TGQR 2010Q2 Report.pdf - Teragridforum.org

Purdue RP has recruited two undergraduate students, Talia Ho and Evan Albersmeyer, as summer
interns to work with the TeraGrid team since May. Talia is working with RP user support expert
to create step-by-step tutorials on frequently asked topics. She has learned to access and use
various TeraGrid resources and tools, such as the TG user portal, gsissh tools, as well as the user
issues, and how to make effective help material. Evan is developing a utility tool to help manage
the virtual machines deployed in Purdue’s Condor pool and report usage data to the users of the
desktop computers that contribute cycles to the pool. Both students have found many benefits in
learning about TeraGrid, high end computing and scientific applications in general, learning to
work with end users, learning to present advanced technology to beginners, and working with a
collaborative team.
SDSC
TG RP Education activities included activities to communicate the relationships between science,
technology, and society, and the role that scientific computing plays. TG RP staff reached out to
the K-20 community in an effort to encourage student interest in math and science during the
education process, to members of diverse, underrepresented groups in order to broaden
participation in high performance computing, and to the general public in order to promote
awareness of role of high performance computing to advance scientific discovery. Some RP sites
contribute to the scientific computing curriculum at their institution, creating and maintaining
"course packages" that are available to higher education faculty to produce their own courses.
TACC
TACC Scientific Computing Curriculum Courses: Since the fall of 2006, over 400 students have
enrolled in our courses. A total of 68 undergraduate and graduate students enrolled in the two
spring 2010 courses, Introduction to Scientific Programming (focused on FORTRAN and C) and
Parallel Computing for Scientists & Engineers. Four TACC scientists are teaching these courses.
In each course, enrollment reached the maximum. Engineering students continue to hold the
greatest percentage of students (40%), compared to the natural sciences, computer sciences,
geosciences, and liberal arts. The majority of students are involved in research. Introduction to
Scientific Programming continues to attract the greatest percentage of undergraduates per course.
TACC is evaluating the quality and effectiveness of the courses with pre- and post-course surveys
based on the content, learning objectives, and the computational science competencies from the
Ralph Regula School of Computational Science. The Spring 2010 course data indicates
statistically significant gains in students’ knowledge and skills. There are a few interesting
findings: Introduction to Scientific Programming attracts mostly undergraduates, while graduates
are the overwhelming majority in the Parallel Computing course. The majority of students in the
programming class were from engineering and physics, but two liberal arts majors enrolled in the
class as well. Student achievement in the learning objectives for the parallel computing course,
based on the competencies developed by the Ralph Regula School of Computational Science,
increased from little or no experience to proficient/very experienced over the course of the
semester. An encouraging highlight is 75% of students in the scientific programming course
indicated that they are applying their new programming capability in other courses.
TACC Scientific Computing Curriculum Package: Production of the Scientific Computing
Curriculum Package continues. Instructors are now reviewing the revised course materials, with
an eye toward distribution of materials at SC’10. . The presentation slides contain the bulk of the
courses’ content that students use on a regular basis, thus the content accuracy and quality of the
slides are critical to maximize impact and sustainability. Students have commented to our
instructors about the high quality of the slides. The package content extends beyond the course
slides to ensure that faculty at other institutions may readily adopt or integrate the materials for
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