, high-impact approach improved student retention and classroom climate, broadening participation. Research questions address faculty understanding of inclusive software design, the approach's feasibility, improvement in students’ ability to design equitable software, and assessment of the inclusiveness culture for students in computing programs. Faculty attended a summer workshop to learn about inclusive design and update their teaching materials to include the GenderMag method. Beginning in CS0 and CS1 and continuing through Senior Capstone, faculty used updated course assignments to include inclusive design in 10 courses for 44 sections taught. Faculty outcomes are positive, with the planning to include inclusive design and working with other department faculty most engaging. Faculty were impressed by student ownership and adoption of inclusive design methods, particularly in the culminating capstone senior project. 

What if “regular” CS faculty each taught elements of inclusive design in “regular” CS courses across an undergraduate curriculum? Would it affect the CS program's climate and inclusiveness to diverse students? Would it improve retention? Would students learn less CS? Would they actually learn any inclusive design? To answer these questions, we conducted a year-long Action Research investigation, in which 13 CS faculty integrated elements of inclusive design into 44 CS/IT offerings across a 4-year curriculum. The 613 affected students’ educational work products, grades, and/or climate questionnaire responses revealed significant improvements in students’ course outcomes (higher course grades and fewer course fails/incompletes/withdrawals), especially for marginalized groups; revealed that most students did learn and apply inclusive design concepts to their CS activities; and revealed that inclusion and teamwork in the courses significantly improved. These results suggest a new pathway for significantly improving students’ retention, their knowledge and usage of inclusive design, and their experiences across CS education—for marginalized groups and for all students. 

Motivation: Although CS Education researchers and practitioners have found ways to improve CS classroom inclusivity, few researchers have considered inclusivity of online CS education. We are interested in two such improvements in online CS education—besides being inclusive to each other, online CS students also need to be able to create inclusive technology. Objectives: We have begun developing a new approach that we term “embedded inclusive design” to address both of these goals. The essence of the approach is to integrate elements of inclusive design education into mainstream CS coursework. This paper presents three curricular interventions we have developed in this approach and empirically investigates their efficacy in online CS post-baccalaureate education. Our research questions were: How do these three curricular interventions affect (RQ1) the climate among online CS students and (RQ2) how online CS students honor the diversity of their users in the tech they create? Method: To answer these research questions, we implemented the curricular interventions in four asynchronous online CS classes across two CS courses within Oregon State University’s Ecampus and conducted an action research study to investigate the impacts. Results: Online CS students who experienced these interventions reported feeling more included in the major than they had before, reported positive impacts on their team dynamics, increased their interest in accommodating diverse users, and created more inclusive technology designs than they had before. Discussion: These results provide encouraging evidence that embedding elements of inclusive design into mainstream CS coursework, via the interventions presented here, can increase both online CS students’ inclusivity toward one another and the inclusivity of the technology these future CS practitioners create.