[TOS] Teaching science though open source scientific software

[Sebastian Benthall]

Hello,

It's been a long time since I've posted to this list, but I've found my
research swinging back around to this topic. I wanted to share what I've
been up to and ask what the best way is to get updated on your progress in
developing hands-on OSS engaged curricula.

I've gotten involved in the Scientific Python community, which surrounds
tools like NumPy, Pandas, MatPlotLib, Jupyter Notebooks, and other tools
used by scientists. These have expanded in popularity because of industrial
data science applications. They have become somewhat essential to curricula
like UC Berkeley's data science curriculum.

I'm now working on one somewhat more nascent project in this space,
Econ-Ark, which is a toolkit for studying macroeconomics. What the project
leads, who are Economics professors, are in agreement on is that they would
like to see more teaching and research of graduate level Economics through
use and contribution to the software, which includes substantive economic
models based on those that have been published in journals.

At the most recent SciPy Conference, I put together this talk about how we
see domain specific scientific software development emerging as a core
skill for economists:
https://youtu.be/nxXr0LNdQUU

Where this is going is: how could we put together a course that is
specifically about learning the necessary software engineering skills to be
productive within a specific scientific domain.

I look to you all as the experts on this and wonder where I should be
looking next.

Many thanks,
Seb
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Re: [TOS] Leveraging COVID-19 in the Classroom

[LM]

On Tue, Jul 14, 2020 at 8:00 AM  wrote:
> From: Joanna Klukowska 
> There were also some critical comments about why there are so many
> efforts for data visualization and what the value is that they bring to
> the table, or about safety of an open sourced "make your own test at
> home" instructions.

Speaking of visualization, I just ran across a FLOSS graphing library
for larger data sets:
https://igraph.org/c/
Most of the machine learning projects are in Python even though many
of the libraries being used are written in C/C++.  Was trying to find
machine learning examples in C/C++ instead of Python.  Ran across the
graphing library during my search.  Like most C/C++ machine learning
libraries, there's a Python interface as well.

> In the fall, I am back to teaching my Data Structure class. I usually
> use an open data set for the coding projects. This year it will most
> likely be COVID-19 related, but I do not have any specific one yet.

Don't know what data set they're using, but the Gold Coast Users Group
is doing something along those lines:
https://www.meetup.com/Gold-Coast-Users-Group/events/271079925/
https://www.homnick.com/hsi/flcovidstats
Might want to check where they're getting their data from.

FSF and LibrePlanet came up with the following web pages during the
pandemic to help get the word out about FLOSS alternatives for remote
communications and make people more aware of security issues when
using video conferencing.  Would think some of those projects need
volunteers to help make them better.
https://www.fsf.org/blogs/community/better-than-zoom-try-these-free-software-tools-for-staying-in-touch
https://libreplanet.org/wiki/Remote_Communication

There's also this list of OER resources from SPARC and other volunteers:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1iQtZoDphA5XYKHR32zUYJ9imjCh4c1DOfg14MRB7G_I/edit#gid=567891547

Ran across this list of FLOSS projects for Covid mentioned on the Code
Corps group:
https://explore.ovio.org/covid-19/

I also recently found out about an Open Data format initiative for Districts:
https://www.ed-fi.org/
They work with commercial vendors and some of the languages and tools
they use are proprietary.  However, if the data formats are open, it's
a start to getting better interoperability between projects and making
it easier to use FLOSS with educational data.  They could use
volunteers.

Since I don't work directly with students (I work in IT for our
District), I've been trying to find ways to use my own skills.  For a
while, I tried digging up various links to FLOSS software and OER that
might be useful.  Don't have a good way to connect and get it to the
teachers in my District though.  Best I can do is share them with
other Districts using various forums.  Still have my lists available
via the web here:  https://lmemsm.dreamwidth.org/
Tried looking into online programming groups that were working on
projects (like the Code Corps group I mentioned), but didn't have much
luck.  None of the developers work with the same programming languages
I do.  If anyone knows of any FLOSS programming groups or is teaching
the following in classes, would love to connect and share resources,
tips and tricks:  C/C++, Android NDK, Web Assembly/WASI  So, I'm still
looking for some educational FLOSS projects to get more involved with
that will let work with the technologies and programming languages I'm
most interested in.  In the meantime, I'm currently working on my port
of Tuxmath to the latest libraries (like SDL2).

