ECONOMICS

• Proposal Submission Deadline: Nov 5, 2011

• Notification: Nov 30, 2011

Parallel and Distributed Computing (PDC) now permeates most computing activities. The pervasiveness of computing devices containing multicore CPUs and GPUs, including home and office PCs and laptops, is making even common users dependent on parallel processing. Certainly, it is no longer sufficient for even basic programmers to acquire only the traditional sequential programming skills. The preceding trends point to the need for imparting a broad-based skill set in PDC technology at various levels in the educational fabric woven by Computer Science (CS) and Computer Engineering (CE) programs as well as related computational disciplines.  However, the rapid changes in computing hardware platforms and devices, languages, supporting programming environments, and research advances, more than ever challenge educators in knowing what to include in the curriculum and what to teach in any given semester or course.

 

The NSF/TCPP Curriculum Initiative has taken up proposing curriculum for computer science (CS) and computer engineering (CE) undergraduates on parallel and distributed computing (PDC). The goal of this committee has been to propose a core curriculum for CS/CE undergraduates, with the premise that every such undergraduate should achieve a specified skill level regarding PDC-related topics as a result of required coursework. Over 2010, our working group has deliberated upon various topics and subtopics, and a preliminary version of core curriculum was released in Dec 2010. Two competitions for granting Early Adopter status were held in Spring-11 and in Fall-11.

 

With NSF and Intel seed funding, we will have a Spring-12 early adopter status competition.  As with Spring-11 and Fall-11 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, 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.

 

Cash awards/stipends to instructors will range between $1000 to $2500 per proposal.  About 15-20 proposals will be selected for early adopter status and award by the curriculum committee - in the last round, 18 out of 26 proposals were selected.

 

Proposals are specially encouraged from institutions from the emerging economies, including the BRIC and similar nations.  The associated EduPar-12 workshop will be held in Shanghai alongside IPDPS-12 in May 2011.

  

Submission:  Submit your proposal in pdf format with no more than 4 pages for multi-course and 2 pages for single course proposal on EasyChair system, begin your abstract with a list of relevant courses, and select appropriate topics on EasyChair.  CFP website: http://www.cs.gsu.edu/~tcpp/curriculum/?q=early-adopter-spring2012

 

 

Chtchelkanova, Almadena (NSF), Das, Sajal (University of Texas at Arlington, NSF), Das, Chita (Penn State, NSF), 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, Intel), La Salle, Anita (NSF), LeBlanc, Richard (Seattle University), Lumsdaine, Andrew (Indiana University), Padua, David (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign), Parashar, Manish (Rutgers, NSF), Prasad, Sushil (Georgia State University), Prasanna, Viktor (University of Southern California), Robert, Yves (INRIA, France), Rosenberg, Arnold (Colorado State 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)