NCShare, a collaborative initiative made possible by a National Science Foundation Grant designed to foster collaboration and resource-sharing among educational institutions across the state, is having a real impact in the classroom, elevating both student learning experiences and teaching practices.
One of the key elements of the NCShare project is Compute as a Service—a shared computing environment that supports a common set of software and science drivers, enabling streamlined access to research computing tools. At Davidson College, Compute as a Service resources facilitated by NCShare are being put into practice in an undergraduate Data Science in Society course, designed to allow students to engage with data science methodologies in the context of social justice.
Led by Aubrey Condor, the Duke Professor of the Practice of Data Science at Davidson, this course provides an introduction to methods of data science including visualization, manipulation, programming, and modeling, and integrates an NCShare-funded RStudio container. This container is designed to help streamline logistical hurdles and give students hassle-free access to advanced computing power.
According to Professor Condor, the platform has allowed her to set up a shared computing environment for the class and students in advance, allowing her students to bypass complex package installation issues and move directly to integrating and practicing the data science methods explored in the class.
“When issues arise, we are able to solve them at the container level, and not deal with individual level differences and troubleshooting,” said Professor Condor. “RStudio makes teaching easier and more streamlined!”
Students have seen the benefits of this Shared Computing resource in action as well. According to David Hilton, a senior computer science major at Davidson, the incorporation of RStudio into the curriculum has had clear benefits.
“As a computer science major, I have worked with various languages but have not worked with one that has the ease of data input and visualization as R. It makes it very easy to read in entire Excel files, manipulate them and then produce visualizations that can easily communicate ideas to others.”
Ben Morehead, a senior at Davidson, echoes Hilton’s sentiment, emphasizing how this program has had clear benefits for their work. “Using R has helped my capstone research, making it easier to display large quantities of data more effectively than Excel or Stata.”
Emmanuel Atia, a junior, agrees with the ease of use of the container. “I do not have to update my container each time I log in which helps improve my learning experience.” The shared computing resource that underpins the class’s use of RStudio is facilitated by NCShare.
“I like using NCShare because I do not need to download and deal with RStudio on my computer,” says Jo Papadopoulou, a sophomore student in Condor’s class. “Not having it downloaded means I don’t worry about my work taking up space on my computer or slowing it down. As someone who is interested in data science in the future, I appreciate how easy it has been to use this platform and learn R.”
For students just beginning their journey into data science, the tools available through the partnership with NCShare have opened up new horizons.
“With this course, I was allowed to code for the first time, sparking my innate interest in using coding software for social justice,” said first-year student Romeo Norris.
For Charlotte Welsby, a junior looking ahead to her capstone project, the utilization of RStudio through NCShare offers a robust platform for data exploration and interpretation.
“It allows access to multiple resources all in one place. I have enjoyed using the container to access R. Learning how to code in R has been the most applicable platform that I’ve used for data analytics.”
As Davidson, and other colleges in the NCShare collaboration, continue to leverage the resources offered by the NCShare grant, they provide students with access to powerful tools, and enable faculty to streamline the delivery of custom computing systems. Institutions interested in NCShare and the benefits it can provide their college or university can get information about the project and register interest at ncshare.org.