2014 Inflection Points in Research and Teaching Jennifer Widom Stanford University October 10, 2014 #GHC

Background  Bachelors degree in trumpet performance  Computer science Ph.D. (Cornell)  Five years at IBM Almaden Research Center  Twenty-one years (so far) Stanford faculty  CS department chair for 5 years  Senior associate dean for 5 weeks

2014 A Lot Happens in 30 Years And not much can be covered in 25 minutes  Research Principles, themes, and experiences  Teaching Emergence of MOOC movement

2014 Research Principles and Themes  Finding research topics  Approaching a new topic  Disseminating research results  Anecdotes Competitions and collaborations Disclaimers Research-field dependent Personal opinion/experience Disclaimers Research-field dependent Personal opinion/experience

2014 Material drawn from “Research Principles Revealed” Acceptance talk for 2007 ACM SIGMOD Innovations Award

2014 Finding Research Topics Not a visionary

2014 Finding Research Topics Not a visionary  Yet launched a series of successful projects  Found a “recipe” that works At least in my research area: Databases and information management

2014 Recipe for Database Research Topic  Pick a simple but fundamental assumption underlying traditional database systems Drop it  Must reconsider all aspects of data management and query processing −Many Ph.D. theses −Prototype from scratch

2014 Approaching a New Topic To develop a new type of database system: − Consider all of them − In this order  Solid foundations first, then implementation Data Model Query Language System

2014 Approaching a New Topic To explore a new research topic: Foundations Implementation I’ve built my entire research career on this approach

2014 Early Years at IBM Almaden 11 Developing a database trigger system “ We finished our trigger system ages ago” Transition tables, Conflicts, Confluence, … “Write Code!”

2014 Early Years at IBM Almaden 12 Developing a database trigger system “ We finished our trigger system ages ago” Yeah, but what does it do?

2014 Early Years at IBM Almaden 13 Developing a database trigger system “Umm... I’ll need to run it to find out ” Yeah, but what does it do?

2014 The Excised Slide

2014 Early Years at IBM Almaden A Decade Later “ We finished our rule system ages ago” Yeah, but who won the 10-year test-of-time award?

2014 The Truth To explore a new research topic: Foundations Implementation Applications

2014 Disseminating Research Results  If it’s important, don’t wait −No place for secrecy (or laziness) in research −Every place for being first with new idea or result  Post on web, inflict on friends  Top-tier conferences are not the only place for important work −Send to workshops, SIG newsletters  Make software available and easy to use −Decent interfaces, run-able over web

2014 The Value of Collaboration  Incredible run of summer collaborations at IBM, then Stanford, with visitor from Italian university  Many spirited arguments  Much success Intuition Details

2014 Research Takeaways  Foundations before implementation  Don’t be intimidated, payoff will come  The value of collaboration  Disseminate rapidly and widely

2014 Teaching “From 100 Students to 100,000”

2014 Fall 2011  Three Stanford CS classes offered free to the world −Now known as “MOOCs”  Instantly launched online-education frenzy −Still going strong −Ultimate direction and impact still anyone’s guess

2014 Introduction to Databases – Fall 2011 Stanford 150 (enrolled students) world 60,000 (enrolled students) 26,000 (of them submitted 1+ assignments) 6,500 (completed the entire course) DB-Class cumulative [est. fall 2014] 200,000 (accounts) 800,000 (assignment submissions) 6,000,000 (video views)

2014 Clarifying “Online-Ed” 1. “Flipped classroom” (or “blended classroom”) 2. Course materials online – “self-study” 3. Public course offering – “MOOC” All rely on same set of core materials:  Purpose-made videos with embedded short quizzes  Standalone quizzes, automatically-checked programming exercises  Support materials: slides, notes, readings

2014 Flipped Classroom (mine)  All online materials, plus...  Classroom time −Professor-led interaction problem-solving −Guest lectures −Research and exotic topics −Help sessions  Hand-graded written challenge problems  Programming project  Hand-graded “real” exams

2014 MOOC  All online materials, plus...  Multiple-choice exams  Discussion forum – Community  “Statement of Accomplishment”

2014 The Experience My first MOOC was one of the most invigorating teaching experiences of my career

2014 The Experience My first MOOC was one of the most invigorating teaching experiences of my career [ MOOCs #2 and #3 less so ]

2014 Sample Video (lecture)

2014 Sample Video (demo)

2014 Sample Programming

2014 Personal Touch

2014 Public Students: Deeply Appreciative

2014 A Top Student  Posted 900 answers on Q&A forum  No discrimination against “dumb” questions  Each answer correct, of perfect length, with examples when appropriate, perfect English

2014 A Top Student

2014 Teaching Takeaways  Online-education takes many forms The future is anything but clear  My fall 2011 MOOC was one of the most invigorating experiences of my career

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