This special session will report on the updated NSF/IEEE-TCPP
Curriculum on Parallel and Distributed Computing released in Nov
2020 by the Center for Parallel and Distributed Computing Curricu-
lum Development and Educational Resources (CDER). The purpose
of the special session is to obtain SIGCSE community feedback
on this curriculum in a highly interactive manner employing the
hybrid modality and supported by a full-time CDER booth for the
duration of SIGCSE. In this era of big data, cloud, and multi- and
many-core systems, it is essential that the computer science (CS)
and computer engineering (CE) graduates have basic skills in par-
allel and distributed computing (PDC). The topics are primarily
organized into the areas of architecture, programming, and algo-
rithms topics. A set of pervasive concepts that percolate across
area boundaries are also identified. Version 1 of this curriculum
was released in December 2012. That curriculum guideline has over
140 early adopter institutions worldwide and has been incorpo-
rated into the 2013 ACM/IEEE Computer Science curricula. This
Version-II represents a major revision. The updates have focused
on enhancing coverage related to the topical aspects of Big Data,
Energy, and Distributed Computing.
The session will also report on related CDER activities including
a workshop series on a PDC institute conceptualization, developing
a CE-oriented version of the curriculum, and identifying a minimal
set of PDC topics aligned with ABET’s exposure-level PDC require-
ments. The interested SIGCSE audience includes educators, authors,publishers, curriculum committee members, department chairs and
administrators, professional societies, and the computing industry.
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Incorporating Parallel Computing in the Undergraduate Computer Science Curriculum
Teaching parallel and distributed computing (PDC) concepts is an ongoing and pressing concern for many undergraduate educators. The ACM/IEEE CS Joint Task Force on Computing Curricula (CS2013) recommends 15 hours of PDC education in the undergraduate curriculum. Most recently, the 2019 ABET Criteria for Accrediting Computer Science requires coverage of PDC topics. For faculty who are unfamiliar with PDC, the prospect of incorporating parallel computing into their courses can seem very daunting. For example, should PDC concepts be covered in a single required course (perhaps computer systems) or be scattered throughout different courses in the undergraduate curriculum? What languages are the best/easiest for students to learn PDC? How much revision is truly needed? This Birds of a Feather session provides a platform for computing educators to discuss the common challenges they face when attempting to incorporate PDC into their curricula and share potential solutions. Chiefly, the organizers are interested in identifying "gap areas" that hinder a faculty member's ability to integrate PDC into their undergraduate courses. The multiple viewpoints and expertise provided by the BOF leaders should lead to lively discourse and enable experienced faculty to share their strategies with those beginning to add PDC across their curricula. We anticipate that this session will be of interest to all CS faculty looking to integrate PDC into their courses and curricula.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1855761
- NSF-PAR ID:
- 10301839
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- SIGCSE '20: Proceedings of the 51st ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 1399 to 1399
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
-
Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Conference Paper:
- https://doi.org/10.1145/3328778.3372511
