Scientific and societal progress in the 21st century relies on a large, heterogeneous, and evolving ecosystem of Parallel and Distributed Computing (PDC) technologies. These technologies focus on making it possible to execute computational and/or data-processing applications quickly on compute and storage hardware resources available over various networks, or Cyberinfrastructures.  Applications that can benefit from PDC are ubiquitous and arise in domains as diverse as physics, artificial intelligence, or finance.  And yet, most college students graduating today from computing curricula have at best little exposure to PDC concepts and practices.  There is thus an imminent risk that the emerging computing workforce will be ill-prepared for developing the Cyberinfrastructure applications that are key to societal progress.

Teaching PDC topics early and effectively in university curricula is thus crucial for workforce development, but it is notoriously challenging. It is well accepted that the most effective pedagogic approach is a hands-on one, by which student learn PDC concepts and techniques actively by designing, running, and observing the outcome of experiments. Unfortunately, such hands-on learning is not always feasible due to the need to provide students with necessary hardware and software. This is simply not feasible at some institutions or for some student populations; and even when feasible, the provided hardware and software cannot be configured or scaled up at will, which severely limits the set of learning objectives that can be achieved effectively.

This project has addressed the above pedagogic challenge by making it possible to teach PDC topics in a hands-on manner but without needing to provide students with any PDC hardware or software. This was achieved by relying on simulation technology, that is, by developing software artifacts that mimic the behavior of a arbitrary PDC platforms, systems, and applications. This was feasible due to advances in simulation technology in the last decade, notably the development of simulation frameworks for developing fast and accurate PDC simulators. In this project we have developed many such simulators, each of which forms the basis for one or more hands-on, simulation-driven activities. These activities are made available to students in the browser.  In this manner, any student at any institution, or any independent learner, can learn PDC topics hands-on. The only requirement is that they have access to the Internet via a browser.

The main outcome of this project is the eduWRENCH website (https://eduwrench.org), which to date contains 10 pedagogic modules that target a broad set of PDC topics and learning objectives. Each module contains pedagogic narratives, several simulation-driven, hands-on activities, practice questions for students to test their knowledge, and open-ended questions that instructors can use as part of homework assignments or exams.  These modules are designed so that instructors can integrate them easily, in a piecemeal fashion, into existing courses. All these modules together also provide a sound basis for developing a full PDC course, or for injecting PDC content throughout a curriculum starting at the freshman level.  The pedagogic quality and effectiveness of the eduWRENCH modules have been assessed regularly throughout the project's time-frame using multiple means: obtaining feedback from expert PDC instructors, using the modules in university courses, assessing student learning via homework assignments and exams, and collecting student feedback on overall learning experience. This regular assessment has made it possible to iteratively improve both the pedagogic content and its delivery, culminating today in a set of high-quality, instructor- and student-vetted, readily usable (and often used) pedagogic modules. In the last year alone more than 1,000 users have used the eduWRENCH website and engaged in simulation-driven, hands-on pedagogic activities.

Last Modified: 10/05/2022
Modified by: Loic Pottier