Enhancing Undergraduate Curricula with High Performance Computing Tools and Technologies for the California State University System and the National Education Community

National Science Foundation's Division of Advanced Scientific Computing made five year awards supporting two High Performance Computing (HPC) partnerships led by the San Diego Supercomputer Center (www.npaci.edu) and the National Center for Supercomputing Applications, in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois (alliance.ncsa.uiuc.edu), to build the national infrastructure in HPC through partnerships.

The Ed Center opened on the SDSU campus October 10, 1997. It has three staff members: Kris Stewart, Director; Ilya Zaslavsky, GIS Staff Scientist; and Dolores Candelario, Assiatant to the Director. At this time, we aslo employ 5 student assistants:  Xiangwei Li, Wai Lee, Phil Deacon, Jason Tate, Ivan Bajic.

Overview of the National Partnership for Advanced Computing Infrastructure (www.npaci.edu)

NPACI (www.npaci.edu/Partners/partner.html) is an association of 39 universities and research centers from 18 states, with SDSC as the leading edge site. The San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC) conducts and supports activities in computational science, a third fundamental method for conducting scientific research (in addition to laboratory experimentation and theoretical investigation). Computational Science is defined as using computers (in this context, high performance computers) and related computing technologies (such as applications software, high speed networking, scientific visualization technologies, and large data storage systems) to visualize, analyze, and simulate natural and social phenomena.
Application Thrust Areas of NPACI include Molecular Biology, Neuroscience, Earth Systems Science, and Engineering.
Technology Thrust Areas of NPACI include Data-intensive Computing, Interaction-Environments and Adaptable, Scalable Tools and Environments.

Examples of projects underway at the EC/CSE.

• Java and VRML resources for scientists and engineers. Our growing repository of VRML scenes and Java applets arranged by disciplines, is available at http://www.edcenter.sdsu.edu/repository/
• Java-based instructional interface and analytical extension for Protein Data Base (PDB) developed at SDSC (Deacon)
Molecular Biology/Chemistry Worksheet
• Testbed for distance learning collaboratory techniques [Tango, NetMeeting, Habanero, SciViz ...]. (X. Li)
• "Virtual Professor" Distance Learning in computationally intensive courses (I. Zaslavsky)
Collaboratory use of GIS over the Internet in instruction (together with NPAC - Syracuse, Dr. Geoffrey Fox), and the experiment in distance teaching of GIS and spatial analysis (EC/CSE, SDSU  to Geography, WMU)
• Group learning in Supercomputing instruction: (K. Stewart) CS 575 Supercomputing

vBNS

vBNS proposal coordinated by CSU Chancellor's office. Participatation by SDSU, CalPoly Pomona, and CSU/SB within the CSU (just granted by NSF!). More information:www.edcenter.sdsu.edu/projects/vbns_summary.html.

Some examples of past and current projects of SDSC and NPACI:

NPACI Data-Intensive Computing Environments: (http://www.npaci.edu/DICE)

• Alexandria Digital Library (http://alexandria.sdc.ucsb.edu/) A distributed digital library for geographically-referenced information, being developed at UC Santa Barbara  and mirrored at SDSC.
• ELib (UC Berkeley Digital Library) (elib.cs.berkeley.edu) Also, part of the NSF/ARPA/NASA Digital Library Initiative and the California Environment Resource Evaluation System (CERES) with the goal "to develop the technologies for intelligent access to massive distributed collections of photographs, satellite images, maps, full text documents and 'multivalent' documents." Mirrored at SDSC
• University of Michigan Digital Library (www.si.umich.edu/UMDL/") "In UMDL, we are instead embracing the open, evolving, decentralized advantages of the web and introducing computational mechanisms to temper its inherent chaos. However, we are also embracing the traditional values of service, organization and access that have made libraries powerful intellectual institutions." Mirrored at SDSC starting June 1998.

Other NPACI Opportunites

• US Economic History, a 3D visualization (http://www.sdsc.edu/GatherScatter/GSspring97/pailthorpe.html): A simulation of main economic indicators, in 3D coordinates (boom, stagflation, depression), to convey the extreme fluctuations during the first half of the century and the stability of the economy since World War II. Developed by Bernard Pailthorpe, Sydney Vislab/SDSC, and Richard Carson, University of California, San Diego/SDSC.

