ON  USING  THE  CLOUD  TO  SUPPORT  ONLINE  COURSES  

2014  Frontiers  in  Education  Conference  (FIE)  Madrid  (Spain),  October,  23    

Instituto de Instrumentación para Imagen Molecular

Universitat Politècnica de València, Spain

GOAL  OF  THIS  TALK  

•  This  talk  summarises  the  experience  of  creating  and  supporting  an  online  course  on  Cloud  Computing  using  Cloud  Computing  tools.  

•  FROM  •  A  biannual  face-­‐to-­‐face  course  with  up  to  10  students  per  edition  (some  editions  cancelled)  and  satisfaction  rate  over  9  out  of  10.  

•  TO  •  An  always-­‐open  fully  online  asynchronous  course  that  trained  230+  students  from  8  countries  in  an  academic  year  while  maintaining  the  satisfaction  rate.  

WHAT  IS  CLOUD  COMPUTING?  

•  Cloud  Computing  is  a  model  to  provision  and  use  resources  (storage,  computation,  services,  etc.)  from  a  third-­‐party  provider  typically  on  a  pay-­‐as-­‐you-­‐go  basis.  •  No  upfront  investments  •  Elasticity  (on-­‐demand  provisioning)  Cloud Computing Providers

Virtual  Machines  

Storage  Capacity  

Services  

THE  ONLINE  COURSE  

•  Online  Course  on  Cloud  Computing  with  Amazon  Web  Services  (AWS)  [Spanish]  •  http://www.grycap.upv.es/cursocloudaws  •  Mainly  Addressed  to  Computer  Scientists    /  Engineers  

•  Scalable  Cloud  Applications,  Deployment  and  Automated  Configuration  (DevOps),  etc.  

•  Hands-­‐on  Sessions  using  Remote  Labs.    

  @CursoCloudAWS  

/CursoCloudAWS  

AN  ONLINE  LEARNER  

•  Fully  asynchronous  online  course  in  which  the  students  acquire  the  competencies  and  provide  feedback  for  further  improvement.  

StudentStudent

Video Lessons Documentation Online

ResourcesRemote

Labs

Self Study Self Assessment

CompetencIes / Skills Feedback

Peer Interaction

Instructor Guidance

Lear

ning

M

ater

ials

Self-

Lear

ning

Out

com

e

Online Tests

ARCHITECTURE  TO  SUPPORT  THE  ONLINE  COURSE  

Amazon Web Services (AWS)

Amazon Web Services (AWS)

Google Spreadsheets

Google Forms

PoliformaT(LMS)

PoliTube(Video Lessons)

CFP (Management)

Remote Labs

Web Server / SSH

PoliReunión(Conferencing)

PoliMedia(Video Intro)

Online Learning Platform

Web Page(Advertisement)

1. Find the course

2. Enroll the

course

3. Course start. List of

students

Communication Platform

5. Migrate anonymized data

StudentsGMail 6. Send

credentials

7. Access course materials and

guidance

8. Access remote labs

Infrastructure Manager

4.a Deploy Remote

Labs

9. Infrastructure notifications

Devops Tools (Ansible)

Remote Labs Provisioner

Remote Labs

4.b Deploy Remote Labs

AWS Management

Console

9. Report feedback

Social Hub

10. Keep posted

Content & Management Platform

System Version Control

SVN

TOOLS  FOR  VIDEO  PRODUCTION  

•  Polimedia  videos  are  recorded  in  a  studio.  

•  Screencasts  for  the  video-­‐lessons  are  recorded  on  a  MacBook  Air  +  ScreenFlow  

HANDS-­‐ON  TRAINING  

•  Self-­‐guided  documentation  so  that  students  work  at  their  own  pace.  

REMOTE  LABS  ON  AWS  

•  Remote  Labs  consist  of:  •  AWS  Management  Portal  (Web  Interface)  •  A  remote  machine  (Virtual  Machine),  shared  by  all  students  and  specifically  configured  with  the  required  tools  and  data.  

•  Provisioned  via  the  IM  •  Infrastructure  Manager  –  http://www.grycap.upv.es/im  

•  An  open-­‐source  tool  that  you  can  use  to  deploy  customized  remote  labs  on  Cloud  providers.  

