Full HTML for

Basic foilset Revised Version of Physics and Engineering Education and Outreach with Modern Information Technology

Given by Geoffrey C. Fox at HPCC Seminar Series at Penn State on Jan 25 99. Foils prepared May 17 99
Outside Index Summary of Material

Given to graduate HPCC/Computational Science seminar
Initially motivate reason for change based on shift of employee and then student interests to information technology
Describe relevant Syracuse activities and why they fit together to support new curricula; better educational materials in existing fields and novel technology support for new models of teaching and learning
We describe Internetics as key applied computer science knowledge
We give a brief description of
  • TangoInteractive for distance delivery
  • NeatTools for Universal Access
We comment on "business model" for both computer science research and for Universities

Table of Contents for full HTML of Revised Version of Physics and Engineering Education and Outreach with Modern Information Technology

 Denote Foils where Image Critical
Denote Foils where HTML is sufficient
1 Physics and Engineering Education and Outreach with Modern Information Technology
2 Abstract of Penn State Presentation
3 University HPCC Issues and Requirements
4 Changing Choices in Education
5 Impact of IT Worker Shortage on Physics and Engineering education
6 Impact of Web Technology on Engineering and Physics Education
7 Possibly Useful Syracuse Activities
8 Why and What could one Do?
9 Why/What is Internetics in a Nutshell
10 Synergy of Parallel Computing and The Grid Internetics as Unifying Principle
11 What is Internetics ?
12 Xiaoming Li's View of Internetics
13 Traditional Computational Science
14 Internetics Extension of Computational Science
15 Internetics Certificate Curriculum: K-12
16 Internetics Certificate Curriculum: Undergraduate
17 Internetics Certificate Curriculum: Graduate
18 Internetics Certificate Curriculum: Graduate Electives
19 Internetics and Physics I
20 Internetics and Physics II
21 Why use TangoInteractive?
22 Some Principles in Tango Support of Distance Education I
23 Some Principles in Tango Support of Distance Education II
24 NeatTools and Universal Access
25 New Enterprise Models for University Research?
26 New Enterprise Models for Universities?
27 Useful Links

Outside Index Summary of Material

HTML version of Basic Foils prepared May 17 99

Foil 1 Physics and Engineering Education and Outreach with Modern Information Technology

From Revised Version of Physics and Engineering Education and Outreach with Modern Information Technology HPCC Seminar Series at Penn State -- Jan 25 99. *
Full HTML Index
Revision of Presentation at Penn State Jan 25 99
http://www.npac.syr.edu/users/gcf/egywebeducmay99
Geoffrey Fox
Syracuse University NPAC
111 College Place Syracuse NY 13244 4100
3154432163
HTML version of Basic Foils prepared May 17 99

Foil 2 Abstract of Penn State Presentation

From Revised Version of Physics and Engineering Education and Outreach with Modern Information Technology HPCC Seminar Series at Penn State -- Jan 25 99. *
Full HTML Index
Given to graduate HPCC/Computational Science seminar
Initially motivate reason for change based on shift of employee and then student interests to information technology
Describe relevant Syracuse activities and why they fit together to support new curricula; better educational materials in existing fields and novel technology support for new models of teaching and learning
We describe Internetics as key applied computer science knowledge
We give a brief description of
  • TangoInteractive for distance delivery
  • NeatTools for Universal Access
We comment on "business model" for both computer science research and for Universities
HTML version of Basic Foils prepared May 17 99

Foil 3 University HPCC Issues and Requirements

From Revised Version of Physics and Engineering Education and Outreach with Modern Information Technology HPCC Seminar Series at Penn State -- Jan 25 99. *
Full HTML Index
Universities interact with HPCC in three distinct ways
  • Research in HPCC: This is reduced in level but healthy
  • Using HPCC facilities for large scale simulations in areas like biochemistry and astrophysics: NSF new solicitation with 2 major PACI partnerships signals success and reinvigoration
  • Education of students in field: this is not so satisfactory as in general number of skilled people in computer field is less than demand and students are:
    • Leaving HPCC areas in computer science (Web, databases appear to have better job opportunities)
    • Leaving major application areas like physics (enrollment dropping)
  • We propose a new educational focus on Internetics to attract students in an area that includes both web and HPCC technologies
  • Also distance education and more enlightened immigration policies can make a major help
HTML version of Basic Foils prepared May 17 99

