REU in CS online learning environments
EXPLORING OPEN SOURCE SOFTWARE: DEVELOPMENT AND EFFICACY OF ONLINE LEARNING ENVIRONMENTS IN COMPUTER SCIENCE
Co-Principal Investigators:
David Furcy, 920-424-1182, furcyd@uwosh.edu
Tom Naps, 920-424-1388, naps@uwosh.edu
Application Deadline: May 11 or until all eight summer research positions are filled. Recipients will be notified by May 15.
Are you eligible - check the NSF eligibility rules.
The enormous growth of open source software presents both challenges and opportunities for computer science research and education. Preparation for careers in computing will require new ways of thinking about software design that meet the needs of the open source community. The overarching theme of this REU site is the improvement of computer science instruction through the development of more effective open source online learning systems that address the unique requirements of Computer Science. The JHAVE algorithm visualization project, based at the REU site, is a highly interactive approach to online learning in computer science and will provide the foundation for the open source exploration. Within that context, two research threads will allow participants to create a project aligned with their interests: 1) Design and development focused on new features for JHAVE and its integration with other open source projects such as Moodle and 2) Experiments that evaluate the efficacy of these development efforts on instruction in computer science.
Projects will incorporate interdisciplinary perspectives from computer science, software engineering, and education. Students from the computing disciplines are encouraged to apply, but our research projects also offer opportunities for educational psychology and education majors with strong computing backgrounds, specifically at least two semesters of object-oriented programming in Java.
Through a variety of ongoing collaborations between the faculty mentors at Wisconsin -- Oshkosh and other developers worldwide, JHAVE has already proven itself to be interoperable with a variety of automated assessment, course management, and hypertextbook systems. Our REU program will focus on efforts to continue this interoperability and integration among systems. The developers on several of these other projects -- for example, Lab-centric instruction (WISE project) at UC-Berkeley, the Algo Viz Wiki at Virginia Tech, Jawaa at Duke, Animal at Darmstadt Technical University, Xaal and Matrix at the Helsinki University of Technology - - will collaborate with our participants both electronically and by visiting in person. The participants will become integral members of the very active open source software community currently working on these projects.
The program will start on May 27th and run through July 22. Participants will receive stipends of at least $4000 for the eight-week period, travel expenses, and complete support for on-campus lodging and food. Interested students can apply by sending:
- A one-page single-spaced statement in which they speak to their career intentions, how graduate school might play into those intentions, and how the project described in the summary above would be a good fit for those intentions
- A copy of their transcripts -- unofficial copy is OK
- A letter of reference/support from a faculty member
- Ethnicity and gender information - we strongly encourage groups that are underrepresented in Computer Science to apply
These materials can be emailed to Tom Naps at naps@uwosh.edu. Or, apply online. Postal mail applications will also be accepted and can be sent to:
Tom Naps
Dept. of Computer Science
University of Wisconsin - Oshkosh
800 Algoma Blvd.
Oshkosh, WI 54901
NSF Award Number 0851569