Look forward to reading about what others are doing and checking out
some of the links that have been shared.
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Re: [TOS] Leveraging COVID-19 in the Classroom

[Wes Turner]

Very nice! Thanks Joanna and Heidi.

Wes

On Mon, Jul 13, 2020 at 5:35 PM Joanna Klukowska 
wrote:

> Hi Heidi,
>
> Thanks for sharing and starting this thread.
>
> I actually created a new topic in my Open Source Software Development
> class last spring that went really well and students had a lot of positive
> feedback about it. I titled it "Open Efforts regarding COVID 19".
>
> It happened about a month after we went remote and in the midst of NYC
> outbreak. The assignment was very open and intentionally not specific:
> - research open efforts in the area of COVID-19 pandemic
> - add links to the resources you find to the wiki page in the course
> organization
> - be ready to discuss your findings in class on Monday, Apr. 13
> I explained that they are not limited to software projects but they should
> look for anything that is open in nature.
> The collection of links that students created is attached.
>
> During the next class and a half we went over the list and students spent
> about 2-3 minutes talking about the project/effort that they found. Some of
> these generated further discussion. We kept notes in a shared etherpad, but
> unfortunately, I let it expire before I got the copy of the notes ;(
> Then we spent some time talking about categories of these efforts:
> hardware vs. data vs. software, large organizations vs. small or
> individuals, existing projects working on a new cause vs. brand new efforts
> that started to deal with a new situation,  projects that are specific to
> the locality vs. more generally applicable ones (at that point the students
> were dispersed all over the world), etc.
> There were also some critical comments about why there are so many efforts
> for data visualization and what the value is that they bring to the table,
> or about safety of an open sourced "make your own test at home"
> instructions.
>
> Students were very impressed seeing the range of efforts they found and
> seeing how open source projects can quickly spring up to respond to a
> crisis. I think for a lot of the students who had sick family members and
> who were displaced due to the outbreak in NYC this was a way to see
> relevance of what they were part of  to what was going on. None of my
> students ended up working on COVID-19 related projects during the class
> (for several reasons), but I think this was a valuable lesson and
> definitely the most active class discussion that we had in the course of
> the entire semester.
>
>
> Here are a few blog posts from that week with comments on the discussion:
>
> https://nyu-ossd-s20.github.io/Jen-Lopez-weekly/week11/
> https://nyu-ossd-s20.github.io/mattfan00-weekly/week11/
> https://nyu-ossd-s20.github.io/niniack-weekly/week-12/
> https://nyu-ossd-s20.github.io/hkajs-weekly/week11/
> https://nyu-ossd-s20.github.io/pmets-weekly/week11/
> https://nyu-ossd-s20.github.io/evading1998-weekly/week12/
>
> ---
>
> In the fall, I am back to teaching my Data Structure class. I usually use
> an open data set for the coding projects. This year it will most likely be
> COVID-19 related, but I do not have any specific one yet.
>
>
> Hope everybody is staying safe!
> Best,
> Joanna
>
>
>
> 
> Joanna Klukowska, PhD
> Clinical Assistant Professor
> Department of Computer Science
> Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences, NYU
> Warren Weaver Hall, Room 423joann...@cs.nyu.eduhttp://cs.nyu.edu/~joannakl/
> Office hours (Spring 2020):
> Monday 12:30-2:30pm, Thursday 11:00am-12:00pm
> 
>
> On 7/12/20 3:13 PM, Heidi Ellis wrote:
>
> Hi Folks,
>
> I have been thinking about my fall classes and HFOSS and thought I'd share
> my thoughts. As the summer progresses, I’m finding a new rhythm to
> preparing my fall classes.  It is clear that even though my institution is
> hoping to hold the majority of classes in person, I need to be able to take
> all of my classes online at any moment. And yes, the does mean that class
> preparation is at least doubled.
>
> I have been focusing on my Software Engineering course which is a fairly
> standard coverage of Requirements, Design, Test, etc.  In my case, I am
> setting students up for their Capstone class which meets in the spring
> term. In Capstone, students will be contributing to the Bear Necessities
> Market 
> which is an HFOSS application to support the food pantry located on Western
> New England University’s campus.  BNM is one of several food pantry
> applications being developed by instructors within the Libre Food Pantry
>  community. In my Software
> Engineering course, we use BNM to investigate real-world requirements,
> design, test and more. We also learn the environment of a real HFOSS
> project so that students are able to make code contribution in the Capstone
> course.
>
> As I’ve been thinking about how to