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Internet Engineering Curriculum, (IEC) Repository
DRAFT Annual Report
NSF Award Number NCR-9706181
kc claffy, PI
Evi Nemeth, Co-PI
June 1999
CAIDA's IEC Repository is based at the University of California's San Diego Supercomputer Center (UCSD/SDSC)
Table of Contents
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I. Accomplishments
- Presentations
- Enhancements to Web Site
- Advisory Board
- IEC Database
- Audio/Video Lecture Archive
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II. Outreach and Advertising
- IEC Workshop
- CoralReef CD
- Cflowd Workshop
- SDSU Workshop
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III. Futures
- Internet Teaching Laboratories
- Review Process
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IV. Challenges
- Concept Graphs
- Survey of Computer Science Departments
- Maintenance
- Internet Teaching Laboratories
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V. Staffing
Accomplishments
Presentations
Evi Nemeth has given presentations about the IEC at several conferences and workshops, listed below.Enhancements to Web Site
Several courses have been added to the web site including some in Russian and in Japanese. These are harder to index, but their existence may help faculty find sample courses in other languages. We have attempted to get industry training materials with mixed success. Small companies say yes (eg. XOR Network Engineering), larger ones are still pending (Cisco, Bay), and some individuals who make a living teaching and writing have said no (Richard Stevens). Courses have been categorized by their level and listed only with other similar courses.Advisory Board
The advisory board has been formed from a mix of academics at research universities, academics from smaller non-research schools, folks from research labs, industry leaders, and ISPs. We feel we have identified an excellent group that is really in a position to give us solid advice on the repository and IEC activities. We have exchanged email and will meet for the first time, face to face, at the fall IETF meeting.Our advisory board is:
- Chase Bailey, Cisco
- Steve Bellovin, AT&T Research
- Scott Bradner, Harvard University
- Randy Bush, Verio
- John Connolly, Univ. of Kentucky
- Jon Crowcroft, University College, London
- Jim Kurose, Univ. of Massachusetts
- Rick Wilder, MCI/Worldcom
IEC Database
In developing a mailing list of the names and email addresses for potential workshop attendees, we realized that we were data mining the web (by hand and with a focused task) and that we should collect more information and populate a database with it. In the database we have over 100 computer science, electrical and computer engineering, and telecommunications departments partially indexed. We are focusing on identifying the faculty currently teaching networking classes and the faculty in peripheral areas that might be assigned to teach it in the future. We can also capture details on the faculty size, number of networking classes, research interests of the networking faculty, etc. The database design is still undetermined, and changing; we are trying to anticipate other needs for this data within CAIDA and not limit ourselves to just the data that IEC needs now.Audio/Video Lecture Archive
We are working with audio/video techniques for capturing some teaching materials. Evi taught her networking class to students in Colorado and San Diego using the MBONE last fall. The class was a success; only one lecture had to be repeated due to network problems on the vBNS. We did not have the technology or staff to record the class, but intend to in the future. We have contacted Larry Rowe, a faculty member at UC Berkeley who runs a multimedia seminar each week, in order to collect possible courses to be added to the database. (http://www.bmrc.berkeley.edu/mig) Vern Paxson's recent lecture on TCP Dynamics will be our first entry into our prototype video server. We intend to build an archive of lectures that faculty can download and use when they are out of town or want to present another's view of a topic.Outreach and Advertising
IEC Workshop
We are planning a three-day workshop for the second week of August. The first two days will contain parallel sessions, one on the ns simulator (for graduate classes) and the other on routing and TCP. The final day will be on Internet measurement and traffic analysis. We are advertising the workshop by email to the mailing list of networking and operating systems faculty extracted from our computer science database.Coral Reef CD
The CAIDA project Coral Reef is producing a CD of tools to analyze Internet traces and some traces themselves. There are also pointers to Hans Werner Braun's archive of vBNS traces on the moat.nlanr.net web pages. We have contributed exercises to the CD that could be used as projects in networking classes. A copy of the CD will be given to all participants of the IEC workshops as well as mailed to the networking faculty list in our database.Cflowd Workshop
We are planning a one-day intensive workshop to help train members of CALREN and NPACI on the uses of the software program run on Cisco routers.There is a general use component as well as security and data analysis components.SDSU Workshop
We will publicize the IEC repository and the workshops we will be holding at the "Computational Science in the Curricula" workshop, http://www.edcenter.sdsu.edu/training/, to be held at the end of June at San Diego State University. The purpose of the June workshop is to acquaint CSU faculty with the recent advances in computational science and other technologies that have been developed. Lectures and presentations will be supplemented by hands-on tutorials focused on selected tools. We are providing them with materials to distribute to all attendees.Futures
Internet Teaching Laboratories
We have tried with the help of MCI/Worldcom, Cisco and the NSF to establish teaching labs. The Internet Teaching Labs will be based on routers that are being traded in Cisco for newer models by MCI/Worldcom. We have written and submitted a proposal to NSF for funding and we are in the process of completing the preliminary tasks to begin setting them up as an add-on activity of the IEC. The IEC advisory board will choose the schools where the laboratories will be located and the IEC and MCI engineering staff will design and oversee their contruction and integration into the curricula.Review Process
Our systematic review of the courses is being implemented. We have a few reviews by the authors of their course materials, what their intentions were, and how well the course worked at their institutions. We do not yet have any formal reviews of the materials by someone who has used them to build new courses, although, we expect the workshops to help us get the review process underway.Challenges
Concept Graphs
We have also not done the concept graphs that map the prerequisite structure of a course and index into the text and lecture notes for the course. Need a bright summer student to move this forward.Survey of CS Depts
We sent an announcement of the IEC and a survey asking about the networking faculty in over 100 computer science department chairs asking them to pass the information along to their networking faculty. Only about 10% of the surveys were returned; disappointing. We might have had better luck sending the information to the graduate/undergraduate secretary or administrative assistant to the chair and asking for their help in disseminating it to interested faculty.Maintenance
We have been plagued with links that are fine when the class enters the repository and are dead a while later. Mostly this seems to be an artifact of the class being given one semester and then at the end of the semester the URL moving until the class is offered again. This has prompted us to ask authors if we may archive their materials, not just link to them. Most authors are supportive and give us their permission, but we are concerned with the protection of intellectual property rights if we archive the materials ourselves.Staffing
To date the IEC has been staffed with part time student interns under the direction of Evi Nemeth, who has also been part time (the other part involving teaching at UCSD and/or Colorado). Theresa Ott was recently hired as project coordinator in order to help manage the IEC program. After the workshop, we would like to add another student intern, perhaps a graduate student, who has had experience either in a networking course or part-time employment. In addition, we want to use more of Evi's time.