IBM Research How to engage stakeholders and ensure

IBM Research Engaging stakeholders and ensuring success: ØForm a curriculum standards committee with representation from a diverse set of stakeholders (more on this later). ØCurriculum should reflect the state of the art in computing, be somewhat forward looking, but seek to separate hype (e. g. , GPU) from sustainable trends (e. g. , accelerators, heterogeneous multi-core). ØCurriculum must reflect the fact that parallel computing is now synonymous with computing; it should not be an afterthought. Need to distinguish HPC & everyday parallel processing. ØSeek to infuse basic parallel computing ideas into the CS body of knowledge and increase the number of core hours devoted to parallel computing topics. 2 Mathematical Sciences 2/25/2021 © 2007 IBM Corporation

IBM Research Ensuring success of the initiative (cont. ): ØNumber of core hours dedicated to parallel computing topics in the 2008 update of the CS 2001 body of knowledge: o Algorithms: 3/31 o Architecture: 6/36 o Operating systems: 6/20 o Programming languages: 0/21 o Software engineering: 0/31 o Programming fundamentals: 0/47 ØThis is probably inadequate. ØThe overall computer science curriculum crisis is more severe than the parallel computing curriculum crisis. 3 Mathematical Sciences 2/25/2021 © 2007 IBM Corporation

IBM Research Engaging stakeholders and ensuring success: ØEmploy effective means of: o Disseminating the curriculum standard/recommendations to faculty as well as textbook authors/publishers. o Collecting and analyzing feedback. o Incorporating feedback into the curriculum with timely (yet not too frequent) revisions and including some explanation/rationale for changes. ØDo we have any metrics to measure the success of the initiative and means to track the metrics? 4 Mathematical Sciences 2/25/2021 © 2007 IBM Corporation

IBM Research Engaging stakeholders (industry perspectives): ØCompanies are already engaged in influencing the curriculum through grants to faculty/departments, establishing centers, etc. ØOther examples: o Nvidia, UIUC release textbook on programming massively parallel processors [recent headline on HPC wire]. o Microsoft flooding universities with Windows machines to keep Linux out. ØMust strive to foster a situation where industry perspective is reflected in the curriculum in a “democratic” manner rather than the players with the deepest pockets wielding maximum influence. ØIndustry views need to be moderated and reviewed by the curriculum standards committee before being incorporated into the curriculum. 5 Mathematical Sciences 2/25/2021 © 2007 IBM Corporation

IBM Research Incorporating industry perspectives: ØGive companies a legitimate venue to contribute to the curriculum initiative by representation in the curriculum standards committee. ØIndustry representatives should preferably be researchers/scientists rather than folks associated with specific product lines. ØA sample representation covering most areas of parallel computing: o Google: distributed computing o IBM: H/W, business & scientific S/W, complex systems (e. g. smart grids). o Intel: H/W, compilers. o Oracle+SUN: business S/W, operating systems. o Nvidia: accelerators/heterogeneous multi-core 6 Mathematical Sciences 2/25/2021 © 2007 IBM Corporation