Foil 4 Changing Choices in Education

From Revised Version of Physics and Engineering Education and Outreach with Modern Information Technology HPCC Seminar Series at Penn State -- Jan 25 99. *
Full HTML Index
Students -- correctly -- perceive a growing opportunity in computer science related fields but outside biology, there is a decrease in interest in "technical sciences" such as physics, aerospace engineering etc.
In particular physics departments may disappear in many Universities as the number of majors is dropping at both undergraduate and graduate level.
Classical Computational Science is not the answer but we suggest that a generalization -- Internetics at the interface between applications and "web/commodity" technologies offers interesting attractive academic programs combining computing and the "technical sciences"
It is not enough to justify physics (as studying Latin and Greek was motivated to me) as "training the mind"
HTML version of Basic Foils prepared May 17 99

Foil 5 Impact of IT Worker Shortage on Physics and Engineering education

From Revised Version of Physics and Engineering Education and Outreach with Modern Information Technology HPCC Seminar Series at Penn State -- Jan 25 99. *
Full HTML Index
So depending on the source, one finds a shortage of 100,000 to 300,000 workers in Information Technology today -- this is forecast to grow with 1 million more jobs created by industry by year 2004
So physics and "physical technology" aspects of engineering (e.g. aerospace engineering) could compete with this trend and try to attract good students from this field
My suggested alternative is to note that IT work typically requires the technical and problem solving skills abilities associated with physics or engineering and often NOT taught in Computer Science
Thus set up new curricula opportunities within the general IT educational arena that we call Internetics
  • IT minor with a basic physics/engineering education
  • Engineering/physics/math methods minor within an IT education
Note IT job opportunities are in applications -- perhaps more so than in "basic systems"
HTML version of Basic Foils prepared May 17 99

Foil 6 Impact of Web Technology on Engineering and Physics Education

From Revised Version of Physics and Engineering Education and Outreach with Modern Information Technology HPCC Seminar Series at Penn State -- Jan 25 99. *
Full HTML Index
There is the same opportunity available to any education area to use new delivery and preparation methods
  • This opportunity is also a challenge as virtual university opens up teaching at all universities to other providers
Comparing "books" with the Web, we see that Web offers opportunities for "technical people" as well as those with good "communication skills" -- Java applets combined with numerical algorithms may be more effective than streams of beautiful English words
  • Maybe this would suggest new degrees with a mix of engineering, physics, "classical mathematical methods" and Web technology
The new technologies should allow better integration of research into education -- this could help academic fields communicate their value more effectively
HTML version of Basic Foils prepared May 17 99

Foil 7 Possibly Useful Syracuse Activities

From Revised Version of Physics and Engineering Education and Outreach with Modern Information Technology HPCC Seminar Series at Penn State -- Jan 25 99. *
Full HTML Index
1) New Curriculum: Internetics Concept as novel and powerful way of linking Computing to Applications
  • Concept generalizes computational science
  • An Internetics Certificate which we will offer over Internet both in USA and internationally
  • Interest in Integration with physics for new degree options
2) Improved curriculum in existing fields as in Physics-NPAC-Engineering-Cornell Collaborative Applets and web-based simulations
3) NeatTools for universal access allowing those with disabilities to be effective teachers and learners
4) TangoInteractive and WebWisdom as web-based distance education technology to allow broad dissemination of curriculum starting locally
  • Ongoing experience using technology
5) Collaboration with NSF PACI (NCSA,UCSD supercomputer centers) to accelerate national outreach and ensure top quality
6) Note NPAC was once a parallel computing center -- now 40% of its activities are either delivery of or technology development for education
HTML version of Basic Foils prepared May 17 99

Foil 8 Why and What could one Do?

From Revised Version of Physics and Engineering Education and Outreach with Modern Information Technology HPCC Seminar Series at Penn State -- Jan 25 99. *
Full HTML Index
One can integrate best information technology and leading physics and engineering research into new curriculum with both existing and new educational programs and outreach activities
This will invigorate traditional majors; integrate them into interdisciplinary education and improve broad based science understanding
One needs Internetics as key information technology curriculum
One needs good curricula authoring tools with universal Web API
One needs NeatTools to enable universal access to web-based curriculum
One needs TangoInteractive/WebWisdom to broadly disseminate
One needs outside collaboration (such as NSF PACI EOT) to ensure integration with national agenda
One needs physics and engineering researchers and teachers to design and develop new curriculum materials
One needs innovative universities interested in new "enterprise models for education" and willing to experiment
HTML version of Basic Foils prepared May 17 99

