To track progress and measure success, the Data Management (DM) team defined new measures of racial/ethnic, gender, and Latina parity from the intersectionality framework in computing fields within each institution with respect to degree completion rates.

“We define[d] underrepresentation as a lack of parity, where parity, in this case, is defined as the extent to which the gender and racial/ethnic makeup of one field mirror the gender and racial/ethnic makeup of other fields at the same institution” (Knight et al., 2000). For instance, undergraduate Latinx parity is the percent of all CS bachelor’s degrees awarded to Latinx students minus the percent of bachelor’s degrees awarded to Latinx students in all other fields at the same institution during the same year. The difference in Latinx parity in percentage points, where negative numbers imply more significant gaps in Latinx parity.

To create a measure of parity, the DM team uses the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) database by the U.S. Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) to analyze parity measures. In addition, 6-digit CIP codes that the team gathers from partner institutions are used to identify computing fields at each institution.