Remarks on EOT and Cyberinfrastructure

iPlant Collaborative Cyberinfrastructure WorkshopBiosphere 2 Arizona January 7-9 2009

http://iplantcollaborative.org/component/conferences/conference/6

Geoffrey Fox

Indiana UniversityChair Informatics DepartmentDirector Digital Science Center

EOT Components• Training, • Integration of research and education, • Broadening participation and • Cyberlearning. • There is both support infrastructure (computers,

middleware) and activity/content (e.g. courses on plant biology)

• All aimed at enabling Breakthrough Science Research and Education for 21st Century and/or creating a science-savvy public

Cyberlearning• There are collaboration/Web2.0 tools (WebEx,

Skype, Access Grid, SharePoint, Wiki, Googledocs, Facebook, Sakai, NIXTY ( soon) Portals, Gadgets ….)

• Provide online curricula ( evolve TeraGrid’s current HPC University to “Computational Thinking University” with broader computing model)

• Support for asynchronous and real-time streaming delivery of educational and training resources.

• Assessment and Pedagogy support• Possible value of Second Life

Training and Education• There are spectrum of activities from seminars, tutorials, short

courses, courses, minors, certificates, to degrees (“Computational Science/Thinking University”)

• Emphasis varies from specific skills (training) to fundamental principles (education)

• In spite of many well publicized projects (such as MIT online courses), there is little re-use of courses or tutorials

• Techniques to enable re-use– Do more than put PowerPoint on the web – add more detailed

resources and at least video recording of courses– CI-Tutor is an example of enhanced presentation as is HUBzero,

Sakai, Blackboard …– Offer support in Pedagogy to course developers– Offer support to those interesting in using your curricula– More systematic Evaluation

“Integration of Research and Education”• This is an important NSF initiative and involves integrating iPlant

research with the national research and education activity. – Support for attendance at iPlant workshops– Fellowships (faculty) and internships for undergraduate and

graduate students to participate in iPlant activities– Professional development for (K-12) educators– Mentoring is essential and successful REU programs often

have dedicated mentoring• Support integration of iPlant curricula into K-12 and university

programs• Need robust evaluation and metrics of success• Broadening Participation activity identifies people served by

“Integration of Research and Education”– Separate identifying customers (hardest) from what you can offer them

Cyberinfrastructure & Broadening Participation

• Quoting the NSF OCI CI Vision– “Broaden access to state-of-the-art computing resources, focusing

especially on institutions with less capability and communities where computational science is an emerging activity, [ p. 7],”

– “To promote broad participation of underserved groups, communities and institutions, both as creators and users of CI [p. 39]”

– Plant Science itself is an emerging activity – Plant Science at a Minority Serving Institution is even more

emerging

Organizations that can help identify outreach participants

• Outreach needs programs and customers; you should provide programs and partner to identify customers

• Minority Serving Institutions Cyberinfrastructure Empowerment Coalition (MSI-CIEC);American Indian Higher Education Consortium (AIHEC); Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities (HACU); National Association for Equal Opportunity in higher education (NAFEO);

• Coalition to Diversify Computing (CDC); Association of Computer and Information Science/Engineering Departments at Minority Institutions (ADMI); Computing Alliance for Hispanic-Serving Institutions (CAHSI); African-American Researchers in Computing Sciences (AARCS); Society for the Advancement of Chicanos and Native Americans in Science (SACNAS); Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers, Inc. (SHPE); National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE);

• Committee on the Status of Women in Computing Research (CRA-W); National Center for Women and Information Technology (NCWIT);

• Alliance for Access to Computing Careers (AccessComputing); Disabilities, Opportunities, Internetworking, and Technology (DO-IT); Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR).

MSI Cyberinfrastructure Empowerment CoalitionVision:

To advance science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) and the participation of the nation’s underrepresented minorities in STEM, particularly e-science, and in the global STEM workforce through minority-serving institutions (MSIs) and the emerging cyberinfrastructure (CI).

Mission: To build and enhance the social and technological mechanisms for

meaningful engagement of MSIs in cyberinfrastructure (CI).

The project develops the CI “middleware” resources to encourage, broker, enable and manage meaningful CI initiatives involving MSI collaborations for the use, support, deployment, development, and design of CI to enable the advancement of e-science research and education.

Enable systemic change that scales to 335 MSI’s in Alliance for Equity in Higher Education

Cyberinfrastructure & MSI-CIEC• CI intrinsically democratizes science with its focus on

collaboration and sharing of resources• Expands who can participate in the new science and what

they can do• Tremendous opportunity for MSIs• MSI-CIEC links “E” and “T” parts of EOT to MSI’s• Not as add-ons but fully engaged – for example HBCU

Elizabeth City State University leads Cyberinfrastructure for NSF Science and Technology Center CReSIS(based on MSI-CIEC interaction)

MSI-CIEC Campus Visits Cyberinfrastructure Days (CI Days)

• CI Days coined by Jill Arnold, Internet 2, during TG Campus Partnership RAT (MSI and non MSI CI Days)

• MSI-CIEC had 2 campus visits (ECSU, UHD) in 2008 and one Regional visit (New Mexico at NMHU)

• Involves evaluation of local CI and presentations to faculty, students on CI opportunities – could include iPlant opportunities

• Cyber-enabled education a dominant interest• REU’s (Research Experience for Undergraduates) broadly useful• Access to Petaflop computers not so useful• Need to address campus IT staff (including CIO) and

Provosts/Presidents who need to support Campus CI support• TeraGrid, Internet2, Open Science Grid and state organizations help

CI days and of course can help iPlant