Foil 9 Why/What is Internetics in a Nutshell

From Revised Version of Physics and Engineering Education and Outreach with Modern Information Technology HPCC Seminar Series at Penn State -- Jan 25 99. *
Full HTML Index
Computational Science is Interdisciplinary field in between Computer Science and "large scale Scientific and Engineering simulation-based" applications
  • Academic fields: Aerospace engineering, physics etc.
Internetics is Interdisciplinary field between CS and Both Simulation and Information-based applications
  • Bioinformatics, Public Communication ...
  • As information applications dominate commercial world, internetics has an information flavor (analysis of physics data is an "information" application; QCD Monte Carlo is a simulation application)
Enrollment in Classic Computational Science at Syracuse has dropped from 50 to 10; enrollment in Internetics has risen from 6 to 100 (95-98)
Current Internetics Curriculum starts with High School Java Academy;undergraduate and graduate programs, through the four course continuing education certificate
HTML version of Basic Foils prepared May 17 99

Foil 10 Synergy of Parallel Computing and The Grid Internetics as Unifying Principle

From Revised Version of Physics and Engineering Education and Outreach with Modern Information Technology HPCC Seminar Series at Penn State -- Jan 25 99. *
Full HTML Index
The two forms of Large Scale Computing Scale Computer for Scale Users in Proportion Power User to number of computers
Parallel Distributed Information Systems Computers Computational Grids
<--------------- Internetics Technologies --------------->
1% market
99% of market driving
student interest and (Java) technologies
HTML version of Basic Foils prepared May 17 99

Foil 11 What is Internetics ?

From Revised Version of Physics and Engineering Education and Outreach with Modern Information Technology HPCC Seminar Series at Penn State -- Jan 25 99. *
Full HTML Index
Emerging field centered on technologies services and applications enabling and enabled by world wide communication and computing grids
The contents come from Computer Communication and Information science fields but with an applied flavor so forms critical knowledge needed by many application fields such as scientific computing, telemedicine, electronic commerce, digital journalism and education
Students with an interdisciplinary background will be encouraged
The applied focus with many totally new and rapidly evolving technologies makes Internetics unique
HTML version of Basic Foils prepared May 17 99

Foil 12 Xiaoming Li's View of Internetics

From Revised Version of Physics and Engineering Education and Outreach with Modern Information Technology HPCC Seminar Series at Penn State -- Jan 25 99. *
Full HTML Index
HTML version of Basic Foils prepared May 17 99

Foil 13 Traditional Computational Science

From Revised Version of Physics and Engineering Education and Outreach with Modern Information Technology HPCC Seminar Series at Penn State -- Jan 25 99. *
Full HTML Index
HTML version of Basic Foils prepared May 17 99

Foil 14 Internetics Extension of Computational Science

From Revised Version of Physics and Engineering Education and Outreach with Modern Information Technology HPCC Seminar Series at Penn State -- Jan 25 99. *
Full HTML Index
HTML version of Basic Foils prepared May 17 99

Foil 15 Internetics Certificate Curriculum: K-12

From Revised Version of Physics and Engineering Education and Outreach with Modern Information Technology HPCC Seminar Series at Penn State -- Jan 25 99. *
Full HTML Index
K-12 is Middle and High School Students
These 2 courses must be passed to obtain Certificate
  • Introduction to the Web
  • Introduction to Programming using Java (assumes no programming experience)
See NPAC's Java Academy at http://www.npac.syr.edu/projects/k12javaspring98/ while
the 1999 version was offered using TangoInteractive to students at Boston, Houston, Starkville and Syracuse http://www.npac.syr.edu/projects/k12javaspring99/
HTML version of Basic Foils prepared May 17 99

Foil 16 Internetics Certificate Curriculum: Undergraduate

From Revised Version of Physics and Engineering Education and Outreach with Modern Information Technology HPCC Seminar Series at Penn State -- Jan 25 99. *
Full HTML Index
These 4 courses must be passed to obtain Certificate
  • Introduction to Internetics
  • Basic Web Technologies
  • Infrastructures
  • Basic Services and Applications (including introduction to high performance computing)
HTML version of Basic Foils prepared May 17 99

Foil 17 Internetics Certificate Curriculum: Graduate

From Revised Version of Physics and Engineering Education and Outreach with Modern Information Technology HPCC Seminar Series at Penn State -- Jan 25 99. *
Full HTML Index
Graduate and Continuing Education have same curriculum with 4 core and 2 electives needed for certificate
Core Courses (total 4 courses)
(There will also be a "booster course" offered to students who have taken the Undergraduate certificate so they can "place out" of graduate core course)
  • Introduction to Internetics
  • Basic Web Technologies including Java
  • Infrastructures including Networking
  • Basic Services including Security, Servers, JDBC and Web-Databases
HTML version of Basic Foils prepared May 17 99

