Academic Innovation

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Academic Innovation

• A Shared Agenda with AcademiaNovember-December
  2004
• Academic Innovation Group
• Microsoft Research

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This talk will cover

• Technological and social challenges with
  potential impact to curriculum
• MSRs approach to academic collaboration
• Resources for curriculum development
• Major Curriculum-Focused Initiatives
• The Curriculum Repository
• Exploratory Initiatives
• Working together on the future of computing
  curriculum

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Technological Challenges
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Social/Organizational Challenges

• Gender Equity and Diversity
• Relevance of the computing disciplines
• Rate of change Industry vs. Academia
• In todays global workforce environment, it is
  unclear which jobs we should be educating
  students to perform
• No general consensus yet on the model for
  education for the 21st century

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Frequently-Asked Questions

• What should security-focused courses contain?
  What does industry think?
• What is the current state of Software Engineering
  practices in industry?
• How can Technology best be used to enhance
  learning?
• Which are the important and emerging disciplines
  and how do we respond?
• Where can examples of curricula using Microsoft
  technologies be found?
• How do we increase diversity and promote
  retention, especially of women and
  under-represented minorities?
• What will enhance relevance of technical courses?

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Developing a Shared Agendafinding common ground
INDUSTRY
ACADEMIA
Early exposureto complexconcepts
Early hands-on taught throughout the curriculum
Retention earlystudent interest relevance
Shorten ramp-up time on large, complex projects
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Current Domain Based Effortswith resulting
assets to be available worldwide

• Security (etc.)
• Current engineering practices
• New pedagogy
• New and growing discipline
• New and growing discipline
• Diversity Policy Retention
• Delivery mechanism
• Increased relevance
• Next emerging discipline?
• Next emerging discipline?

Note that some curriculum-creation efforts
associated with these initiatives involve RFPs.
Currently RFPs are open to regions within the
MSR-Redmond charter North America, Latin America
and India
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Trustworthy Computing Curriculum

• TwC Everywhere

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Trustworthy Computing Curriculum

• Background
• Students do not necessarily learn important
  background in trustworthy computing.
• Both industry and universities realize TwC tenets
  need to be infused throughout undergrad
  curriculum in Computing majors
• We work with professors worldwide to develop
  content and identify courses to target
• Intended Assets
• Courses available in Fundamentals of Trustworthy
  Computing focus areas
• Delivery through curriculum repository, national
  security digital libraries (National Information
  Assurance Training and Education Center, CITIDEL,
  etc)
• Outcomes
• Worldwide community of interest established
  publication, conference activity
• Increased students exposed to TwC curriculum
• TWC curriculum strategy tied to larger Industry,
  Homeland Security recommendations
• Programmatic Delivery
• 20 courses focusing on pillars of TwC (10 after
  the first year)
• Mini-workshop
• Advisory board

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Software Engineering

• Breakthroughs inEngineering Excellence

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Software Engineering Curriculum

• Background
• Industry ranks SWE experience very highly in
  potential engineering applicants
• National organizations, ABET, NSF, SIGCSE, ASEE
  dont always stress importance of SWE curriculum
• Strong Microsoft and MSR focus on SWE, Excellence
  in Engineering
• Intention
• A vibrant exchange of ideas among academics, MSR
  and the Engineering Excellence group.
• Opportunity to advance state of the art by
  embracing great ideas from academia as well as
  bringing industry experience to bear.
• Outcomes
• Microsoft and Universities collaborate to add
  best practices to SWE discipline and map
  long-term results
• Great innovative SWE curriculum available through
  repository, digital libraries
• Currently focusing on Formal Methods
• Programmatic Delivery
• At least four new high quality courses available
  for wide dissemination
• Distinguished Speakers Series
• Continuing engagement through EPICS, NSF and ABET

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Technology-Enhanced Curriculum

• Tablet PCs in Curriculum

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Technology Enabled Curriculum

• Background
• FY05 Theme Tablets PCs in Computing Curriculum
  - Major topic in academia
• Technology has major potential impact on teaching
  learning MS technologies can play an important
  role (Tablet PCs, Conference XP, Pocket PCs,
  OneNote)
• Much progress has been made in mobility-focused
  pedagogy and curriculum
• New technology creates genuine opportunity to add
  unique value by enabling pedagogical models not
  possible without it.
• New uses of technology brings computing to
  non-majors A passionate Community of
  Practitioners is emerging, in computing and
  non-computing disciplines
• Intention
• Enablement of the strong emerging community of
  Tablet PC proponents
• Outcomes
• A strong portfolio of Tablet-enabled courses
  available for dissemination across academia.
• Programmatic Delivery
• 8-10 high quality courses and other curriculum
  objects innovating with Tablet PCs
• Tablet PC Workshop
• Some targeted funding, especially in
  transformative models

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Robotics and Gaming in Curriculum

• Rapidly Emerging Curricula

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Robotics an emerging curriculum

• Background
• Robotics is growing rapidly as a means to teach
  Embedded Systems, SWE, and sometimes to reform
  whole engineering programs.
• Represents next generation embedded systems
• These courses are useful for attracting and
  retaining students through exciting hands-on
  experiential learning.
• Robots have coolness with strong appeal to new
  developers
• Intention
• Robotics courseware SWE targeted to
  programmable mechanical device (robot)
• Outcomes
• Results of Targeted Funding inform future
  strategy in robotics curriculum
• Valuable insights about robotics and education
  for Industry
• New community of academic and industrial
  partners.
• The potential to forge a new platform standard
  and significant effective robotics curriculum
  disseminated widely through digital repositories
• Programmatic Delivery
• Carefully targeted projects intended to establish
  standardized platforms, new pedagogical
  techniques
• Pedagogical programs closely coordinated with
  research activities

