IEEE Computer Society Report of an Online Survey of Current and Non-Renewing Members May 2012 – version 3.0 EDITED June 20, JMS Prepared by: Robin Wedewer The Wedewer Group

Methodology and Sample  This study was conducted through an online survey of current and past Computer Society members in May  In all, 10,696 invitations to participate in the survey were extended by . Many participants started but did not complete the survey. A total of 1,055 completed and 359 partial responses were received. Participants were screened for level of familiarity with the IEEE Computer Society. Fifty-five participants who were not at all familiar with the Society were eliminated from this analysis. In all, there were 1,414 useable complete or partial responses—a participation rate of 13%. 2

Methodology and Sample  Participants were grouped by membership status (as determined by the IEEE member database rather than self-reporting) to allow comparison with data collected in a similar survey from previous years. The groups reported here are:  Higher Grade Active Members – 399  Affiliate Members – 160  Student Members – 115  Non-Renewing Members – 740  Higher Grade – 483  Affiliate – 257  TOTAL SAMPLE – 1,414  Because the number of responses varies widely from question to question, so does the margin of error. For questions with nearly all participants responding, the margin of error is +/-2% at the 95% confidence interval. Number of responses for each question may vary due to the incomplete responses and questions not required. Please note that throughout this report percentages may not total 100 due to rounding. “Top 2 box” is the sum of the two highest numbers on a rating scale. 3

Self-Reported Member Status 4 Q1. What is your current member status? (N = 1,316) There were significant differences between self-reported membership status and IEEE records. For the purposes of this report we will report member status as indicated in the IEEE member database. Affiliate Active Affiliate Inactive Higher Grade Active Higher Grade Inactive Student Active All Participants I belong to both the IEEE Computer Society and IEEE 17%12%97%85%94%69% I belong to just the IEEE Computer Society as an affiliate member 79%20%2%13%4%18% I belong to just IEEE and not the Computer Society 1%3%1%2%1%2% I do not belong to either IEEE or the Computer Society 0%56%0% 10% I don’t know3%9%0%1% 2% N = ,316

Region 5 (N = 1,414)

Age 6 The average age of participants is 47 years old. Inactive affiliates tend to be significantly younger than active affiliates. There was little difference in age between higher grade active and inactive members. (N = 1,414) Average Ages Affiliate – 51 Affiliate Inactive – 47 Higher Grade – 48 Higher Grade Inactive – 49 Student – 31 All Participants - 47

Areas of Work – All Participants 7 Q23. In which of the following areas are you currently involved at your work or study? The top three areas of work reported by all respondents were: 1)Software development/design/engineering 2)Systems engineering and 3)Security and privacy (N = 1,056)

Areas of Work 8 Affiliate Active n = 118 Affiliate Inactive n = 169 Software development/design/engineering54% Security and privacy36% IS/IT/ICT33% Cloud computing26% UI design/development25% Systems engineering22% Quality assurance21% Other20% Mobile application development19% Computer graphics and applications16% High performance computing14% Embedded systems development12% Multi-core programming11% Green computing8% Games and simulation7% Machine Learning6% Life sciences5% None of these3% Smart grid3% Software development/design/engineering54% Cloud computing31% IS/IT/ICT30% Security and privacy24% Systems engineering24% UI design/development21% Mobile application development19% Quality assurance15% High performance computing13% Other12% Embedded systems development12% Computer graphics and applications10% Multi-core programming8% Green computing8% Machine learning8% Games and simulation6% Life sciences4% Smart grid4% None of these2%

Areas of Work 9 Higher Grade Active n = 308 Higher Grade Inactive n = 389 Software development/ design/engineering60% Systems engineering33% Security and privacy29% Embedded systems development29% Cloud computing26% High performance computing21% Multi-core programming21% Mobile application development20% Quality assurance20% IS/IT/ICT17% Other15% UI design/development14% Computer graphics and applications12% Machine learning11% Green computing9% Games and simulation9% Life sciences7% Smart grid6% None of these3% Software development/ design/engineering56% Systems engineering31% Embedded systems development27% Security and privacy25% Cloud computing24% UI design/development21% Mobile application development19% Quality assurance19% High performance computing19% IS/IT/ICT18% Multi-core programming18% Other17% Computer graphics and applications12% Machine learning11% Green computing6% Games and simulation5% Life sciences5% Smart grid5% None of these4%

Areas of Work 10 Student n = 72 Software development/design/engineering49% Cloud computing28% IS/IT/ICT26% Security and privacy25% High performance computing22% Embedded systems development22% UI design/development19% Mobile application development19% Other19% Machine learning18% Systems engineering17% Computer graphics and applications15% Multi-core programming14% Quality assurance10% Games and simulation10% Green computing8% Life sciences4% Smart grid3% None of these1%

Areas of Work 11 Q23. In which of the following areas are you currently involved at your work or study? (N = 1,056)

Areas of Work (cont.) 12 Q23. In which of the following areas are you currently involved at your work or study? (N = 1,056)

Areas of Work (cont.) 13 Q23. In which of the following areas are you currently involved at your work or study? (N = 1,056)

Areas of Work (cont.) 14 Q23. In which of the following areas are you currently involved at your work or study? (N = 1,056)

Areas of Work (cont.) 15 Q23. In which of the following areas are you currently involved at your work or study? (N = 1,056)

Self-Identification 16 Q22. What label do you typically use to describe your professional self (for example, lawyer, heart surgeon, and so on)? I am a/an… (N = 1,006) In an open-ended question, the top four areas participants used to describe themselves were: 1.Software engineer, developer, computer engineer or computer scientist, programmer (37%) 2.Professor, teacher, other academia (18%) 3.Engineer (13%) 4.Manager, owner, entrepreneur (8%)

Self-Identification 17 Q22. What label do you typically use to describe your professional self (for example, lawyer, heart surgeon, and so on)? I am a… (N = 1,006)

Self-Identification 18 Q22. What label do you typically use to describe your professional self (for example, lawyer, heart surgeon, and so on)? I am a… (N = 1,006)

Years in the Field 19 Q24. For how many years have you been working in the field? (N = 1,031) Active affiliates reported working in the field significantly longer than inactive affiliates. 65% of active affiliates have worked 20 or more years in the field while only 43% of inactive affiliates have worked in the field that long. There were far fewer differences among higher grade active and inactive members in terms of years in the field.

Employment Status 20 Q25. Which one of the following most closely matches your current employment status? The largest number of members work in technical positions in private industry (31%) followed by employment in academia (25%). (N = 1,044)