Contact Info News Publications Undergraduate Research Group

Brian Harrington

Associate Professor, Teaching Stream
Department of Computer and Mathematical Sciences
University of Toronto Scarborough
brian.harrington@utoronto.ca

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

Mapping the Landscape of Peer Review in Computing Education Research

Marian Petre, Kate Sanders, Robert McCartney, Marzieh Ahmadzadeh, Cornelia Connolly, Sally Hamouda, Brian Harrington, Jérémie Lumbroso, Joseph Maguire, Lauri Malmi, Monica M. McGill, and Jan Vahrenhold. 2020. Mapping the Landscape of Peer Review in Computing Education Research. In Proceedings of the Working Group Reports on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education (ITiCSE-WGR '20). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 173–209. https://doi.org/10.1145/3437800.3439207

Paper

What are We Asking our Students? A Literature Map of Student Surveys in Computer Science Education

Angela Zavaleta Bernuy and Brian Harrington. 2020. What are We Asking our Students? A Literature Map of Student Surveys in Computer Science Education. In Proceedings of the 2020 ACM Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education (ITiCSE '20). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 418–424. https://doi.org/10.1145/3341525.3387383

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Poster

An Analysis of Student Preferences for Inverted vs Traditional Lecture

Harrington, Brian, Mohamed Moustafa, Jingyiran Li, Marzieh Ahmadzdeh, and Nick Cheng. "An Analysis of Student Preferences for Inverted vs Traditional Lecture." Psychology of Programming Interest Group Workshop 2020.

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Poster

Developing Testing-First Labs For a Less Intimidating Introductory CS Experience.

Bernuy, Angela M. Zavaleta, and Brian Harrington. "Developing Testing-First Labs For a Less Intimidating Introductory CS Experience." Psychology of Programming Interest Group Workshop 2020.

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Compiler error messages considered unhelpful: The landscape of text-based programming error message research

Brett A. Becker, Paul Denny, Raymond Pettit, Durell Bouchard, Dennis J. Bouvier, Brian Harrington, Amir Kamil, Amey Karkare, Chris McDonald, Peter-Michael Osera, Janice L. Pearce, and James Prather. 2019. Compiler Error Messages Considered Unhelpful: The Landscape of Text-Based Programming Error Message Research. In Proceedings of the Working Group Reports on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education (ITiCSE-WGR '19). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 177–210. https://doi.org/10.1145/3344429.3372508

Paper

On the Effect of Question Ordering on Performance and Confidence in Computer Science Examinations

Brian Harrington, Jingyiran Li, Mohamed Moustafa, Marzieh Ahmadzadeh, and Nick Cheng. 2019. On the Effect of Question Ordering on Performance and Confidence in Computer Science Examinations. In Proceedings of the 50th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education (SIGCSE '19). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 620–626. https://doi.org/10.1145/3287324.3287398

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Poster

A Statistical Analysis of Drop Rates in Introductory Computer Science by Gender and Partial Grade

Jikai Long and Brian Harrington. 2019. A Statistical Analysis of Drop Rates in Introductory Computer Science by Gender and Partial Grade. In Proceedings of the Western Canadian Conference on Computing Education (WCCCE '19). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, Article 13, 1–2. https://doi.org/10.1145/3314994.3325081

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A Mixed-Methods Study of Novice Programmer Interaction with Python Error Messages

Rachel D'souza, Mahima Bhayana, Marzieh Ahmadzadeh, and Brian Harrington. 2019. A Mixed-Methods Study of Novice Programmer Interaction with Python Error Messages. In Proceedings of the Western Canadian Conference on Computing Education (WCCCE '19). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, Article 15, 1–2. https://doi.org/10.1145/3314994.3325090

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Immediate Feedback Collaborative Code Tracing

Jun Zheng, Sohee Kang, and Brian Harrington. 2019. Immediate Feedback Collaborative Code Tracing. In Proceedings of the Western Canadian Conference on Computing Education (WCCCE '19). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, Article 12, 1–2. https://doi.org/10.1145/3314994.3325087

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Identity Atheneum: Combining User Management, Analytics and Gamification in a Multi Tool Hub

Jun Zheng and Brian Harrington. 2019. Identity Atheneum: Combining User Management, Analytics and Gamification in a Multi Tool Hub. In Proceedings of the 5th ACM SPLICE Project Workshop in conjunction with ICER2019 (SPLICE ’19), August 11, 2019, Toronto Canada

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Gender, confidence, and mark prediction in CS examinations

Brian Harrington, Shichong Peng, Xiaomeng Jin, and Minhaz Khan. 2018. Gender, confidence, and mark prediction in CS examinations. In Proceedings of the 23rd Annual ACM Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education (ITiCSE 2018). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 230–235. https://doi.org/10.1145/3197091.3197116

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Poster

Fit-breaks: incorporating physical activity breaks in introductory CS lectures

Alyona Koulanova, Ary Maharaj, Brian Harrington, and Jessica Dere. 2018. Fit-breaks: incorporating physical activity breaks in introductory CS lectures. In Proceedings of the 23rd Annual ACM Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education (ITiCSE 2018). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 260–265. https://doi.org/10.1145/3197091.3197115

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Poster

Tracing vs. Writing Code: Beyond the Learning Hierarchy

Brian Harrington and Nick Cheng. 2018. Tracing vs. Writing Code: Beyond the Learning Hierarchy. In Proceedings of the 49th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education (SIGCSE '18). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 423–428. https://doi.org/10.1145/3159450.3159530

Paper

TrAcademic: Improving Participation and Engagement in CS1/CS2 with Gamified Practicals

Brian Harrington and Ayaan Chaudhry. 2017. TrAcademic: Improving Participation and Engagement in CS1/CS2 with Gamified Practicals. In Proceedings of the 2017 ACM Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education (ITiCSE '17). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 347–352. https://doi.org/10.1145/3059009.3059052

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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

A semantic network approach to measuring relatedness

Harrington, Brian. "A semantic network approach to measuring relatedness." Proceedings of the 23rd International Conference on Computational Linguistics (Coling 2010).

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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.