Call for Proposals: NSF/TCPP CDER Center Early Adopter Awards for Fall-13

Proposal Submission Deadline: July 8, 2013 (extended)
Abstract Submission Deadline: July 3, 2013

Notification: July 30, 2013

The penetration of parallel and distributed computer (PDC) technology into the daily lives of users via their wireless networks, smartphones, social networking sites and more, has made it imperative to impart a broad-based skill set in PDC technology at various levels in the educational fabric. However, the rapid advances in computing technology and services challenges educators’ abilities to know what to teach in any given semester. Other stakeholders in the push to cope with fast-changing PDC technology, including employers, face similar challenges in identifying basic expertise. The curricular guidelines developed by the NSF/TCPP working group seek to address this challenge in a manner that is flexible and broad, with allowance for variations in emphasis in response to different institutions and different curricular cultures.  Since the release of the preliminary version in 2010 and now version I in 2012, we have selected about 80 early adopters from U.S. and from across the world in order to get its evaluation and to obtain templates on how these topics can be adopted in various courses across the curriculum. The early adopters have been awarded stipends, equipment, and travel support through four rounds of competitions (Spring and Fall of 2011 and 2012) with support from NSF, Intel, and nVIDIA.

Thanks to the NSF funds for a Center for Parallel and Distributed Computing Curriculum Development and Educational Resources (CDER) and the continued Intel funding, we will have a Fall-13 early adopter status competition.  As with Spring-11, Fall-11, Spring-12, and Fall-12 competitions, the early adopters would be (i) instructors of core courses, such as CS1, CS2, Systems, and Data Structures and Algorithms, (ii) instructors of elective/advanced courses, such as those on parallel and distributed computing, networking, architecture, algorithm, programming language, and software engineering, (iii) instructors of Computational Science courses and computational courses of STEM disciplines, and (iii) department chairs and members of department curriculum committees, who are responsible for core CS/CE courses.  

A department-wide multi-course multi-semester adoption effort in the core level courses is encouraged. Submit your proposal laying out plans for integrating and evaluating some of the proposed topics into your core/elective undergraduate CS/CE courses. Evaluation would be a key aspect - not just how well students learnt, but on the pedagogy, integration, and curriculum aspects: how new topics get integrated with the current topics, how these get taught, appropriateness of topic, level of coverage, and learning outcome, issues related to omission and commission in the proposed curriculum, etc. 

About 20 proposals will be selected for early adopter award and certificate by the curriculum committee - last round we had selected 25 out of 46 proposals. Cash awards to instructors will range between $1000 to $2500 per proposal.  

Proposals are specially encouraged from institutions from the emerging economies, including the BRIC and similar nations. The associated EduPar-14 workshop will be held in Phoenix alongside IPDPS-14 in May 2014, for which selected early adopters will receive additional travel awards.

Resources: See sample proposals from previous rounds (Sample 1, Sample 2, Sample 3, Sample 4).  Also see the sample outcomes/deliverables, including updated course templates, syllabi, evaluations reports, etc., at courseware test site.

Submission Site:  Submit your proposal in pdf format with no more than 4 pages for multi-course and 2 pages for single course proposal on the EasyChair system, beginning your abstract with the following classification information:

o   Category of Proposal (core/elective, dept-wide, single/multiple course, single/multiple semester, US/international)

o   List of Courses Impacted 

New: It is best to include specific sections in your proposal to address the following review criteria: 

o   Quality of integration plan into existing courses

o   Quality/rigor of evaluation proposed

§  Statistical data on scores from pre-test, tests and quizzes tracked by PDC question/topic

§  Statistical data on student demographics

§  Timeline of evaluation reports (semester wise, annually, etc).

o   List of resources to be contributed to CDER courseware website, such as course templates, syllabi, lecture notes/slides, assignments and tests, etc.

o   What is the potential of developing into a model course(s) or into a model template for adoption effort?

o   How the proposed work will help advance PDC Curriculum Initiative's agenda?

o   What is the potential for complementing the initiative with new ideas/collaboration?

Contact: Sushil K. Prasad, Georgia State University (sprasad at gsu.edu)   

Curriculum Working Group: Chtchelkanova, Almadena  (NSF), Das, Sajal (University of Texas at Arlington), Das, Chita (Penn State), Dehne, Frank (Carleton University, Canada), Gouda, Mohamed (University of Texas, Austin, NSF), Gupta, Anshul (IBM T.J. Watson Research Center), Jaja, Joseph (University of Maryland), Kant, Krishna (NSF), La Salle, Anita (NSF), LeBlanc, Richard (Seattle University), Lumsdaine, Andrew (Indiana University), Padua, David (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign), Parashar, Manish (Rutgers), Prasad, Sushil (Georgia State University), Prasanna, Viktor (University of Southern California), Robert, Yves (INRIA, France), Rosenberg, Arnold (Northeastern University), Sahni, Sartaj (University of Florida), Shirazi, Behrooz (Washington State University), Sussman, Alan (University of Maryland), Weems, Chip (University of Massachusetts), and Wu, Jie (Temple University)