Platforms for Teaching Distributed Computing Concepts to Undergraduate Students

Over the last two decades, information technology has been moving towards distributed computing to host their applications and services. These systems can process more data more reliably than their central processing counterparts; however, distributed applications are more complex to design and develop because they require additional properties like replication and fault tolerance to work effectively. These complexities translate to the educational setting, where schools need to invest in additional infrastructure, knowledge, and technologies to teach distributed concepts to students. This project presents the design and implementation of a complete educational framework for the teaching of distributed computing concepts at Cal Poly. The framework consists of three components: a Raspberry Pi cluster, a custom distributed file system (DecaFS), and a set of labs that can be used to support coursework in a distributed computing class. Each cluster is composed of five networked Raspberry Pi computers. The DecaFS distributed file system runs on the Raspberry Pi cluster. DecaFS provides the base functionality of a distributed file system with a design that allows for easy modification of sections of the implementation. The lab exercises focus on important distributed computing concepts that represent a variety of problems encountered in distributed systems including distribution, replication, fault tolerance, recovery, rebalancing, and efficiency. Isolation of the lab related modules allows students to focus on the learning objectives of the labs without needing to set up network and file system infrastructure to support the distributed aspects. The complexities of teaching distributed computing concepts in a classroom setting at Cal Poly have been addressed with this project\u27s framework. The solution overcomes key educational challenges as it is portable, modular, scalable and affordable. The framework provides the ability to offer courses in distributed computing to better prepare students for the challenges presented in industry today. Through the use of a modular distributed file system and computing cluster that were created for this project, students are able to solve complex distributed problems, in the form of labs, in an isolated environment that is conducive to quarter long learning objectives. This work is a major step to bringing distributed computing into the classrooms at Cal Poly and classes are currently being designed around this curriculum. Cal Poly can evolve the framework to keep pace with the ever advancing information technology world so that it may continue to serve the needs of the faculty and students of Cal Poly

DANP-Evaluation of AHP-DSS

The analytic hierarchy process (AHP) and the analytic network process (ANP) are important multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) methods for solving strategic decision problems. In the field of the research and teaching projects of a university’s Management Science Department, the use of adequate decision support systems (DSS) enables an appropriate application and acceptance of these methods. By reason of the great variety of AHP-DSS, the aim of this paper is the selection of AHP-supporting software. Owing to the interdependencies of the software quality criteria, these influences can be evaluated appropriately by the ANP. As for the various requirements of the different department members, the ANP procedure is linked with the DEMATEL approach. Within such a combined framework (DANP), the alternate software products and their quality selection criteria are transparently analysed and evaluated from a multi-personal point of view. The described procedure is an object of reference to solve such structuring and evaluation problems by support of parallel and/or distributed computing architecture

Sharing Strengths and Struggles in the Classroom and Beyond: Results from the Teaching Community Psychology Survey

Research on the state of community psychology (CP) in undergraduate education is scarce. This lack of understanding within the discipline hinders the ability to learn from CP educators’ experiences and disseminate effective practices. To begin to address this gap, the current study distributed a survey to CP educators located within the United States, exploring the following questions: 1) what are the demographics, locations, and roles CP-related educators occupy, 2) what are the biggest challenges educators encounter in and outside of the classroom when teaching CP-related content, and 3) what additional resources/supports do educators need from both their institution and the larger professional field to deliver high quality CP educational experiences. Responses from participants (N=44) highlight diversity in educators’ positions and geographic locations, as well as the prominence of a CP focus across departments. Applying an ecological framework, findings indicate that educators encounter multiple systemic challenges while teaching CP-related content at the departmental, institutional, and local community levels. At a national scale, the political climate regarding public education also contributes to instructional barriers. Assessment of resources regarding needed support systems and action within the field are provided. Lastly, we stress the value of future research concerning faculty teaching undergraduate CP courses

Sharing Strengths and Struggles in the Classroom and Beyond: Results from the Teaching Community Psychology Survey

Research on the state of community psychology (CP) in undergraduate education is scarce. This lack of understanding within the discipline hinders the ability to learn from CP educators’ experiences and disseminate effective practices. To begin to address this gap, the current study distributed a survey to CP educators located within the United States, exploring the following questions: 1) what are the demographics, locations, and roles CP-related educators occupy, 2) what are the biggest challenges educators encounter in and outside of the classroom when teaching CP-related content, and 3) what additional resources/supports do educators need from both their institution and the larger professional field to deliver high quality CP educational experiences. Responses from participants (N=44) highlight diversity in educators’ positions and geographic locations, as well as the prominence of a CP focus across departments. Applying an ecological framework, findings indicate that educators encounter multiple systemic challenges while teaching CP-related content at the departmental, institutional, and local community levels. At a national scale, the political climate regarding public education also contributes to instructional barriers. Assessment of resources regarding needed support systems and action within the field are provided. Lastly, we stress the value of future research concerning faculty teaching undergraduate CP courses

A gentle transition from Java programming to Web Services using XML-RPC

Exposing students to leading edge vocational areas of relevance such as Web Services can be difficult. We show a lightweight approach by embedding a key component of Web Services within a Level 3 BSc module in Distributed Computing. We present a ready to use collection of lecture slides and student activities based on XML-RPC. In addition we show that this material addresses the central topics in the context of web services as identified by Draganova (2003)

Managing evolution and change in web-based teaching and learning environments

The state of the art in information technology and educational technologies is evolving constantly. Courses taught are subject to constant change from organisational and subject-specific reasons. Evolution and change affect educators and developers of computer-based teaching and learning environments alike – both often being unprepared to respond effectively. A large number of educational systems are designed and developed without change and evolution in mind. We will present our approach to the design and maintenance of these systems in rapidly evolving environments and illustrate the consequences of evolution and change for these systems and for the educators and developers responsible for their implementation and deployment. We discuss various factors of change, illustrated by a Web-based virtual course, with the objective of raising an awareness of this issue of evolution and change in computer-supported teaching and learning environments. This discussion leads towards the establishment of a development and management framework for teaching and learning systems

A framework for design engineering education in a global context

This paper presents a framework for teaching design engineering in a global context using innovative technologies to enable distributed teams to work together effectively across international and cultural boundaries. The DIDET Framework represents the findings of a 5-year project conducted by the University of Strathclyde, Stanford University and Olin College which enhanced student learning opportunities by enabling them to partake in global, team based design engineering projects, directly experiencing different cultural contexts and accessing a variety of digital information sources via a range of innovative technology. The use of innovative technology enabled the formalization of design knowledge within international student teams as did the methods that were developed for students to store, share and reuse information. Coaching methods were used by teaching staff to support distributed teams and evaluation work on relevant classes was carried out regularly to allow ongoing improvement of learning and teaching and show improvements in student learning. Major findings of the 5 year project include the requirement to overcome technological, pedagogical and cultural issues for successful eLearning implementations. The DIDET Framework encapsulates all the conclusions relating to design engineering in a global context. Each of the principles for effective distributed design learning is shown along with relevant findings and suggested metrics. The findings detailed in the paper were reached through a series of interventions in design engineering education at the collaborating institutions. Evaluation was carried out on an ongoing basis and fed back into project development, both on the pedagogical and the technological approaches