Foil 18 Internetics Certificate Curriculum: Graduate Electives

From Revised Version of Physics and Engineering Education and Outreach with Modern Information Technology HPCC Seminar Series at Penn State -- Jan 25 99. *
Full HTML Index
Need to take 2 electives chosen from:
Computer Science Electives
  • Advanced Technologies e.g. VRML, advanced Java
  • Advanced Services Multimedia, Collaboration
  • High Performance and parallelism from Compilers to Web Servers
  • Distributed Computing Technologies
  • Distributed Objects and Components
Application Electives:
  • Education and Information Systems
  • Commerce
  • Computation and Visualization I and II e.g. Computational Science, including Datamining, distributed simulation, metacomputing
  • Computational Physics or Aerospace Engineering including advanced mathematical methods
  • (This has analogies in other Engineering fields, Chemistry etc.)
HTML version of Basic Foils prepared May 17 99

Foil 19 Internetics and Physics I

From Revised Version of Physics and Engineering Education and Outreach with Modern Information Technology HPCC Seminar Series at Penn State -- Jan 25 99. *
Full HTML Index
Physics is declining in popularity as a major even though
  • Physics research is flourishing
  • Science (and Engineering) are critical to Society (Information technology is built on micro devices and communications infrastructure)
Physics is in many ways a BETTER educational background than computer science to today's major computer science challenge -- designing and building distributed systems
  • We can quite easily train people to program in Java but it is not so easy to design what should be programmed and how it fits together
  • Physics trains students to look at systems from a fundamental point of view and to analyze quantitatively (See Feynman's role in Challenger disaster)
  • All senior people in NPAC have a science or engineering Ph.D.
HTML version of Basic Foils prepared May 17 99

Foil 20 Internetics and Physics II

From Revised Version of Physics and Engineering Education and Outreach with Modern Information Technology HPCC Seminar Series at Penn State -- Jan 25 99. *
Full HTML Index
A combination of Physics and a minor in Internetics is an interesting background for many areas such as:
  • Systems Engineer designing global information systems
  • Experimental physicist designing new data analysis systems
  • K-12 science teacher
More generally will make Physics a more attractive major ...
Further comparing "books" with the Web, we see that the Web offers opportunities for "technical people" as well as those with good "communication skills" (of a traditional kind)
  • Java applets combined with numerical algorithms or physics experimental instrument connected to Web may sometimes be more effective than streams of beautiful English words and nifty drawings
This implies a "Computational Science/Internetics" minor including base information technology and optional elective in "science communication" prepared by physics/engineering
  • At Syracuse, attractive as Newhouse School of Communications gets excellent students
HTML version of Basic Foils prepared May 17 99

Foil 21 Why use TangoInteractive?

From Revised Version of Physics and Engineering Education and Outreach with Modern Information Technology HPCC Seminar Series at Penn State -- Jan 25 99. *
Full HTML Index
New Academic Curriculum suggest the use of distance education as it will allow a few experts to deliver instruction to more students and this
  • addresses shortage of trained faculty
  • cost of developing new curriculum requires many students to amortize cost
Internetics technology such as TangoInteractive and WebWisdom (web-linked multimedia database) enables distance education
Assume future of all education and training is "web-based" and that base Web Technology supports self paced asynchronous learning
  • Database (linked to web) allow management and assessment
  • Synchronous(Interactive) and Project based learning enabled by Web Collaboration systems
Both delivery mechanism and identification of knowledge nuggets (such as Internetics or computational science) that are smaller than a traditional degree suggests different approaches to certification
HTML version of Basic Foils prepared May 17 99

Foil 22 Some Principles in Tango Support of Distance Education I

From Revised Version of Physics and Engineering Education and Outreach with Modern Information Technology HPCC Seminar Series at Penn State -- Jan 25 99. *
Full HTML Index
One needs both asynchronous (self paced) and synchronous learning
Asynchronous learning implies that a Web server supplies data from a multimedia Web Site or a backend database
Synchronous learning implemented by sharing SOME but not all information (guided tour) from an asynchronous site and combining it with audio video conferencing, chat rooms, white boards etc.
Must support unstructured modest size data sets ( a "few" pages from a single instructor) of disparate type and
Large more uniform structured datasets such as collections of courses from a large institution.
Web Site is unstructured and web-linked database is structured
HTML version of Basic Foils prepared May 17 99

