Experiential Learning Platforms
Through the development of experiential learning platforms, researchers are able to test and implement new ideas, while simultaneously providing exclusive opportunities to BU students. The Institute hosts popular Cloud Computing, Data Mechanics, and Symmetric Cryptography courses. All three of these courses are connected to ongoing Institute-led research projects. If you are interested in working with the Institute to develop a new experiential learning platform, please contact hicadmin@bu.edu
Cloud Computing Course
The Cloud Computing course is open to undergraduate, master, and PhD students and is affiliated with the Institute’s
Mass Open Cloud (MOC) project. This course teaches students agile development and cloud computing skills. This course was developed and co-taught by Orran Krieger (Boston University) and Peter Desnoyers (Northeastern University), MOC project leads. Through a post-course survey, students concisely report feeling more prepared to enter the workforce and apply for cloud computing positions.
Training Platforms & Opportunities
Furthermore, the Institute is engaged in developing a variety of training platforms and opportunities for the BU research community. If you are interested in developing or hosting a new training opportunity, please contact hicadmin@bu.edu.
Red Hat Academy
The Red Hat Academy partners with a variety of academic institutions including Boston University to provide the next generation of IT talent with free access to a range of Red Hat’s training courses and certification exams. The Red Hat Academy provides online courses on linux, cloud, and software development focused on Red Hat products.
Digital Humanities at BU
In an effort to advance the digital humanities by making computational techniques more accessible to researchers in the social sciences, the Institute has partnered with the BU Center for Humanities to develop innovative educational platforms and funding opportunities. Events such as the Data & Humanities Datathon and the 3D Visualization of Digitalized Landscapes workshops – led by Institute Steering Committee member Andrea Berlin – have opened new doors for social scientists at BU. Additionally, the Institute is co-sponsoring a Digital Humanities Seminar in the fall 2016 semester; the course is devoted to learning about and developing digital humanities project proposals and will be available to faculty, BU-affliated post-docs, and graduate students.
GENI Workshops
The Institute has an ongoing collaboration with the NSF’s GENI (Global Environment for Network Innovations) program. GENI provides a virtual laboratory for networking and distributed systems research and education, and is well suited for exploring networks at scale, thereby promoting innovations in network science, security, services and applications. Led by Insitute Fellow Abraham Matta (CS), the Institute hosted a valuable GENI workshop in 2016, which provided hands-on exposure to GENI test beds and tools and incubated ideas about how GENI can be used in research and education.