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Introduction to the CI-TEAM Issue
Steven I. Gordonpp. 1–1
A brief introduction to this special CI-TEAM issue of the Journal of Computational Science Education from the editor.
Volume 3 Issue 1 — June 2012
Contents
Application of the Occupational Analysis of Computational Thinking-Enabled STEM Professionals as a Program Assessment Tool
Joyce Malyn-Smith and Irene Leepp. 2–10
https://doi.org/10.22369/issn.2153-4136/3/1/1BibTeX
@article{jocse-3-1-1,
author={Joyce Malyn-Smith and Irene Lee},
title={Application of the Occupational Analysis of Computational Thinking-Enabled STEM Professionals as a Program Assessment Tool},
journal={The Journal of Computational Science Education},
year=2012,
month=jun,
volume=3,
issue=1,
pages={2--10},
doi={https://doi.org/10.22369/issn.2153-4136/3/1/1}
}
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This paper describes the application of findings from the National Science Foundation's project on Computational Thinking (CT) in America's Workplace to program assessment. It presents the process used to define the primary job functions and work tasks of CT-Enabled STEM professionals in today's scientific enterprise. Authors describe three programs developing CT skills among learners in secondary and post secondary programs and how the resulting occupational analysis was used to review these programs. The article presents ways this analysis can be used as a framework to guide the development of STEM learning outcomes and activities, and sets of directions for future work.
Building a Project Methodology to Provide Authentic and Appropriate Experiences in Computational Science for Middle and High School Students
Patricia Jacobs and Jennifer Houchinspp. 11–18
https://doi.org/10.22369/issn.2153-4136/3/1/2BibTeX
@article{jocse-3-1-2,
author={Patricia Jacobs and Jennifer Houchins},
title={Building a Project Methodology to Provide Authentic and Appropriate Experiences in Computational Science for Middle and High School Students},
journal={The Journal of Computational Science Education},
year=2012,
month=jun,
volume=3,
issue=1,
pages={11--18},
doi={https://doi.org/10.22369/issn.2153-4136/3/1/2}
}
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Shodor, a national resource for computational science education, has successfully developed a model for middle and high school students to gain authentic and appropriate experiences in computational science. As we prepare students for the 21st century workforce, three of the most important skills for advancing modern mathematics and science are quantitative reasoning, computational thinking, and multi-scale modeling. Shodor's Computing MATTERS: Pathways to Cyberinfrastructure program, funded in part by the National Science Foundation Cyberinfrastructure Training, Education, Advancement, and Mentoring (CI-TEAM) program, provides opportunities for middle and high school students to explore all three of these areas. One of the wide range of programs offered through Computing MATTERS is the SUCCEED Apprenticeship Program. The overall goal of the SUCCEED Apprenticeship Program is to provide students with authentic and appropriate experiences in the use of technologies, techniques and tools of Information Technology (IT) with a particular focus on computational science and to produce evidence that students become proficient in these IT technologies, techniques and skills. The program combines appropriate structure (classroom-style training and project-based work experience) with meaningful work content, giving students a wide variety of technical and communication skills. The program uses innovative approaches to get students excited about computational science and enables students to grow from excitement to expertise in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). Since its beginning in 2005, the SUCCEED Apprenticeship Program has proven to be a successful model for enabling middle and high school students of both genders and of ethnically and economically diverse backgrounds to gain proficiency in STEM while learning, experiencing, and using information technologies.
