Brian Harrington

I am an Associate Professor, Teaching Stream in the Department of Computer and Mathematical Sciences at the University of Toronto Scarborough. My research focuses on Computer Science Education and Pedagogy, with a special emphasis on involving undergraduate students in research.

I completed my Doctorate in Computer Science at the Oxford University Department of Computer Science under the supervision of Dr. Stephen Clark. My research focused on the intersection of Artificial Intelligence and Natural Language Processing, in particular, the automated construction of Semantic Network with the ASKNet system.

Prior to joining UTSC, I held a Research and Tutorial Fellowship in Computer Science at Keble College, Oxford. And worked as a Research Scientist in the Medical Informatics Group at the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee.

New Website
URG Member Linda Lo has generously helped design a new version of brianharrington.net so I can include info on the group members and publications (plus the fact that the old website hadn't been updated in about 5 years). Info is still being added, so stay tuned.

URG Alum Completes MSc in HCI and CS Ed - Moves on to PhD
Undergraduate Research Group alumnus Angela Zavaleta-Bernuy recently completed her MSc degree from the University of Toronto and is now moving on to pursue her PhD working in the areas of HCI and CS Education.

URG Revived Post Pandemic
After several false starts, we have finally managed to get the Undergrad Research Group active again after going (mostly) quite during the pandemic. In Winter 2022, we restarted our weekly reading groups, and are planning on working on a literature mapping project for Summer 2022.

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For a complete list of my publications, click here.

Exploring Lightweight Practices to Support Students' Well-being

Oluwakemi Ola and Brian Harrington. 2022. Exploring Lightweight Practices to Support Students' Well-being. In Proceedings of the 53rd ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education V. 2 (SIGCSE 2022). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 1070–1071. DOI:https://doi.org/10.1145/3478432.3499031

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Poster

Evidence for Teaching Practices that Broaden Participation for Women in Computing

Briana B. Morrison, Beth A. Quinn, Steven Bradley, Kevin Buffardi, Brian Harrington, Helen H. Hu, Maria Kallia, Fiona McNeill, Oluwakemi Ola, Miranda Parker, Jennifer Rosato, and Jane Waite. 2022. Evidence for Teaching Practices that Broaden Participation for Women in Computing. In Proceedings of the 2021 Working Group Reports on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education (ITiCSE-WGR '21). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 57–131. DOI:https://doi.org/10.1145/3502870.3506568

Paper

PyBuggy: Testing the Effects of Enhanced Error Messages on Novice Programmers

Rachel D'souza, Angela Zavaleta Bernuy, and Brian Harrington. 2021. PyBuggy: Testing the Effects of Enhanced Error Messages on Novice Programmers. In Proceedings of the 52nd ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education (SIGCSE '21). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 1346. DOI:https://doi.org/10.1145/3408877.3439652

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Poster

The Code Mangler: Evaluating Coding Ability Without Writing any Code

Nick Cheng and Brian Harrington. 2017. The Code Mangler: Evaluating Coding Ability Without Writing any Code. In Proceedings of the 2017 ACM SIGCSE Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education (SIGCSE '17). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 123–128. https://doi.org/10.1145/3017680.3017704

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Poster

Asknet: Creating and Evaluating Large Scale Integrated Semantic Networks

Harrington, Brian, and Stephen Clark. "Asknet: Creating and evaluating large scale integrated semantic networks." International Journal of Semantic Computing 2.03 (2008): 343-364.

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Poster

Interested in getting involved in research? Want to sharpen your academic skills? Just wondering what it is your professors do all day? Then come join the UTSC Computer and Mathematical Sciences Undergraduate Research Group.

The CMS Undergraduate Research Group was founded to give students in our department an opportunity to explore and participate in research. Any level of experience or commitment is welcome. We have everything from reading and discussion groups, to full-fledged research projects. We have published dozens of papers undergraduate co-authors, established an annual symposium, and had students present at local, national and international research conferences.

Research Opportunities:
If you are interested in joining our group, e-mail me at brian.harrington@utoronto.ca to find out more.