engleski

Re-usability vs. customization : curriculum design for the International Winter School in Grid Computing ’08

The series of International Summer Schools on Grid Computing (ISSGC) has run annually since 2003. The International Collaboration to Extend and Advance Grid Education (ICEAGE) project has organised the ISSGC since 2006. In 2007, ICEAGE decided to deliver some ISSGC material online. In order to provide wider access to lectures and tutorials run by some of the world’s most recognised grid experts, ISSGC material has been developed into various audiovisual and textual formats and stored in the ICEAGE Digital Library. The representative selection of those materials builds the basis of the International Winter School on Grid Computing (IWSGC’08) curriculum. A prominent challenge currently facing the grid community is the development of efficient ways to disseminate grid knowledge and skills to a wider range of users who are not interested in grid computing for its own sake, but in the contexts of its various applications. The first part of the paper shows that the shift from face-to-face to online education is inherently connected with the nature of grids and proves the necessity of a distributed delivery mode for grid education. Based on previous works on delivery mode shifts from face to face to online education, the second part of the paper exposes challenges pertaining to curriculum design, with a special accent on the relationship between re-usability and customisation. Analyses of this relationship show that the standard linear reusability-customisation continuum is inappropriate in the context of IWSGC’08 and demonstrate the need for a circular three-fold reusability-customisation model. Repetitions of this model lead to a real-life situation described in upwards-looking curriculum design spiral. Curriculum design cannot be analysed without reference to context: the last paragraph develops a model of curriculum design integrated in wider organisational environment. All discussions and conclusions are based on the real example of delivery shift from ISSGC to IWSGC’08, thus providing a series of recommendations suitable for a wide international use in grid education.The series of International Summer Schools on Grid Computing (ISSGC) has run annually since 2003. The International Collaboration to Extend and Advance Grid Education (ICEAGE) project has organised the ISSGC since 2006. In 2007, ICEAGE decided to deliver some ISSGC material online. In order to provide wider access to lectures and tutorials run by some of the world’s most recognised grid experts, ISSGC material has been developed into various audiovisual and textual formats and stored in the ICEAGE Digital Library. The representative selection of those materials builds the basis of the International Winter School on Grid Computing (IWSGC’08) curriculum. A prominent challenge currently facing the grid community is the development of efficient ways to disseminate grid knowledge and skills to a wider range of users who are not interested in grid computing for its own sake, but in the contexts of its various applications. The first part of the paper shows that the shift from face-to-face to online education is inherently connected with the nature of grids and proves the necessity of a distributed delivery mode for grid education. Based on previous works on delivery mode shifts from face to face to online education, the second part of the paper exposes challenges pertaining to curriculum design, with a special accent on the relationship between re-usability and customisation. Analyses of this relationship show that the standard linear reusability-customisation continuum is inappropriate in the context of IWSGC’08 and demonstrate the need for a circular three-fold reusability-customisation model. Repetitions of this model lead to a real-life situation described in upwards-looking curriculum design spiral. Curriculum design cannot be analysed without reference to context: the last paragraph develops a model of curriculum design integrated in wider organisational environment. All discussions and conclusions are based on the real example of delivery shift from ISSGC to IWSGC’08, thus providing a series of recommendations suitable for a wide international use in grid education.

e-learning; grid computing

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