Task Force on Education and Training

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

Sunday, 24 January 2010, 14:00 - 17:30, Pisa, Italy; held in conjunction with the 5th International Conference on High-Performance and Embedded Architectures and Compilers (HiPEAC) 2010: http://www.hipeac.net/conference/pisa/icap

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.

Resources:

• A list of instructors who teach courses in HiPEAC topics in Europe, so as to be able to send information to them. Browse it and/or help us in building it at: http://www.hipeac.net/instructors_list_subscriber

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:

• Simulators, Tools, Compilers, Benchmarks List: http://www.cs.wisc.edu/arch/www/tools.html
• Computer Organization Lecture Slides: Stanford Univ. (Christos Kozyrakis), Winter 2009: http://www.stanford.edu/class/ee108b/ ; CMU (James Hoe), Spring 2009: http://www.ece.cmu.edu/~jhoe/course/ece447/H0x-schedule.htm ; U. C. Berkeley, Summer 2008: http://www-inst.eecs.berkeley.edu/~cs61c/su08/
• Computer Architecture Lecture Slides: U. C. Berkeley (Krste Asanovic), Spring 2009: http://www-inst.eecs.berkeley.edu/~cs152/sp09/ ; MIT (Arvind and Joel Emer), Fall 2005: http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Electrical-Engineering-and-Computer-Science/6-823Fall-2005/LectureNotes/index.htm
• Systems Architecture Lecture Slides: Stanford Univ. (Christos Kozyrakis), Fall 2008: http://www.stanford.edu/class/ee282/ ; MIT (Butler Lampson, Martin Rinard), Spring 2002: http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Electrical-Engineering-and-Computer-Science/6-826Principles-of-Computer-SystemsSpring2002/LectureNotes/index.htm
• Advanced Computer Architecture Lecture Slides: Stanford Univ. (Christos Kozyrakis), Spring 2009: http://www.stanford.edu/class/ee382a/ ; U. C. Berkeley (David Patterson), Spring 2001: http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~pattrsn/252S01/index.html#schedule
• Packet Switch Architecture Lecture Slides: Univ. of Crete (Manolis Katevenis), Spring 2009: http://archvlsi.ics.forth.gr/~kateveni/534/
• Compilers: Univ. of Edinburgh: Compiling Techniques: http://www.inf.ed.ac.uk/teaching/courses/ct/ , Compiler Optimization: http://www.inf.ed.ac.uk/teaching/courses/copt/ ; Univ. of Cambridge: Compiler Construction: http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/teaching/0910/CompConstr/ ; Univ. of Linz: Language Specification & Compiler Construction: http://www.ssw.uni-linz.ac.at/Misc/CC/
• Distributed Systems: Univ. of Edinburgh: http://www.inf.ed.ac.uk/teaching/courses/ds/
• Linux - Guide to the Linux Kernel: http://www.linuxhq.com/guides/TLK/tlk.html
• Intel Academic Relations web site: http://softwarecollege.intel.com/academic/ --existing courses: http://isccontent.intel.com/articles/eng/3684.htm --educationl kit: http://www.intel.com/pressroom/kits/education/teach.htm
• Microsoft Academic Courses web site: https://www.academicresourcecenter.net/curriculum/facetmain.aspx
• The Virtual Museum of Computing: http://icom.museum/vlmp/computing.html

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