Research & Sponsored Projects
Exploring computing education at scale, open scientific data frameworks, psychometric models, and human-computer interaction.
Funded Grants & Sponsored Projects
Continuous Improvement Grant: Supporting Content
Investigators: Michael E. Cotterell (PI), Bradley J. Barnes (Co-PI)
Developing additional interactive supporting content, assessments, and pedagogical extensions for open computer science curriculum materials.
Continuous Improvement Grant: Lesson Plans
Investigators: Bradley J. Barnes (PI), Michael E. Cotterell (Co-PI)
Designing active-learning lesson plans and structured classroom activities aligned with open educational resources for software development.
Continuous Improvement Grant: Website and Porting
Investigators: Michael E. Cotterell (PI), Bradley J. Barnes (Co-PI)
Porting and modernizing web infrastructure and interactive digital textbook platforms for open-access software development education.
Continuous Improvement Grant: In-section Review Questions
Investigators: Bradley J. Barnes (PI), Michael E. Cotterell (Co-PI)
Integrating formative interactive assessment and inline self-check questions directly into open textbook chapters for immediate student feedback.
Generalized, Multilevel, and Longitudinal Psychometric Models for Evaluating Educational Interventions
Investigators: Matthew J. Madison (PI), Minjeong Jeon (Co-PI), Michael E. Cotterell (Co-PI)
Advancing longitudinal and multilevel psychometric evaluation frameworks and open computational diagnostic toolsets for complex educational interventions and scalable learning environments.
Center for Inclusive Computing Diagnostic Grant
Investigators: Thiab R. Taha (PI), Bradley J. Barnes (Co-PI), Michael E. Cotterell (Co-PI), Manijeh Keshtgari (Co-PI), Eman Saleh (Co-PI)
Investigating lower-division undergraduate computer science retention and structural curricular pathways to foster diversity and equity in computing.
Interdisciplinary Data Science for All
Investigators: Shannon Quinn (PI), Michael E. Cotterell (Co-PI)
Developing interactive instructional tools and scalable pedagogical infrastructure for cross-disciplinary data science education across UGA.
Open & Active Course Materials for Software Development
Investigators: Michael E. Cotterell (PI), Bradley J. Barnes (Co-PI)
Creating and maintaining open-access, interactive course materials and software tutorials to eliminate textbook costs for students in CSCI 1302 Software Development.
Creation of Interactive Tutorials to Replace Current Text in CSCI 1302 Software Development
Investigators: Bradley J. Barnes (PI), Michael E. Cotterell (Co-PI)
Developing open educational resources and web tutorials that completely replace proprietary textbooks for hundreds of undergraduate CS students each semester.
Research Focus Areas
Computer Science Education & SoTL
Active learning techniques, peer-assisted learning through CSUA, and low-anxiety scalable computing curricula.
Open Science & Big Data
Integration of semantic web technologies, provenance ontologies, and open scientific workflow modeling.
Human-Computer Interaction
Usability, user experience evaluation, interactive learning environments, and accessible design.
Open Science Initiatives
A core tenet of Dr. Cotterell's work is reproducible, transparent research and openly accessible educational artifacts. This includes open-source software development on GitHub, publicly registered Zenodo DOIs for curriculum exercises and tutorials, and domain-specific simulation modeling frameworks.