PROVISIONING  REMOTE  LABS  

Infrastructure Manager

(IM)

Virtual Infrastructure Descriptions (RADLs)

Virtual Machine image Repository & Catalog

(VMRC)

SysadminSysadmin InstructorInstructor

Virtual Infrastructure A

Virtual Infrastructure B

Cloud Provider

Configurator(Ansible)

Web Interface

Software Repository

Repository of Educational Material

Students

ODISEA / IM

GATHERING  FEEDBACK    

•  Google  Forms  allows  to  automatically  gather  and  process  the  feedback  after  each  module.  

PROCESSING  FEEDBACK  

•  Aggregated  information  to  know  the  highest  rated  video-­‐lessons.  

•  Enables  to  progressively  improve  each  module  according  to  students’  suggestions  

•  Goal:  Improve  the  educational  material  until  it  converges  to  zero  doubts  for  students.  

PERSONALISED  MESSAGING  

•  Based  on  a  programmed  Google  Spreadsheet  that  enables  personalised  custom  messaging.  

INSTANT  OFFICE  HOURS  

•  Requests  from  students  arrive  to  instructor’s  mobile  phone  within  few  seconds.  

•  The  instructor  decides  if  the  answer  can  be  delayed  •  https://boxcar.io    

WORKLOAD  OF  E-­‐MAILS  PER  COURSE  EDITION  

•  Instant  notifications  can  be  a  source  of  stress  unless  its  number  is  very  low.  •  An  average  14  e-­‐mails  per  edition  with  an  average  25  students  per  edition.  

0"

5"

10"

15"

20"

25"

30"

35"

40"

1" 2" 3" 4" 5" 6"

#"of"e&mails"vs"#"of"students"per"course"edi4on"

#"of"students"

#"of"doubts"

•  The  strategy  of  iterative  refinement  of  the  educational  material  pays  off.  

MAIN  RESULTS  

Question   Rate  

The  organization  of  the  course  has  been  appropriate   9.10  

The  instructor  masters  the  content  of  the  course   9.53    

The  course  adapts  to  my  learning  pace   8.31  

The  instructor  has  rapidly  resolved  my  doubts   9.59  

I  would  recommend  this  course   9.03  

The  means  used  for  the  course  (Internet  +  Remote  Labs)  have  advantages  over  face-­‐to-­‐face  

9.06  

I  am  satisfied  with  the  course     9.06  

•  Answers  from  101  students  (out  of  a  population  of  203  students),  from  8  countries,  during  2013/2014  [0,10].  

•  71%  of  students  finished  the  course  with  an  average  grade  of  9.17  (objective  test  questions).  

ONLINE  COMMUNITY  IS  IMPORTANT  …  

•  Hola  

…  BUT  BEING  RANKED  #1  IN  GOOGLE  IS  THE  KEY  

First    position  in  Google  (after  the  ads).  Basic  SEO  (Search  Engine  Optimization)  techniques.  

GOOGLE  ANALYTICS  

•  Being  struck  by  the  spanish  version  of  the  Slashdot  Effect  (barrapunto.com).  

•  From  10-­‐20  hits/day  to  300+  hits/day  worldwide.  

LESSONS  LEARNED    

•  Online  courses  can  be  highly  dynamic.  •  New  material  can  be  included  on  demand.  •  Unlike  books,  errata  only  impacts  the  first  student  that  finds  it  and  notifies  it.  

•  New  learners  are  used  to  MOOCs.    •  Online  learning  has  BIG  advantages  for  students  and  instructors.  

•  You  have  to  AUTOMATE  if  you  want  to  survive.  •  Cloud  services  and  technology  is  mature  and  ready  to  support  online  instruction.    

CONCLUSIONS  AND  FUTURE  WORK  

•  Use  of  Cloud  Services  to  simplify  online  course  management  while  delivering  a  high  quality  learning  experience  to  a  worldwide  audience.    •  Cloud  Services:  Amazon  Web  Services,  Google  Apps,  Google  Analytics,  Infrastructure  Manager  (IM),  BoxCar,  Social  Platforms.  

•  Current  status:  •  No  editions.  Always  open.  230+  students  from  8  countries.  

•  Enroll  anytime  and  work  at  your  own  pace.    

•  This  paves  the  way  for  Education  as  a  Service  (EaaS),  where  courses  are  available  when  and  how  the  students  demand.  

CONTACT  

           Germán  Moltó  Instituto  de  Instrumentación  para  Imagen  Molecular  Universitat  Politècnica  de  València  Camino  de  Vera  s/n  46022,  Valencia  SPAIN    gmolto@dsic.upv.es  http://www.grycap.upv.es/gmolto  http://formacioncloud.blogs.upv.es    

@gmolto