Collaborative Research: CyberTraining: Implementation: Small: Integrating core CI literacy and skills into university curricula via simulation-driven activities

世纪的科学和社会进步依赖于并行和分布式计算（PDC）技术的大型、异构和不断发展的生态系统。然而，今天从计算课程毕业的大多数大学生几乎没有接触过PDC的概念和实践。 因此，一个迫在眉睫的风险是，新兴的科学劳动力将没有准备好使用和开发那些对进步至关重要的计算基础设施。 众所周知，在大学课程中早期有效地教授PDC是非常困难的，部分原因是需要为学生提供在实际PDC平台上获得有意义的动手学习机会。 该项目通过依赖模拟技术直接解决了这一挑战：它为学生提供了不需要访问任何PDC平台的动手学习机会。这使得有可能有效地在全国任何高等教育机构教授PDC概念和实践主题的全部内容。 该项目正在开展的教学活动可以纳入现有的大学课程，并为从大一开始制定新课程提供良好的基础。 正如NSF的使命所述，通过支持教育以实现科学劳动力的现代化，该项目促进了科学的进步。多年的网络基础设施研究和开发已经产生了一套丰富的抽象和可互操作的软件实现，可以利用广泛的硬件平台。为学生提供实践教学活动至关重要，通过这些活动，他们可以获得必要的PDC概念和实践知识，以便他们加入开发和使用此网络基础设施的劳动力队伍。 要求在实际的硬件和软件堆栈上进行这些活动限制了参与，因为只有少数机构能够访问可用于教育目的的安全的代表性，稳定的和可能的大型部署。这项工作背后的主要见解是，模拟促进了参与和教学，因为它允许学生体验任意的网络基础设施场景，只需要他们有一台标准的笔记本电脑。 这是可行的，由于最近开发的模拟框架，可以很容易地开发模拟器的复杂的分布式系统，提供模拟教学上的准确性和可扩展性。 鉴于这一见解和最近的发展，该项目开发了模拟驱动的互动教学活动，用于一系列学生学习目标（SLO），从标准PDC SLO以及与当前和新兴网络基础设施实践相关的SLO。 这些活动是按模块组织的，具有先决条件的结构，并附有从大一开始纳入现有大学课程的指导方针。 几个教学策略，通过学生执行互动模拟与配置水平的细节沿着各种叙事路径。 研究问题包括确定哪种策略、哪种级别的模拟细节最适合哪种SLOs.This奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Scientific and societal progress in the 21st century relies on a large, heterogeneous, and evolving ecosystem of Parallel and Distributed Computing (PDC) technologies. And yet, most college students graduating today from computing curricula have little exposure to PDC concepts and practices. There is thus an imminent risk that the emerging scientific workforce will be ill-prepared for using and developing those computing infrastructures that are key to progress. Teaching PDC early and effectively in university curricula is notoriously difficult, in part due to the need to provide students with access to and meaningful hands-on learning opportunities on actual PDC platforms. This project addresses this challenge directly by relying on simulation technology: it provides students with hands-on learning opportunities that do not require access to any PDC platforms. This makes it possible to teach the full gamut of PDC conceptual and practical topics effectively and at any higher education institution in the nation. The pedagogic activities being developed in this project can be integrated into existing university courses and also provide a sound basis for developing new courses, starting at freshman levels. By supporting education in a view to modernizing the scientific workforce, this project promotes the progress of science, as stated by NSF's mission.Years of Cyberinfrastructure research and development have resulted in a rich set of abstractions and interoperable software implementations that can leverage a wide range of hardware platforms. It is crucial to provide students with hands-on pedagogic activities through which they can acquire the PDC conceptual and practical knowledge necessary for them to join a workforce that develops and uses this Cyberinfrastructure. Requiring that these activities be conducted on actual hardware and software stacks limits participation because only few institutions have access to secure representative, stable, and possibly large deployments that can be used for educational purposes. The main insight behind this work is that simulation promotes both participation and pedagogy because it allows students to experience arbitrary Cyberinfrastructure scenarios, only requiring that they have access to a standard laptop computer. This is feasible due to the recent development of simulation frameworks for easily developing simulators of complex distributed systems that afford simulations that are both pedagogically accurate and scalable. Given this insight and this recent development, this project develops simulation-driven interactive pedagogic activities for a spectrum of Student Learning Objectives (SLOs), ranging from standard PDC SLOs as well as SLOs relevant to current and emerging Cyberinfrastructure practices. The activities are organized in modules with a prerequisite structure, and come with guidelines for integration into existing university courses, starting at freshman levels. Several pedagogic strategies are employed through which students execute interactive simulations with configurable levels of details along various narrative paths. Research questions include determining which strategies, with which levels of simulation details, work best for which SLOs.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.