A Web Service Infrastructure and its Application for Distributed Chemical Equilibrium Computation
Subrata Bhattacharjee, Christopher P. Paolini, and Mark Pattersonpp. 19–27
https://doi.org/10.22369/issn.2153-4136/3/1/3BibTeX
@article{jocse-3-1-3,
author={Subrata Bhattacharjee and Christopher P. Paolini and Mark Patterson},
title={A Web Service Infrastructure and its Application for Distributed Chemical Equilibrium Computation},
journal={The Journal of Computational Science Education},
year=2012,
month=jun,
volume=3,
issue=1,
pages={19--27},
doi={https://doi.org/10.22369/issn.2153-4136/3/1/3}
}
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W3C standardized Web Services are becoming an increasingly popular middleware technology used to facilitate the open exchange of data and perform distributed computation. In this paper we propose a modern alternative to commonly used software applications such as STANJAN and NASA CEA for performing chemical equilibrium analysis in a platform-independent manner in combustion, heat transfer, and fluid dynamics research. Our approach is based on the next generation style of computational software development that relies on loosely-coupled network accessible software components called Web Services. While several projects in existence use Web Services to wrap existing commercial and open-source tools to mine thermodynamic data, no Web Service infrastructure has yet been developed to provide the thermal science community with a collection of publicly accessible remote functions for performing complex computations involving reacting flows. This work represents the first effort to provide such an infrastructure where we have developed a remotely accessible software service that allows developers of thermodynamics and combustion software to perform complex, multiphase chemical equilibrium computation with relative ease. Coupled with the data service that we have already built, we show how the use of this service can be integrated into any numerical application and invoked within commonly used commercial applications such as Microsoft Excel and MATLAB® for use in computational work. A rich internet application (RIA) is presented in this work to demonstrate some of the features of these newly created Web Services.
Cloud-enabling Scientific Tools and Computational Methods for Invigorating STEM Learning and Research
Bina Ramamurthy, Jessica Poulin, and Katharina Dittmarpp. 28–33
https://doi.org/10.22369/issn.2153-4136/3/1/4BibTeX
@article{jocse-3-1-4,
author={Bina Ramamurthy and Jessica Poulin and Katharina Dittmar},
title={Cloud-enabling Scientific Tools and Computational Methods for Invigorating STEM Learning and Research},
journal={The Journal of Computational Science Education},
year=2012,
month=jun,
volume=3,
issue=1,
pages={28--33},
doi={https://doi.org/10.22369/issn.2153-4136/3/1/4}
}
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We present a cloud-enabled comprehensive platform (Pop!World) for experiential learning, education, training and research in population genetics and evolutionary biology. The major goal of Pop!World is to leverage the advances in cyber-infrastructure to improve accessibility of important biological concepts to students at all levels. It is designed to empower a broad spectrum of users with access to cyber-enabled scientific resources, tools and platforms, thus, preparing the next generation of scientists. Pop!World offers a highly engaging alternative to currently prevalent textual environments that fail to captivate net-generation audiences. It is also more mathematically focused than currently available tools, allowing it to be used as a basic teaching tool and expanded to higher education levels and collaborative research platforms. The project is a synergistic inter-disciplinary collaboration among investigators from Computer Science & Engineering and Biological Sciences. In this paper we share our invaluable multi-disciplinary experience (CSE and BIO) in the design and deployment of the Pop!World platform and its successful integration into the introductory biological sciences course offerings over the past two years. We expect our project to serve as a model for creative use of advances in cyber-infrastructure for engaging the cyber-savvy net-generation [11] students and invigorating STEM education.
