Abstract: Agent-based modeling (ABM) has become an increasingly important tool in computational science. Thus, in the final week of the in 2013 fall semester, Wofford College's undergraduate Modeling and Simulation for the Sciences course (COSC/MATH 201) considered ABM using the NetLogo tool. The students explored existing ABMs and completed two tutorials that developed models on unconstrained growth and the average distance covered by a random walker. The models demonstrated some of the utility of ABM and helped illustrate the similarities and differences between agent-based modeling and previously discussed techniques—system dynamics modeling, empirical modeling, and cellular automaton simulations. Improved test scores and questionnaire results support the success of the goals for the week.

Abstract: Molecular biology is a scientific discipline which has changed fundamentally in character over the past decade to rely on large scale datasets – public and locally generated - and their computational analysis and annotation. Undergraduate education of biologists must increasingly couple this domain context with a data-driven computational scientific method. Yet modern programming and scripting languages and rich computational environments such as R and matlab present significant barriers to those with limited exposure to computer science, and may require substantial tutorial assistance over an extended period if progress is to be made. In this paper we report our experience of undergraduate bioinformatics education using the familiar, ubiquitous spreadsheet environment of Microsoft Excel. We describe a configurable extension called QUT.Bio.Excel, a custom ribbon, supporting a rich set data sources, external tools and interactive processing within the spreadsheet, and a range of problems to demonstrate its utility and success in addressing the needs of students over their studies.

Abstract: This paper describes a 3D virtual lab environment that was developed using OpenSim software integrated into Moodle. Virtuald software tool was used to provide pedagogical support to the lab by enabling to create online texts and delivering them to the students. The courses taught in this virtual lab are methodologically in conformity to theory of multiple intelligences. Some results are presented

Abstract: We describe a simple package of Matlab programs which implements an extended-precision class in Matlab. We give some examples of how this class can be used to demonstrate the effects of rounding errors and truncation errors in scientific computing. The package is based on a representation called Double-Double, which represents each floating-point real as an unevaluated sum of IEEE double-precision floating point numbers. This allows Matlab computations that are accurate to 30 decimal digits. The data structure, basic arithmetic and elementary functions are implemented as a Matlab class, entirely using the Matlab programming language.

Abstract: We present a new double-degree graduate (Master's) programme developed together by the ITMO University, Russia and University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands. First, we look into the global aspects of integration of different educational systems and list some funding opportunities from European foundations. Then we describe our double-degree program curriculum, suggest the timeline of enrollment and studies, and give some examples of student research topics. Finally, we discuss the peculiarities of joint programs with Russia, reflect on the first lessons learnt, and share our thoughts and experiences that could be of interest to the international community expanding the educational markets to the vast countries like Russia, China or India. The paper is written for education professionals and contains useful information for potential students.

Abstract: High performance computing is in increasing demand, especially with the need to conduct parallel processing on very large datasets, whether evaluated by volume, velocity and variety. Unfortunately the necessary skills - from familiarity with the command line interface, job submission, scripting, through to parallel programming - is not commonly taught at the level required for most researchers. As a result the uptake of HPC usage remains disproportionately low, with emphasis on system metrics taking priority, leading to a situation described as 'high performance computing considered harmful'. Changing this is not of a problem of computational science but rather a problem for computational science which can only be resolved from an multi-disciplinary approach. The following example addresses the main issues in such teaching and thus makes an appeal to some universality in application which may be useful for other institutions. For the past several years the Victorian Partnership for Advanced Computing (VPAC) has conducted a range of training courses designed to bring the capabilities of postgraduate researchers to a level of competence useful for their research. These courses have developed in this time, in part through providing a significantly wider range of content for varying skillsets, but more importantly by introducing some of the key insights from the discipline of adult and tertiary education in the context of the increasing trend towards lifelong learning. This includes an androgogical orientation, providing integrated structural knowledge, encouraging learner autonomy, self-efficacy, and self-determination, utilising appropriate learning styles for the discipline, utilising modelling and scaffolding for example problems (as a contemporary version of proximal learning), and following up with a connectivist mentoring and outreach program in the context of a culturally diverse audience.

Abstract: This paper presents an experience of Problem-based learning in a High Performance Computing course. The course is part of the specialization of High Performance Architectures and Supercomputing in a Master on New Technologies in Computer Science. It is supposed the students have a basic knowledge of Parallel Programming, but previous studies and the place where they were taken mean the group is heterogeneous. The Problem-based learning approach therefore has to facilitate the individual development and supervision of the students. The course focuses on HPC, matrix computation, parallel libraries, heterogeneous computing and scientific applications of parallelism. The students work on the different aspects of the course using the LU factorization, developing their own implementations, using different libraries, combining different levels of parallelism and conducting experiments in a small heterogeneous cluster composed of multicores of different characteristics and with GPU of different types.

Abstract: The paper presents motivations and experiences from using the BeesyCluster middleware for teaching high performance computing at the Faculty of Electronics, Telecommunications and Informatics, Gdansk University of Technology. Features of BeesyCluster well suited for conducting courses are discussed including: easy-to-use WWW interface for application development and running hiding queuing systems, publishing applications as services and running in a sandbox by novice users, team work and workflow management environments. Additionally, practical experiences are discussed from courses: High Performance Computing Systems and Architectures of Internet Services. For the former, activities such as the number of team work activities, numbers of applications run on clusters and the number of WWW user sessions are shown over the period of one semester. Results of survey from a general course on BeesyCluster for HPC conducted for the university staff and students are also presented.