Expounding on the third condition, the AAUW (http://www.aauw.org/2011/06/15/title-ix-compliance/) says ‘an institution must prove that “no” is the answer to all of the following questions: “Is there unmet interest in a particular sport?”…’ (the other two questions are specific to fielding a team and finding competition).

More information about compliance, and meeting the third condition, is at http://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ocr/docs/title9-qa-20100420.html.

This means a lot to me because while it makes sense to focus on future labor force and economy, it makes no sense to say no to the rest of the women who have come to the realization too late that they would’ve liked to study CS. Not only were they misguided by a system with wrong perceptions (perhaps perpetrated by actual factors in the environment), they are then turned away by the system declaring that it’s simply too late?

I understand the gender imbalance in the industry. I work with 30 males and am the only girl on my team– the ratio was worse than I imagined and much more intimidating too. But it matters that I will be there, because it will be that much less scary for the next woman joining the team. And it will matter for undergrads choosing their majors as well.

Anyway, just to clarify– I’m not agreeing with the article’s reasoning of MOOCs somehow being the primary driver of reducing computing labor shortage, but I do think for the immediate term they provide viable options for however minimally helping to bridge the labor imbalance. It may only work for those with great self-learning initiatives, but all great developers are constantly self-learning anyway, even well into their jobs.

I’m glad that MOOCs are working for you. From what data I see, you are an outlier — most women are not succeeding with open learning resources for getting into computing. If we want large numbers, we have to figure out how to make learning opportunities that work for the average students, too.

Either way, while I’m not sure what the exact number would be for people wanting to switch careers, my guess is that it’s significant enough to warrant attention and will be growing even more. Dev bootcamp receives hundreds of applications a month (granted, not all female) and Hackbright Academy (an all female program that I attended) received 500 applications for its last 10-week cohort. This is 1/4 of my class at UPenn (of course, I understand I am kind of comparing apples to oranges here)

Almost all of my classmates at Hackbright and many other self-learned I have met have done a MOOC. I myself would not have pursued CS/programming if I was never exposed to Stanford’s opencourseware. It gave me an exposure that would’ve been difficult to come by in another era.

It is easy to argue here that I recognized the need to move beyond MOOCs to carry my learning to another level– and that much is true. But without MOOCs, many of us would never have even been able to recognize that we were interested in the topic in the first place. And now that I actually have a job in software, it is the most viable option for me to continue learning.

I see the funnels of increasing the number of women in computing occuring at three junctures:

1) ensuring people who have no idea what CS is about to have exposure and the ability to try out the subject
2) ensuring those who do try to have a good, engaging experience that make them want to stay
3) ensuring those who want to stay have ongoing access to knowledge and an encouraging environment to further learning

I believe that MOOCs provide good options for 1. and 3. (for some good courses 2. as well). I see it being particularly good at 1: if I had access as a HS student, maybe I would’ve not had the preconceptions that I did and decided to pursue it.

One other problem with generalizing from the Porter and Simon study is that they did 3 simultaneous interventions, so it is a little difficult to say which are drivers for the effect and which just “passengers”. Again, multiple studies with different combinations of the interventions can help tease that apart.