Project type: Educational Project

Software Infrastructures for Teaching at Scale

To teach many recent topics within digital technology at scale requires proper software infrastructures to support the teaching for lab exercises and projects. Some of these topics are data-driven systems, AI and cloud computing. Commercial providers are offering cloud computing and AI resources, however, in many situations these are ill fit for teaching activities as they are complex for early learners, are problematic due to GDPR, make teaching material obsolete by rapidly changing their UIs and when scaled add a significant cost. Therefore, there is an unmet need for better cloud-like infrastructures which can host sandbox software and datasets for teaching to improve onboarding and retention of students.

Research problem and aims

The universities have or are building new computing resources for research and teaching. So far, the primary focus has been on research in the form of e-science initiatives (e.g. SDU e-Science Center UCloud or AAU CLAUDIA) or e-infrastructure (e.g. DEIC) providing services with a general focus on all sciences. However, there is a need to complement or customise these services with offers for teaching in digital technologies. The aim is to improve the Danish software infrastructure for teaching in digital technologies by coordinating cross-institutional development of software infrastructure for teaching including software toolkits, access to data sandboxes and access to the Danish national DeiC Type1 HPC for educational cloud computing.

Value creation

The aim is to improve onboarding and retention of students result in an ability to teach more students and lower dropout rates.

Project period and budget

February 1, 2021 – January 31, 2023 – 2 years.

Total budget DKK 5,63 million / DIREC investment DKK 0,88 million