EduPar-20: 10th NSF/TCPP Workshop on Parallel and Distributed Computing Education (EduPar-20)

Parallel and Distributed Computing (PDC) permeates most computing activities - the “explicit” ones, in which a person works directly on programming a computing device, and the “implicit” ones, in which a person uses everyday tools that incorporate PDC below the user’s view.  The penetration of PDC into the daily lives of both “explicit” and “implicit” users makes it imperative that users are able to depend on the effectiveness, efficiency, and reliability of this technology. The pervasiveness of PDC is evident in today’s general-purpose computing devices such as PCs, laptops and handheld devices that contain multiple cores and graphics processing units (GPUs). It is also seen in the increasing reliance on web and cloud services, and in the growing need for parallel and distributed solutions to data-intensive problems associated with Big Data from a wide range of disciplines.  The growing ubiquity of parallel and distributed computing, and the increasing reliance on parallel and distributed technology, make PDC topics an essential, and core, part of computing curricula.  The rapid changes in computing hardware platforms and devices, in languages and programming environments, and in applications of PDC present additional and on-going challenges in deciding what to include in the curriculum and how to incorporate PDC into existing and new course curricula in order to prepare students for careers that are increasingly likely to involve PDC.

The EduPar workshop is designed in coordination with the NSF/TCPP curriculum initiative on Parallel and Distributed Computing (http://tcpp.cs.gsu.edu/curriculum) and the Center for Parallel and Distributed Curriculum Development and Educational Resources (CDER). Held in conjunction with IPDPS (www.ipdps.org), EduPar brings together individuals from academia, industry, and other educational and research institutes to explore new ideas, challenges, and experiences related to PDC pedagogy and curricula.

EduPar-20 marks the 10th year of the EduPar workshop. As part of our 10 year milestone, EduPar-20 includes a special focus on “looking back” to what we have accomplished over the past 10 years, and “looking forward” to challenges facing PDC education efforts in response to future trends in parallel and distributed computing.   This year, we particularly encourage submissions that fit into our theme of “looking back” and “looking forward”.   However, we invite unpublished manuscripts on a broad range of topics pertaining to the teaching of PDC topics in the Computer Science and Computer Engineering curriculum, as well as in other domain-specific computational and data science curricula.  We strongly encourage manuscripts that include a systematic evaluation and analysis of the impact and performance of the work. 

Topics of interest include (but are not limited to):

• Emerging PDC topics to inform TCPP and related curricular efforts.
• Curriculum design and models for incorporating PDC topics in CS/CE core curricula.
• Pedagogical issues with incorporating PDC topics in CS/CE courses.
• Experience incorporating PDC topics into core CS/CE courses. 
• Experience incorporating PDC topics into new CS/CE curricula/courses, or other applications.
• Pedagogical tools, programming environments, infrastructures, languages and projects for PDC.
• Novel ways of teaching PDC topics, including informal learning environments.
• Employers’ experiences and expectations of the PDC proficiency among new graduates.
• Educational resources based on higher level programming languages such as X10, Chapel, Haskell, Python, Cilk, CUDA, OpenCL, OpenACC, Hadoop and Spark.
• Educational resources for e-Learning, e-Laboratory, Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC), Small Private Online Courses (SPOC). 
• PDC experiences at non-university levels; secondary school, postgraduate, industry, diffusion of PDC.
• Parallel and distributed models of programming/computation suitable for teaching, learning and workforce development.
• Issues and experiences related to addressing diversity and broadening participation of underrepresented groups.

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES: We are accepting submissions for Full Papers (6-8 pages), Posters (2-page abstract), and Peachy Parallel Assignments (2-page abstract).  Please see the details below for each category of submission.

If accepted, regular papers will be published in the workshop proceedings, and authors will present their work at a conference session.  Summary papers of all accepted posters and of all accepted peachy assignments will be published in the workshop proceedings.  Summary papers will be written by the Poster and Peachy Assignments chairs and will include, as co-authors, all poster and peachy assignment authors.  Authors of accepted posters and peachy assignments will present their work during the conference’s poster session. In addition, all individual abstracts, posters, and papers will be published on the EduPar-20 website.   

