Data informs decisions throughout our lives, and its importance keeps growing in a data-centric society and future. Scientists, educators, students, and the workforce at large require advanced skills to learn how to manage and process massive amounts of data efficiently and accurately. The nation’s future as a global leader of innovations depends on having a large, versatile, and adaptable data-proficient workforce. Training this workforce, however, is challenging and requires significant hands-on skills in data systems where the constantly evolving hardware architectures, networking technologies, or changing price-performance ratios create unprecedented opportunities but also an urgent need for thorough and ongoing education in topics ranging from data acquisition, computer networking, storage systems, machine learning and data analytics, and visualization.
This project developed a FOUNT of scaffolded, educational modules, or courselets, in the rapidly developing field of data systems, that provided shared educational content executable on Chameleon and other open clouds and testbeds. The courselets were based on the concept of literate programming and enabled students to explore concepts and methods taught in the classroom via hands-on exercises – and then modify and extend those exercises in various ways to deepen their understanding and explore new ideas. Students could find relevant courselets through a content hub, integrated with open clouds and testbeds, so that they could deploy them “with one click,” making exploration-based learning readily available. Ultimately, the project aimed to translate its experience of creating, teaching, supporting, and improving courselets into a set of best practices, and sought to build a vibrant community of students, teachers – and contributors across all types of academic institutions, thereby creating a model of digital sharing that improved the availability of digital educational content to all members of our society.
The FOUNT team at NIU and UIC:
- Michael E. Papka (UIC)
- Yash Kurkure (UIC/ANL)
- David Koop (Northern Illinois University)
This work was in part funded by a National Science Foundation grant - Collaborative Research: CyberTraining: Implementation: Medium: FOUNT: Scaffolded, Hands-On Learning for a Data-Centric Future. This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. OAC-2230080. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.