Task Force on Education and Training

Objectives:

Education and training is the preparation of the future -of those who will carry on the work of the current generation; hence, it is at least as important, if not more important, than current work. In addition, graduate education is not only the preparation of the future researchers, but also one of the main constituents that support current research. In this case, our concern is University Education, undergraduate and graduate, and the training of the senior students or of the young researchers, in all the sub-fields of Computer Science and Engineering that HiPEAC covers, i.e. briefly: Computer Architecture, Compilation, Systems Software, and the aspects of Applications Development that interact with the above.

The purpose of this task force is to promote communication and hence sharing of experiences, recommendations, teaching methods, material, and tools among the HiPEAC members and more generally the community at large, on all aspects of education and training. Out of this communication, additional actions may hopefully arise in the future, outside the scope of the HiPEAC project itself but complementary to its goals, such as training networks or joint graduate programs.

"Dare to Venture", the student entrepreneurship project of Ghent University - presentation by Koen De Bosschere at the Barcelona November 2011 meeting - [ Slides in PDF ]: In 2011, Ghent University starts its ambitious student-entrepreneurship project "Durf Ondernemen". This project aims at integrating key entrepreneurial concepts in the study programs of the university, and at supporting and coaching the students who want to create their own personal ventures. Surveys on existing successful companies and students willing to invest in commercializable ideas clearly demonstrate the potential benefits of stimulating students’ entrepreneurial activities at an early age. The presentation covers several aspects of student entrepreneurship for the different stakeholders: society, the higher education institution and the student.

Chamonix meeting, 7 April 2011, 11:30 - 13:00

European Master in Distributed Computing, by KTH, UPC, IST

NetFPGA Hands-On Tutorial: Crete, Greece, 16-17 September 2010

January 2010 Tutorial on Teaching Introductory Computer Architecture and Programming: What, When, How?

Held in conjunction with the HiPEAC 2010 Conference, on 24 January 2010, in Pisa, Italy:

Recommendations for an education that best addresses Industry’s needs:
(Barcelona Meeting, 19 October 2010): The BSc curriculum should teach and emphasize both Basics and Project-oriented courses (basics are more important than skills, tools, and languages of current use, but the students will inevitably learn the latter too, especially as a by-product of working on projects). Basics courses of central importance are on data structures, algorithms, architecture, OS, compilers, optimization. At least one Software Project course should be compulsory; also desirable: courses on Business, and on Economics of Engineering Projects.
For the Software Project course: build a working software system/package as if being a new company. Learn to use other people’s/teams’ output, and to make your own output usable by others; learn to enter into an existing project that is "bigger than yourself", and having to adapt to it; open source projects are great for this (e.g. sourceForge); and/or: switch projects between teams, so that students have to use the other team's output. Non-technical things to learn: deadlines; deliverables; report writing; (even business plan!); team work. Also learn: naming conventions, directory structure, tool selection (again, open source projects are great for this).

Resources:

List of educational material, on HiPEAC topics, available on the web; under construction --help us enlarge and improve it by sending email to the task force leader:

Activities:

The work-plan of the task force consists of promoting communication and information exchange, as defined in the above objectives, and disseminating such information to the community at large. The main methods are:

  • TF Mailing List, for intra-TF communication: membership managed through http://www.hipeac.net/mailman/listinfo/tf_education
  • TF Web Page (this page): http://www.hipeac.net/TF_education
  • Biannual TF Meetings, usually to be held in conjunction with other HiPEAC activities (cluster meetings or conference). They provide a forum for interaction between HiPEAC members on issues of education and training, and aim to stimulate exchange of information as defined above in the objectives, to plan activities, and to provide the opportunity for networking and possible consortium formation. The first meeting of the task force took place in Barcelona, on 3 June 2008.
  • Topics under discussion:
    • On occasions, offer courses on how to teach computer architecture, compilers, and related topics, e.g. first "how to write parallel programs", then "how to teach writing parallel programs"?
    • There is interest in "Initial Training Networks" on the HiPEAC topics under the Marie-Curie ("People") Programme.
    • There have been preliminary discussions about the possibility for organizing an International Joint Master’s Program in HiPEAC-related topics, e.g. under "Erasmus Mundus".
    • Monitor the activities of the "European Computer Science Summit" meetings of Department Chairs: http://www.informatics-europe.org/ECSS08/ecss08_main.html

Task force leader: Manolis Katevenis, FORTH


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daretoventure_ghent_111104.pdf10.62 MB