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Gaming also rapidly emerging

• Background
• Gaming is a multi-billion dollar industry larger
  than the film industry
• Represents, new, rapidly developing part of the
  Computing Curriculum
• Schools want these courses to attract, retain
  students.
• Microsoft has assets are useful in this area in
  academia DirectX (PC)
• Intention
• Beneficial dialogue between academics, MSR and
  Microsoft gaming groups
• Valuable insights about gaming and education
  strategy
• Outcomes
• Innovative Game development courses using latest
  technology and platforms disseminated widely
  through digital repositories
• Academic game engine enabling rapid directX
  prototyping
• Significant publication and conference presence
• Improve pipeline of game developers
• Programmatic Delivery
• 4-6 new high quality courses and other curriculum
  robotics teaching gaming
• A few targeted, exploratory projects (game
  engines, etc.)
• Active participation in the community

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Gender Equity

• 50/50 by 2020

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Gender Equity Initiative

• Background
• Dearth of women in CS is an importance workforce
  problem and equal opportunity issue.
• Half our customers are women a diverse workforce
  builds better products.
• More women in computing is a top priority of both
  academia and industry.
• Intention
• Microsoft has the opportunity to help to
  positively influence the pipeline.
• Identify and partner with key organizations and
  schools to develop programs to significantly
  increase in number of women entering and
  graduating from Computer-related programs
  nationwide
• Outcomes
• Successful attraction and retention programs that
  can scale broadly
• Partnerships with other industry leaders,
  foundations and national organizations
• Develop collection and dissemination of
  effective, successful initiatives for use
  worldwide
• Programmatic Delivery
• Identify holes in existing research and programs
  fund pilots to address the needs
• Sponsor high-value programs of scale CRA-W
  Graduate Cohort example
• Highlight successes in national forums

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Curriculum Repository

• Sharing Assetswith Academia

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Key Digital Decade Skills

• Systems programming (millions of lines of code)
• Distributed Computing and web services
• Security and Trustworthy Computing
• Human-Computer Interaction

Fundamental Questions Asked by Faculty

• How do core CS/CE/MIS concepts map to
  Microsoft technologies? Its all about teaching
  concepts, not technology products.
• Who else is teaching the subject and what
  materials are they using to teach it?
• How will Microsoft help me deal with limited
  time and resources in the face of rapidly
  changing technology?

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The Curriculum Repository
http//www.msdnaa.net/curriculum
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Repository Content

• Multiple sources of Content
• Submissions directly from the academic community
• Content developed by Microsoft
• Content developed by Course Development companies
• 1,500 hrs of content in database today
• Presentations
• Lab Exercises
• Sample Code
• Sample Databases
• University URLs that have courses addressing
  Microsoft technology
• Open License terms for academia
• You may use, copy, reproduce, distribute and/or
  create derivative works of this Curriculum only
  for academic purposes.
• You may distribute this Curriculum within your
  academic institution.
• You may publish the Curriculum on websites for
  academic purposes.

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Further Information

• Curriculum Repository http//www.msdnaa.net/curri
  culum
• Your feedback is welcome

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Questions?
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Appendix
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A Shared Agenda
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RFPs http//research.microsoft.com/ur/us/fundingo
pps/default.aspx
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Subject Areas of Interest
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CS Body of Knowledge (ACM)
Programming Fundamentals
Algorithms Complexity
Architecture Organization
Social Prof. Issues
Discrete Structures
Operating Systems
Computational Sc. Numerical Methods
Programming Languages
Net-Centric Computing
Graphics Visual Programming
Information Management
Human Comp. Interaction
Intelligent Systems (AI)
Software Engineering
Source Steelman Draft 2001, ACM
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Microsoft and AcademiaIntersections of Subjects
and Technologies
Programming Languages
Information Management
Net-centric Computing
Graphics Visual Programming
OO Languages
Programming the Web, Wireless, Mobile Computing,
Network Security, Virtual Runtimes
Data Storage, Transaction Mgmt
Graphics, Modeling, Animation, Visualization
.NET Framework and C/VB/J/C/ Component
Pascal/Scheme/ Fortran/
SQL Server DataSets/XML ADO .NET Visio and UML
XML Web Services, .NET Framework .NET Compact
Framework, MIT, SQL CE, ASP .NET
WinForms, WebForms, GDI Libraries, Direct X
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Microsoft and AcademiaIntersections of Subjects
and Technologies
Operating Systems
Software Engineering
Human Computer Interaction
Senior/Capstone Projects
File I/O, Resource Mgmt, Security, Memory Mgmt,
Threading, Virtual Runtimes
System Analysis and Design, Component
Programming, Distributed Systems
Professional Practice
Using a GUI Toolkit, Cross-platform UI design,
Multi-media applications
Build compiler extensions to any .NET language,
Extend VS .NET AE Assignment Manager (Shared
Source) Pocket PC SDK, Smartphone SDK, Tablet PC
SDK
.NET Framework DirectX, Speech SDK
.NET Framework, XML Web Services using Soap
Toolkit, WSDK, UDDI SDK , VS .NET, Visio
.NET Framework on any OS