Designing Tools and Curricula for Undergraduate Courses in Distributed Systems

Distributed applications have become a core component of the Internet's infrastructure. However, many undergraduate curricula do not offer courses that focus on the design and implementation of distributed systems. As a result, undergraduates are not as prepared as they should be for graduate study or careers in industry. Historically, the problem has often been caused by a lack of resources, since many schools do not have the computing infrastructure needed to experiment with distributed systems. However, with the growing availability and accessibility of academic and industrial distributed computing platforms, this is no longer true. Even colleges with limited on-campus computing facilities now have the ability to experiment with large-scale systems using state-of-the-art networking technologies. This workshop focused on developing and disseminating new tools and curricula for undergraduate courses in distributed systems and computer networks that leverage the resources available in publicly-accessible testbeds. The 31 attendees came from a variety of backgrounds, including top-tier research universities, liberal arts colleges, and industry. This report summarizes the results of the main discussions and presentations from the workshop.