Sarah Langevin

Rapid conversion of an IT degree program to online delivery: impact, problems, solutions and challenges

At our institution, online delivery was initially seen as a way to extend the geographic reach of a specialized upper-division degree program, the Bachelor of Science in Applied Sciences (BSAS), targeting holders of community college Associates in Science (AS) degrees, with the hoped-for impact of increasing enrollment. This program shared many required courses with our flagship program, the BS in Information Technology (BSIT), including the upper-division entry point for both programs, CGS3303 IT Concepts. Implementing this course in an asynchronous online mode resulted in an increase in enrollment from 17 (fall, 2007) to 70 (spring, 2008); most of these 70 students identified as BSIT, leading us to fast-track conversion to online modes for all of our core courses and electives. This accelerated pace of online development presented many challenges and difficulties, including ensuring the quality of our finished course product. Faculty buy-in, assisted by a stipend program for online development, was essential, as was the presence of quality instructional technology support. An NSF-funded infrastructure (SOFTICE) allowed the offering of problematic laboratory courses (Operating Systems, Networks) safely and securely in an online mode. A course quality review process was implemented as part of the stipend program, which also largely resolved intellectual property issues. Nonetheless, remaining are some issues and concerns, which are discussed in this paper. Recommendations, observations and suggested processes are included for those who may be considering transitioning an IT degree program to online delivery.

Inexpensive, Scalable and Transparent Open Source Classroom Management for Linux-based Laboratories

Many courses in the computing curricula (CS, ITl) can benefit form hands-on pedagogical activities in the form of laboratory components associated with the lectures. While the benefits of such hands-on learning sessions is agreed upon, some courses offer a non-trivial challenge to instructors (and sometime even institutions) interested in providing this kind of experience to their students. Operating systems, system administration and networking are all examples of laboratories for which students need root access to be able to experiment with the concepts and implementation studied in the lectures. With this constraint comes the need for a more flexible classroom management strategy. This paper explores how some open source virtualization and clustering technologies can be deployed to provide students, as well as instructors, with such an environment. We focus on providing solutions which can integrate transparently to any campus without involving significant changes to the classroom computers. This enables us to integrate Linux-based courseware even on campuses exclusively using proprietary software without actually requiring Linux to be installed in the classrooms. We also emphasize the scalability aspect by providing a highly cost-effective solution which can be easily scaled up as the number of students or the requirements of the course in terms of computational power increase.

The Case for Case Study assignments in Undergraduate Operating Systems Courses

Undergraduate operating systems courses can benefit form a plethora of pedagogical activities and approaches; system-level programming, kernel programming, algorithms simulations, etc. This paper explores the benefits of assigning students a semester-long case study in such a course and discusses the lessons learned from doing so for the past 4 years. We then propose to revisit the core objectives of such an activity and suggest a generic structure which can easily be adapted to fit institutions, courses and instructors requirements. The proposed case study assignment offers a scaffolding-based guidance to students and combines a high technical level with a good diversity of topics while addressing the issues which are typical in such assignment.

New approaches for Linux-based Undergraduate Operating System Concepts Laboratories

It is widely accepted that hands-on experience is key to helping students get a better grasp of the concepts, techniques and technologies introduced in lectures. The following quote, attributed to Confucius, embodies the underlying philosophy quite well; “I hear and I forget, I see and I remember, I do and I understand”. This paper discusses the design and implementation of a set of laboratories for an introductory undergraduate lecture in Operating Systems Concepts (OSC). More specifically, we focus on exploring how the Linux kernel can be made even more suitable as a vector from which to learn operating systems’ internals. To this end, we present a new pedagogical approach to Linux-based OSC laboratories which addresses issues stemming from Linux‘s monolithic kernel architecture and its “real world” complexity. We also apply the lessons learned form educational operating systems (OS) and show how some of the assignments which are typically unsuitable for production-level OSes can be adapted to offer students the best of both world. This paper then describes how these ideas can be translated into a laboratory structure, which favors learning by scaffolding, and further develops this structure into a set of laboratories covering both “classical” and new topics in operating systems. The analysis of the technical and pedagogical features of these laboratories concludes this paper.