Transforming the Primary Research Process through a Virtual Linguistic Lab for the Study of Language Acquisition and Use: Challenges and Accomplishments
Maria Blume and Barbara Lustpp. 34–46
https://doi.org/10.22369/issn.2153-4136/3/1/5BibTeX
@article{jocse-3-1-5,
author={Maria Blume and Barbara Lust},
title={Transforming the Primary Research Process through a Virtual Linguistic Lab for the Study of Language Acquisition and Use: Challenges and Accomplishments},
journal={The Journal of Computational Science Education},
year=2012,
month=jun,
volume=3,
issue=1,
pages={34--46},
doi={https://doi.org/10.22369/issn.2153-4136/3/1/5}
}
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This project involves both the development of a community of scholars committed to cross-institution, interdisciplinary and cross-linguistic collaboration (a Virtual Center for Language Acquisition, VCLA) and the creation of a web-based infrastructure through which a new generation of scholars can learn concepts and technologies empowered through this CI environment. These technologies, constituting a Virtual Linguistic Lab (VLL), provide the student with the structure for data creation, data management and data analysis as well as the tools for collaborative data sharing. This infrastructure, informed and executed through computational science, involves the coherent integration of an open web-based gateway (The VCLA website), linked to a specialized web-based VLL portal which includes not only real world examples and visualizations of data creation and analyses, but several cybertools by which these data can be managed and analyzed. This infrastructure subserves both the beginning student and the researcher pursuing calibrated methods and structured data sharing for collaborative purposes. Students continually engage in the development of the cybertools involved and in the scientific method involved in primary research. In this paper we summarize our objectives, the challenges we face and the solutions we have developed to these challenges. At this point, the project is just completing an implementation stage and is being readied to move to a diffusion stage.
Institutional and Individual Influences on Scientists' Data Sharing Practices
Youngseek Kim and Jeffrey M. Stantonpp. 47–56
https://doi.org/10.22369/issn.2153-4136/3/1/6BibTeX
@article{jocse-3-1-6,
author={Youngseek Kim and Jeffrey M. Stanton},
title={Institutional and Individual Influences on Scientists' Data Sharing Practices},
journal={The Journal of Computational Science Education},
year=2012,
month=jun,
volume=3,
issue=1,
pages={47--56},
doi={https://doi.org/10.22369/issn.2153-4136/3/1/6}
}
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Many contemporary scientific endeavors now rely on the collaborative efforts of researchers across multiple institutions. As a result of this increase in the scale of scientific collaboration, sharing and reuse of data using private and public repositories has increased. At the same time, data sharing practices and capabilities appear to vary widely across disciplines and even within some disciplines. This research sought to develop an understanding of this variation through the lens of theories that account for individual choices within institutional contexts. We conducted a total of 25 individual semi-structured interviews to understand researchers' current data sharing practices. The main focus of our interviews was: (1) to explore domain specific data sharing practices in diverse disciplines, and (2) to investigate the factors motivating and preventing the researchers' current data sharing practices. Results showed support for an institutional perspective on data sharing as well as a need for better understanding of scientists' altruistic motives for participating in data sharing and reuse.
Sustain City - A Cyberinfrastructure-Enabled Game System for Science and Engineering Design
Ying Tang, Sachin Shetty, Talbot Bielefeldt, Kauser Jahan, John Henry, and S. Keith Hargrovepp. 57–65
https://doi.org/10.22369/issn.2153-4136/3/1/7BibTeX
@article{jocse-3-1-7,
author={Ying Tang and Sachin Shetty and Talbot Bielefeldt and Kauser Jahan and John Henry and S. Keith Hargrove},
title={Sustain City - A Cyberinfrastructure-Enabled Game System for Science and Engineering Design},
journal={The Journal of Computational Science Education},
year=2012,
month=jun,
volume=3,
issue=1,
pages={57--65},
doi={https://doi.org/10.22369/issn.2153-4136/3/1/7}
}
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The emergence of transformative technological advances in science and engineering practice has necessitated the integration of these advances in engineering classrooms. In this paper, we present the design and implementation of a virtual reality game system that infuses cyberinfrastructure (CI) learning experiences into the Project-Lead-The-Way (PLTW) pre-engineering classrooms to promote metacognition for science and engineering design in context. The CI features, metacognitive strategies, context-oriented approaches as well as their seamless integration in the game system are elaborated in detail through two game modules, Power Ville and Stability. Both games involve students in the process of decision-making that contributes to different aspects of city infrastructures (energy and transportation). The evaluation of Power Ville deployment in a PLTW classroom is also presented. The preliminary assessment confirms the usability of CI and metacognitive tools in science and engineering design.