EduPar 2020 - 10th NSF/TCPP Workshop on Parallel and Distributed Computing Education (EduPar-20)

Parallel and Distributed Computing (PDC) now permeates most computing activities - the “explicit” ones, in which a person works directly on programming a computing device, and the “implicit” ones, in which a person uses everyday tools that incorporate PDC below the user’s view. The penetration of PDC into the daily lives of both “explicit” and “implicit” users makes it imperative that users are able to depend on the effectiveness, efficiency, and reliability of this technology. The pervasiveness of PDC is evident in today’s general-purpose computing devices such as PCs, laptops and handheld devices, that contain multiple cores and graphics processing units (GPUs). It is also seen in increasing reliance on web and cloud services, and in the growing need for parallel and distributed solutions to data-intensive problems associated with Big Data from a wide range of disciplines. The growing ubiquity of parallel and distributed computing, and the increasing reliance on parallel and distributed technology, make PDC topics an essential, and core, part of computing curricula.
We must reflect on how best to help students develop competence in these areas and how to prepare them for addressing the challenges of current and emerging computing technologies. To develop a broad understanding and skill set in PDC, we need to weave related subjects at various levels into the educational fabric of Computer Science (CS) and Computer Engineering (CE) programs, as well as related computational disciplines. However, the rapid changes in computing hardware platforms and devices, languages, and supporting programming environments present immense challenges to educators in deciding what to include in the curriculum and what to teach in any given semester or course.
EduPar provides a global forum for exploring new ideas and experiences related to a seamless inclusion of PDC topics in a CS/CE and related curricula, primarily at undergraduate levels, but also at K-12 and graduate levels, and in informal settings. 2020 is the tenth year of the EduPar workshop, which has been held successfully since 2011 against the backdrop of the IPDPS, a major conference focusing on parallel and distributed computing. The EduPar workshop is in coordination with the TCPP curriculum initiative (http://tcpp.cs.gsu.edu/curriculum) for CS/CE undergraduates supported by NSF and its NSF-supported Center for Parallel and Distributed Computing Curriculum Development and Educational Resources (CDER).
EduPar provides a global forum for exploring new ideas and experiences related to a seamless inclusion of PDC topics in a CS/CE and related curricula primarily at undergraduate levels, but also at K-12 and graduate levels, and in informal settings. To provide some historical perspective, since 2011, EduPar has been held successfully against the backdrop of the IPDPS, a major conference focusing on parallel and distributed computing. This effort is in coordination with the TCPP curriculum initiative (http://tcpp.cs.gsu.edu/curriculum) for CS/CE undergraduates supported by NSF and its NSF-supported Center for Parallel and Distributed Computing Curriculum Development and Educational Resources (CDER).
EduPar invites unpublished manuscripts from individuals or teams from academia, industry, and other educational and research institutes from all over the world on topics pertaining to the teaching of PDC topics in the Computer Science and Computer Engineering curriculum as well as in domain-specific computational and data science and engineering curricula.
The topics of interest include (but are not limited to):
Emerging PDC topics to inform TCPP and related curricular efforts
Curriculum design and models for incorporating PDC topics in core curricula, including in CS1/CS2, Computer Science Principles, and other courses at K-12 level
Parallel and distributed models of programming/computation suitable for teaching, learning and workforce development
Experience incorporating PDC topics into core courses
Experience incorporating PDC topics in the context of other applications
Pedagogical issues in incorporating PDC in undergraduate and graduate education, especially in core courses
Novel ways of teaching PDC topics, including informal learning environments
Pedagogical tools, programming environments, infrastructures, languages and projects for PDC
Educational resources based on higher level programming languages such as PGAS, X10, Chapel, Haskell, Python and Cilk, and emerging environments such as CUDA, OpenCL, OpenACC, and Hadoop
e-Learning, e-Laboratory, Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC), Small Private Online Courses (SPOC)
PDC experiences at non-university levels; secondary school, postgraduate, industry, diffusion of PDC
Employers’ experiences with and expectations of the level of PDC proficiency among new graduates
Curricula/Pedagogy related to diversity and broadening participation in PDC