If accepted, regular papers will be published in the workshop proceedings, and authors will present their work at a conference session.  Summary papers of all accepted posters and of all accepted peachy assignments will be published in the workshop proceedings.  Summary papers will be written by the Poster and Peachy Assignments chairs and will include, as co-authors, all poster and peachy assignment authors.  Authors of accepted posters and peachy assignments will present their work during the conference’s poster session. In addition, all individual abstracts, posters, and papers will be published on the EduPar-20 website.  

Papers: Authors are asked to submit 6-8 page papers in pdf format through the Linklings submission site https://ssl.linklings.net/conferences/ipdps/?page=Submit&id=EduParWorkshopFullSubmission&site=ipdps2020. Submissions should be formatted as single spaced, double-column pages following the IEEE format (https://www.ieee.org/conferences/publishing/templates.html), including figures, tables, and references. We encourage authors to submit an optional 1 page paper abstract by the abstract due date prior to the full paper deadline.  Abstracts should include title, author, paper abstract, and summary of main paper contents.

Submissions will be reviewed based on the novelty of contributions, impact on broader undergraduate curriculum, particularly on core curriculum, relevance to the goals of the workshop, and, for experience papers, the results of their evaluation and the evaluation methodology. Proceedings of the workshops are distributed at the conference and will be included in the IEEE Xplore Digital Library after the conference.  

Authors of accepted papers will submit a 6-8 page camera ready version of their paper, and present their work at a workshop technical session.  Accepted papers will be published in the workshop proceedings and included in the IEEE Xplore digital library. Additionally, accepted papers will be published to the EduPar’20 webpage.

Posters: High-quality poster presentations are an integral part of EduPar. We seek posters describing recent or ongoing research.  Authors are asked to submit 2 page poster abstract in pdf format through the Linklings submission site https://ssl.linklings.net/conferences/ipdps/?page=Submit&id=EduParWorkshopPosterFullSubmission&site=ipdps2020.  Submissions should be formatted as single spaced, double-column pages following the IEEE format (https://www.ieee.org/conferences/publishing/templates.html), including figures, tables, and references.

If accepted, authors will be asked to prepare a poster to be presented at EduPar.  Poster authors will be co-authors with the poster chair on a poster summary paper published in the workshop proceedings and included in the IEEE Xplore digital library. Additionally, accepted posters and poster abstracts will be published to the EduPar’20 webpage.

Peachy Parallel Assignments: Course assignments are integral to student learning and also play an important role in student perceptions of the field. EduPar will include a session showcasing "Peachy Parallel Assignments" - high-quality assignments, previously-tested in class, that are readily adoptable by other educators teaching topics in parallel and distributed computing.  Assignments may be previously published, but the author must have the right to publish a description of it and share all supporting materials. We are seeking assignments that are:

1. Tested - All submitted assignments should have been used successfully in a class.
2. Adoptable - Preference will be given to assignments that are widely applicable and easy to adopt.  Traits of such assignments include coverage of widely-taught concepts, using common parallel languages and widely-available hardware, having few prerequisites, and (with variations) being appropriate for different levels  of  students.
3. Cool and inspirational - We want assignments that excite students and encourage them to spend time with the material.  Ideally, they would be things that students want to show off to their roommate.
    

Assignments can cover any topics in Parallel and Distributed Computing. Preference will be given to assignments aimed at students in the early courses.

