Curriculum Workshop Proceedings

Session 1:

1.1 Review of State of Parallel/Distributed Computing Education (Why?)

1. Need and Status Assessment – Sushil Prasad (10 mins)

2. Stakeholders and how to engage them all – How to ensure success of this initiative? –

David Padua, Frank Dehne, Mohamed Gouda, Jie Wu, Manish Parashar, Anshul Gupta, Krishna Kant, Frank Olken (5 min presentations)

1.2 Scope of this workshop and that of curriculum initiative (What?) - Sushil Prasad

· Curriculum

o Which courses/levels/programs?

1. Undergraduate courses

a. Introductory course(s) in parallel and distributed computing

b. Related courses – OS, Architecture, Computational Math/Sciences, Networks, Software Engineering, Simulation, VLSI, Introductory programming courses, etc.

c. Other courses – Database, Graphics, AI, etc.

d. Concentrations, minors

2. Graduate courses

3. Other levels/disciplines (AP Computer Science, IB CS; Computational Thinking across curriculum at k-12, other disciplines -arts, music, business, law, medicine)

o Who are the users?

o How will they use it?

o Can the participants be early adopters?

o Dissemination

o What are the inputs? Who will provide it and how will that be collected?

o What are the outputs?

§ Structure and Content of a curriculum

§ Preliminary Curriculums

· Intro and advanced courses

o Evaluation/Feedback?

· Course Modules

· Tutorials, Lectures

· Textbooks

Session 2: Mechanism and Processes (How?) - Viktor Prasanna

· What are the guiding principles? - David Padua

o Fundamentals skills and knowledge

o Broad based

o Interdisciplinary

o Four year Colleges, availability of resources

o International Needs

o Women, Minority, Cultural Issues?

o Capabilities and skills of a student completing a course/level: related to cognition, practice, transferable skills

· How to catalog Body of Knowledge in an area? - Behrooz Shirazi

o Knowledge areas?

§ Theory

§ Algorithms,

§ Architectures,

§ Programming languages,

§ Hardware and software platforms,

§ Tools?

Input àà| Curriculum Mechanism| àà Curriculum(s) àà Users à Feedback

· How to involve larger community in providing input?

· How perspectives of various stakeholders incorporated? Industry? - Anshul Gupta, Krishna Kant

· How should each component above be carried out?

· What are the processes involved in coming out with a curriculum? Frank Dehne, Yves Robert

· Mechanism for public comments? Consultation Process? - Jie Wu

· How will adoption happen? Need early adopters. - Andrew Lumsdaine

· How does one collect feedback from educators? What should be the feedback? Do students participate?

· How to evaluate feedback?

· How to state a curriculum? -
Alan Sussman and Yves Robert

o Prerequisites

o Topics

o Strategies for implementation

o Learning objectives

· How to evaluate a curriculum?

· How to produce a course module?

· How would we address larger challenges? - Manish Parashar, Mohamed Gouda

o other courses,

o K-12,

o other computational disciplines

o Concentrations, minors

o Certifications

Session 3:

3.1 Mechanism and Processes (When? Who?) - Sushil Prasad

· Timelines, periodicity

o Curriculum - How often?

o Preliminary release (May-10)?

o Feedback (Dec-Jan 2011)?

o Revisions, Major release (Spring 2011)?

o First course modules?

o How often should curriculum be revised? Are there triggers?

· Who will carry out what processes?

o Role of participants of this workshop - lead coordinators?

§ TCPP Curriculum Committee,

§ IPDPS meeting attendees,

§ Sister TCs, organizations -

o Who will collect input, disseminate output, and collect feedback?

o Who will produce basic curriculum(s)? Graduate? Computational Sciences?

o What about modules, etc?

3.2 What do workshop participants teach and why? - All interested (4-5 mins each)

Victor Prasanna, Arnold Rosenberg, Joseph Jaja, David Padua, Yves Robert, Behrooz Shirazi, Andrew Lumsdaine

(This should lead us to formulate core and other topics.)

Session 4: Preliminary Curriculum Formulation - Arnold Rosenberg

• • Core Topics in Curriculum(s)
    • Formulate basic principles on how to identify/constitute/update a core
    • Identify these core topics for a few representative courses

o Intro course on

§ Parallel/distributed computing - Yves Robert, Alan Sussman, Behrooz Shirazi

§ High performance computing - David Padua

o Advanced Course in

§ Parallel Models and Algorithms, … - Joseph JaJa

Session 5: Preliminary Curriculum Formulation - Yves Robert and Behrooz Shirazi

· Introductory Course in Parallel and Distributed Computing, …

Session 6: Impact Assessment and Evaluation Plan - Sartaj Sahni

• • Detailed plan for evaluating all aspects of this initiative in the short and long term
    • mechanism and process for (a) creating and (b) employing the curriculum.
    • the curriculum itself (Its quality, completeness and soundness, relevance, etc.)
    • metrics to gauge its effectiveness/impact (on various stake-holders: students, educators, researchers, authors, industry, etc.)
  • Mechanism to improve the processes through periodic feedback and evaluations
    • How the evaluation and community feedback are (a) processed, and (b) incorporated into next revision.
    • What are the triggers and thresholds, apart from duration, which would warrant deliberation by TCPP Curriculum Standards Committee or initiate major curriculum revision

Session 7: Preliminary Curriculum Formulation - Joseph JaJa

· Advanced Course in Parallel Models and Algorithms, …

Session 8: Follow-up Plans -

Viktor Prasanna and Sushil Prasad

• • Follow up workshop/meeting at IPDPS, Atlanta
    • Scope, agenda, format, organization
  • TCPP Standards Committee on Curriculum -
    • Membership drawn from all stakeholders
    • Role, Activities
  • Interface with Broader Community