1. October 18, 2015 1 Our team: Undergrad Anand Sawant, Ruben Verboon, Gargi Prasad, Arnoud Bakker, Nassos Antoniou, Thomas de Ruiter, … Grad Siqi Shen, Nezih Yigitbasi, Ozan Sonmez Staff Henk Sips, Dick Epema, Alexandru Iosup Collaborators Ion Stoica and the Mesos team (UC Berkeley), Thomas Fahringer, Radu Prodan (U. Innsbruck), Nicolae Tapus, Mihaela Balint, Vlad Posea (UPB), Derrick Kondo, Emmanuel Jeannot (INRIA), Assaf Schuster, Mark Silberstein, Orna Ben-Yehuda (Technion),... TU Delft Challent/Honours Programme Alexandru Iosup Parallel and Distributed Systems Group Delft University of Technology The Netherlands SPEC RG Cloud Meeting

2. B.Sc. Students Doing Research!? 1. 2.Only if students are capable and can be motivated. 3.Beneficial to both them and us. They learn a broad skill set. They also learn to think independently. We get to train, rather than import, a new generation. October 18, 2015 2 Hendricks, Meijer, vd Velden, Iosup, Procedural Content Generation for Games: A Survey, ACM TOMCCAP, 2012 High-impact publi (best in the field)

3. Beneficial to Them New Skill Set Dear Alexandru, I didn't expect to find a publication under the Christmas tree. I'm very happy with the outcome. It was certainly a long journey, but I believe that the full process was very educational. For fun I compared the Bachelorseminarium-version with the current one: the difference is huge, not only in content but also in writing style. Last semester I wrote a literature survey as part of a course. Thanks to the tricks you taught me, I got a really good mark. Additionally, my supervisors have decided to co-author the paper. We hope to send a first version to the reviewers in Januari. Best wishes for 2012! October 18, 2015 3

4. Beneficial to Them The Pleasure of Finding Things Out I wish this opportunity was there when I was 20 vs “Getting a diploma is all that matters” Academia competes with TV, music, Internet, gaming, … anything daddy’s money can buy … actually, their own money: 26 hours study, 14 hours work[Leo Borghans, 20006] October 18, 2015 4

5. Beneficial to Us IT Industry Competitiveness October 18, 2015 5 Source: The Economist, Benchmarking IT industry competitiveness 2009 http://portal.bsa.org/2009eiu/study/2009_eiu_global.pdf http://portal.bsa.org/2009eiu/study/2009_eiu_global.pdf NL only Top-20, in 2011

6. Beneficial to Us Where’s the Human Capital? October 18, 2015 6 “A longer-term challenge for some European countries is encouraging more graduates to choose science-related subjects.” NL is 27 th in HC Source: The Economist, Benchmarking IT industry competitiveness 2009

7. October 18, 2015 7 Main Goal: Educate Capable BSc Students in Doing Research in Computer Science Research, the pleasure of finding things out Reading Writing Formulating a research question The process of answering the question In Computer Science The world is changing: people spend 1 billion hours per month in Zynga’s online games, more on online social networking, etc. The process is increasingly experimental (so, fun!) Results can affect millions of people (so, socially cool!)

8. Approach: Embed B.Sc. Students in Our Research, Teach Them to Swim in the Ocean Anand Sawant, Co-Scalability of Online Game Design and Infrastructure Online Gaming + Cloud Computing Riskier topic, more fun Ruben Verboon, Scheduling Policies for Scientific Workloads in Cloud-Based Environment Cloud Computing Continues work by former M.Sc./Ph.D. students Less risk, possibly more impact (not surprising) October 18, 2015 8

9. 9 Approach: Real Traces, Models, Real Tools, Real-World Experimentation (+ Simulation) Formalize real-world scenarios Exchange real traces Model relevant operational elements Scalable tools for meaningful and repeatable experiments Comparative studies, almost like sorting beans

10. Lessons Learned Students Culture shock, but quick to integrate Difficult to switch from “time = results” Difficult to switch from “solution a la carte” Learning quickly (Challent students, after all) In general, motivated—challenged for the first time? Approach Statistics, systems, performance evaluation, … Students learn another sets of skills, besides research Time allocated for research? There’s no “1 hour for research today, 0.5 hours tomorrow, …, total 4 hours per week” Lesson in risk assessment and management October 18, 2015 10

11. Suggestions for Programme Managers 1.Is the research topic another B.Sc. / M.Sc. Thesis? What to do with it? Suggestion: cum laudae guaranteed upon success. 2.Students struggle to find time blocks for research. Suggestion: set at least one day per week for research. 3.Travel money needed to get students places. Suggestion: set budget of 2,500EUR for conference where students present (US) + 1,500EUR for conference where they participate (EU) October 18, 2015 11

12. October 18, 2015 12 Conclusion Take-Home Message B.Sc. students in research Possible to achieve top results Beneficial to both them and us Challent students in research Approach: embed in research group, deep-ocean swimming Eager, intelligent, adaptable students Break culture of “time = results” Break culture of “solution a la carte” Lesson in risk assessment and management Suggestions for Challent Managers Cum laudae is due Time block Travel money Alexandru Iosup A.Iosup@tudelft.nl http://www.pds.ewi.tudelft.nl/~iosup/ (or google “iosup”) Parallel and Distributed Systems Group Delft University of Technology A.Iosup@tudelft.nl http://www.pds.ewi.tudelft.nl/~iosup/ Do not hesitate to contact me…