San Diego Bay Project (http://www.sdsc.edu/SDBAY/): A collection of databases, resources,  models, software, and literature, related to San Diego Bay, water quality issues in particular. The databases are searchable, some models can be run on-line, their results are visualized on maps and in VRML. More information and links related to the project are accessible from the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis page at SDSC.

Biodiversity Insight System (BIS) (http://biodi.sdsc.edu/): This system for analysis and visualisation (and mapping) of biodiversity data is being developed by the University of Kansas and the San Diego Supercomputer Center

EarthRise (http://earthrise.sdsc.edu/): This is an online collection of over 100,000 of photographic images of different parts of the Earth taken by astronauts during the Space Shuttle flights in the last 15 years.

How the Ed Center establishes collaborations with CSU faculty

• We offer workshops on new technologies to SDSU and CSU faculty, for example: Materials of the recent workshop "Collaborative Web-based Technologies: a Comparative Review and Live Demonstration, with Special Focus on Distance Learning Opportunities" are available ( http://www.edcenter.sdsu.edu/training/training.html).
• We have prepared descriptions of the opportunities that SDSC and the NPACI offer to the nation, with a focus on identifying opportunities to enhance undergraduate education (http://www.edcenter.sdsu.edu/npaci/npaci.html)
• Regular reviews of NPACI and SDSC research and resources are published online at NPACI Online (http://www.npaci.edu/online/)and enVision (formerly Gather/Scatter).
• We make presentations at CSU campuses, and to various SDSU departments, on high performance computing opportunities in undergraduate teaching. A complete list of presentations, and their texts are available at http://www.edcenter.sdsu.edu/projects/presentations.html).
• The presentations and workshops can be followed by individual collaboration with faculty on selected projects related to undergraduate teaching.

Examples of collaborations already formed by EC/CSE

• Evaluation and assessment of the Ed Center by the LEAD center, at National Institute for Science Education, NISE, U. Wisconsin, Madison
• NPACI partnership "contract" with the Institute for Advanced Technology in the Humanities (IATH), NPACI partner in Virginia
• EC/CSE was client in SDSU's Art 540 Advanced Graphic Imagery, where a student's project (Grace Kim) just this week presented our Logo. What do you think?
• NSF proposal by Doug Deutschman (SDSU Biology), on chaparral ecosystem simulation modeling and visualization with the SORTIE-like model (with interfaces tuned to student exploration, in particular) - involves EC/CSE (January 1998)
• Industrial partnership with Mathworks (MATLAB, which now has MapTools) (November 1997)
• National Endowment for the Humanities proposal with Dr. Bob Hoffman (SDSU Ed Tech) on using VRML to simulate the California mission so that 4th grade students can become docents of the mission and conduct virtual tours. (October 1997)

Curriculum

Sample curricula developed in house based on Stewart/Zaslavsky teaching responsibilities:
• High Performance Computing CS 575 Supercomputing, upper division, undergraduate course at SDSU, emphasis: evaluating performance (accuracy and work), validating computed results, responsible computer use, group-work on computational experiments
• Bridging Environments, CS 205 Computational Problem Solving and Visualization, sophomore level at SDSU, emphasis: first programming language C within MATLAB environment, cross-platform visualization (Mac, PC, Unix), taught in a hands-on Xterminal (UNIX) Lab.
• Learners' Problem Solving Skills, Bottom-Up Design of Computational Experiments
• Group-based work on Responsible Computer Use, a Case Study
• Web-based Interactive Environment in Distance Teaching of Technology-intensive Geography Courses (Geog 567/569); learners at Western Michigan U., Kalamazoo MI, instructor at EC/CSE, San Diego CA.

Dr. Kris Stewart (stewart@sdsu.edu), Director
Dr. Ilya Zaslavsky (zaslavsk@rohan.sdsu.edu), GIS Staff Scientist
Education Center on Computational Science & Engineering
San Diego State University, Love Library Addition, Rm 73
www.edcenter.sdsu.edu