Foil 23 Some Principles in Tango Support of Distance Education II

From Revised Version of Physics and Engineering Education and Outreach with Modern Information Technology HPCC Seminar Series at Penn State -- Jan 25 99. *
Full HTML Index
Need to support
  • Synchronous and Asynchronous Delivery
  • Web-linked Databases
  • Archiving of classes as linked "events" including digitized audio-video recording; cursor positions etc.
Four Authoring Models
  • Simple HTML or PowerPoint
  • Medium level (enhanced Web) Systems such as WebCT, Cornell Virtual Workshop
  • High level Web such as Java Simulations
  • Macromedia and other web exportable but not easily fully web integrated authoring systems
HTML version of Basic Foils prepared May 17 99

Foil 24 NeatTools and Universal Access

From Revised Version of Physics and Engineering Education and Outreach with Modern Information Technology HPCC Seminar Series at Penn State -- Jan 25 99. *
Full HTML Index
Universal Access aims at providing the capability of accessing (computer generated) information to all members of society -- current NSF wide focus
  • e.g. generate audio versions of images and text for the blind
  • e.g. provide alternatives to mouse and keyboard for those with physical difficulties using conventional devices.
"Webwindows" simplifies this task as implies all information has a pretty uniform interface and it appears that it is now technically possible to provide very powerful universal human computer interfaces
NeatTools allows general body signals (e.g. muscle movement) to be read into PC, calibrated and used to mimic keyboard and mouse
This technology allows enhanced multimodal HCI for those without disabilities
TangoInteractive's shared event model of collaboration allows one to share information with different optimized views for each participant
HTML version of Basic Foils prepared May 17 99

Foil 25 New Enterprise Models for University Research?

From Revised Version of Physics and Engineering Education and Outreach with Modern Information Technology HPCC Seminar Series at Penn State -- Jan 25 99. *
Full HTML Index
So computer science research is very difficult these days as major challenge and opportunity is development of large scale distributed systems
  • Can't be done with traditional faculty + 2 graduate student model
  • Can't be done without 75% of resources going into "non-research" activities such as maintaining software infrastructure in a rapidly evolving world -- this is familiar in fields such as experimental physics and astronomy
  • Industry will probably have much more resources and do better RESEARCH anyway (no analogy for physics!)
All projects today are collaborative -- communication revolution has dramatically increased need for travel -- I made 42 "business" trips in 1998
Academia tends to give same person marketing and technical leadership responsibilities -- Industry separates
So NPAC will hopefully be restructured with 75% of activities transferred to 3 small businesses: WebWisdom.com(education), Translet(distributed computing), MindTel (HCI and universal access)
I can teach and work from a hermit's cave in a remote Adirondack hideaway
HTML version of Basic Foils prepared May 17 99

Foil 26 New Enterprise Models for Universities?

From Revised Version of Physics and Engineering Education and Outreach with Modern Information Technology HPCC Seminar Series at Penn State -- Jan 25 99. *
Full HTML Index
Distance Education is technically sound -- both synchronously and asynchronously -- today with very robust clear implementations available over next 2 years
Separate teaching mentoring and dormitory role of University
Teaching and grading naturally performed by centers of excellence which need at least an order of magnitude more customers than a single faculty in order to be able to justify investment in course preparation and maintenance
Continuing Education of growing importance and natural area to attack first -- corporate training is serious competition here and commercial deliverers have advantage?
Not obvious that will save large amounts of money as students will need more not less mentoring in today's information-overrich world -- quality of educational experience will become more uniform and better
Unfortunately too many universities in North East -- easier to implement in South where student body growing faster?
HTML version of Basic Foils prepared May 17 99

Foil 27 Useful Links

From Revised Version of Physics and Engineering Education and Outreach with Modern Information Technology HPCC Seminar Series at Penn State -- Jan 25 99. *
Full HTML Index
http://www.npac.syr.edu/users/gcf/pennstateeducjan99/ Internetics and engineering
http://www.npac.syr.edu/users/gcf/physicsfuturemar98 Internetics and Physics
http://www.npac.syr.edu/tango Collaboration System
http://www.npac.syr.edu/users/njm/jsuspring98/ Paper on teaching at Jackson State using TangoInteractive
http://www.npac.syr.edu/users/gcf/minnowapril99/index.html Web based education technology
http://www.npac.syr.edu/users/gcf/internetics Internetics Concept
http://www.webwisdom.org/sept1998/WebWisdomCertDescription.html Internetics Graduate or Continuing Education Certificate
http://suhep.phy.syr.edu/courses/ Phy 105,106, 307
http://www.pulsar.org/ NeatTools and Related Universal Access work
http://www.mame.syr.edu/virstatics/FrameSet1.html Virtual Statics Lab
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