Authors are asked to submit 2 page poster abstract in pdf format through the Linklings submission site https://ssl.linklings.net/conferences/ipdps/?page=Submit&id=EduParWorkshopPeachyAssignmentFullSubmission&site=ipdps2020.  Submissions should be formatted as single spaced, double-column pages following the IEEE format (https://www.ieee.org/conferences/publishing/templates.html), including figures, tables, and references. Submissions should describe the assignment and its context of use, and include a link to a web page containing the complete set of files actually given to students (assignment description, supporting code, etc.). The document should cover the following items: What is the main idea of the assignment? What concepts are covered?  Who are its targeted students?  In what context have you used it?  What prerequisite material does it assume they have seen?  What are its strengths and weaknesses?  Are there any variations that may be of interest?

If accepted, authors will be asked to prepare a poster to be presented at EduPar.  Peachy assignment authors will be co-authors with the Peachy Assignments chair on a summary paper published in the workshop proceedings and included in the IEEE Xplore digital library. Additionally, accepted peachy assignment posters, abstracts and course materials will be published to the EduPar’20 webpage and the CDER website (https://tcpp.cs.gsu.edu/curriculum/?q=peachy).

IMPORTANT DATES (new submission deadlines)

• February 9 2020: Papers Due  
• February 9, 2020: Peachy Assignment Abstracts Due
• February 23, 2020: Poster Abstract Due
• February 29:  Paper and Peachy Assignment Author Notification 
• March 8: Poster Author Notification
• March 14: Camera-ready Papers Due

Best Paper Award: All submitted papers will be peer-reviewed and considered for Best Paper Award.

KEYNOTE: There will be one keynote address. TBA.

PANEL: There will be one invited panel session.  TBA.

POSTER SESSION: There will be a poster session of accepted posters and peachy assignments.

COMMITTEES

Programming committee 

• Joel C. Adams, Calvin College, USA
• Jeannie Albrecht, Williams College, USA
• Dorian C. Arnold, Emory University, USA
• Ritu Arora, TACC University of Texas, USA
• Gregory Benson, University of San Francisco, USA
• Steven Bogaerts, DePauw University, USA
• David Brown, Elmhurst College, USA
• Massimo Canonico,  University of Piemonte Orientale, Italy
• Valeria Cardellini, University of Rome Tor Vergata, Italy
• Rocio Carratala-Saez, Jaume I University, Spain
• Aurelien Cavelan, University of Basel, Switzerland
• P. Chitra, Thiagarajar College of Engineering, India
• Memo Dalkilic, Indiana University, USA
• Debzani Deb, Winston-Salem State University, USA
• Trilce Estrada, University of New Mexico, USA
• Samantha S. Foley, University of Wisconsin-La Crosse, USA
• Sheikh Ghafoor, Tennessee Technological University
• Nasser Giacaman,  University of Auckland, New Zealand
• Anshul Gupta, IBM Corporation, USA
• Hai Jin, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, China
• Karen L. Karavanic, Portland State University, USA
• Kishore Kothapalli, IIIT Hyderabad, India
• Brian Larkins, Rhodes College, USA
• Suzanne J. Matthews, West Point, USA
• Virginia Niculescu, Babes-Bolyai University, Romania
• Brad Richards, University of Puget Sound, USA
• Jawwad Shamsi, National University of Computer and Emerging Sciences, Pakistan
• Joel Sommers, Colgate University, USA
• John Stratton, Whitman College, USA
• Dominique Thiebaut, Smith College, USA
• Jerry L. Trahan,  Louisiana State University, USA
• Ramachandran  Vaidyanathan, Louisiana State University, USA
• Charles Weems, University of Massachusetts, USA

Conference committee 

• Workshop Chair: Sushil Prasad (University of Texas at San Antonio)
• Program Chair: Tia Newhall (Swarthmore College)
• Program Vice-Chair and Peachy Assignments Chair: David Bunde (Knox College)
• Poster Chair: Martina Barnas (Indiana University)
• Proceedings Chair: Satish Puri (Marquette University)

Contact
Questions about submissions: email Tia Newhall (newhall@cs.swarthmore.edu) 
Questions about  peachy assignment submissions: email David Bunde (dbunde@knox.edu) 
Questions about poster submissions: email Martina Barnas (Martina.barnas@gmail.com)