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Enhancing Employability through Sustainable Computing

Enhancing Employability through Sustainable Computing. Higher Education Academy STEM Annual Conference, 2014 University of Edinburgh. Overview.

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Enhancing Employability through Sustainable Computing

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  1. Enhancing Employability through Sustainable Computing Higher Education AcademySTEMAnnual Conference, 2014University of Edinburgh

  2. Overview • Employability demands that students demonstrate a range of knowledge and skills, beyond the pure technical ones expected of computing (and other) specialists; • Green and sustainability issues are increasingly expected – and Sustainable Development can provide a framework to motivate and deliver this • We will consider this impetus and some examples that are relevant to computing and other engineering and science disciplines. Changing the way you think about Hull | 2

  3. Introduction • IT and computer systems are increasingly recognised as having a significant impact on the environment • These systems also affect society • Commercial organisations are affected – with carbon taxes and other initiatives to modify their behaviour • Computer Science can offer solutions to some of these – both to the IT systems themselves, and as a mechanism to reduce the impact of other activities

  4. Sustainable Development – Sustainable Computing • Sustainable Development is concerned with utilisation of resources in a sustainable way, and the appropriate use of science (i.e. technology) to inform such use • Computer Science offers the potential to develop systems which reduce resource demand (e.g. replacing travel with tele-conferencing; saving paper by use of on-line document exchange; developing “smart” energy systems) • As both a solution and a contributor to the problem makes it important to understand the connection between SD and CS hardware and software methods.

  5. Employability • There is an expectation that the low carbon economy will generate green jobs. • Whilst changes in government and the wider political and financial context alters the emphasis of this, there remains a national and international focus on sustainabilty • The international framework of carbon taxes, environmental audits and requirements to demonstrate environmental awareness within projects demonstrates that there are new opportunities for roles partially or wholly focussed on sustainability.

  6. University social and ethical responsibilities • A number of reports demonstrate that employers increasingly expect graduates to be aware of, and able to demonstrate skills regarding, sustainability. • Green skills prepare to step into the limelighthttp://www.businessgreen.com/bg/feature/2303458/green-skills-prepare-to-step-into-the-limelight • Green jobs: FTSE100 senior sustainability roles and the ‘cascade effect’http://www.greenwisebusiness.co.uk/news/green-jobs-ftse100-senior-sustainability-roles-and-the-cascade-effect-3424.aspx#.UxX7DPl_vzg • News: young people want green skills to get green jobshttp://www.hrzone.com/topic/recruitment/news-young-people-want-green-skills-get-green-jobs/131440 • Are Employers Seeking Sustainability Literate Graduates?http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/assets/documents/sustainability/kingston_sayce_full.pdf • Employable Graduates for Responsible Employers (Cade, StudentForce)http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/projects/detail/esd/esd_employable_graduates

  7. Professional and benchmark requirements • various relevant professional bodies all expect legal, social, ethical and professional content with associated learning outcomes and assessment. • May not specify green issues/sustainability, these topics provide examples by which to motivate and contextualise such topics, • the British Computer Society (BCS), has taken the lead in promoting sustainable (or “green”) computing practices, with a specialist group and certification for green IT. • The BCS Data Centre Specialist Group also promotes energy measurement and reduction techniques for data centres, recognising the fundamental role of data centres in the overall picture of IT sustainability. • The Australian Computer Society is a significant force in raising awareness of sustainable IT practice.

  8. Sustainable Literacy • An understanding of the context of sustainable development, and how it applies to the discipline requires students can demonstrate they • Understand the context of sustainable development • The needs and drivers for sustainable development • Have the capacity to apply it to their own and others’ behaviours • Can apply their knowledge to different problems and domains, including the professional one So if it is useful, how to deliver it?

  9. Appropriateness of material • New material should be considered in terms of • its appropriateness within the context of the specialism of the degree and the course ethos • suitability to the students • appropriateness in terms of level– postgrad vs undergrad: concepts fit across levels, with suitable treatment • Sustainability encompasses a wide range of subthemes that intersect with a number of aspects of a typical computing course. • One example within Computer Science degrees would be that of designing a solutin to reduce the energy requirements of a system, thereby reducing both the financial and environmental costs, two different subthemes within the sustainability framework.

  10. Appropriateness of material • The cross-cutting nature between topics makes sustainability an ideal topic for project work; for example, where the need to address the overall resource requirements of a specific user service calls for the consideration of sustainability across the whole lifecycle; or where the sustainability of a particular process (current or proposed) is assessed. •  Another form of motivation is in linking the topic with students’ individual professional development. Employers are increasingly expecting graduates to demonstrate this knowledge, and so one way to motivate is to demonstrate the relevance and benefits of this to students

  11. Emphasis and motivation • appropriateness includes motivational factors. • Students may identify and raise issue with content that seems misplaced or aligned with their other learning. • Providing suitable motivation for why something is included, why it is relevant, and how this will impact on students future careers can pre-empt such potential problems. • suitable emphasis can be challenging and open to individual’s own perceptions and views. • There are some advantages to emphasizing the pragmatic and objective benefits of an awareness of green information systems

  12. approaches to delivery – placement • two general approaches are to embed the material within other modules, or to segregate such material to specific modules on sustainability. • These are approaches which are used with other topics – e.g. core skills such as employability, project management, research, numeracy and mathematics– where delivery can be embedded or separate, and share similar issues. • Embedding can make motivation easier; though it can also allow for material to be so embedded and implicit that students fail to identify it or recognise that they have been exposed to it.

  13. approaches to delivery – placement • stand-alone modules ensure material is explicit, but can lead to student disengagement and or to them challenging to the relevance. • Of course, context setting can be made in the case of standalone modules, but needs to be thought through and kept there as an explicit aim. • An entire degree programme can be built around such topics • The effectiveness and relevance of questions on sustainability can bve seen from an example within computer networking, which have led to • student research topics exploring practical aspects of sustainability such as the data transfer and processing requirements of network management systems; using network management techniques to manage power consumption; the energy use of voice over IP technology; server virtualisation; thin client systems and the delivery of an internal cloud service within the University, supporting teaching, administration and research activities.

  14. Examples of material: http://sustainablit.wikispaces.com • Introduction to Sustainable Development:Overview to Sustainable Development and education for Sustainable Development • Hardware and Sustainability - Power usage: efficient hardware designing systems needing less infrastructure to reduce the electricity use and carbon footprint of systems.A more complex model of system design would take account of residual power attributed to a system – i.e. the power used in designing, building, transporting and disposing of it, so that a new IS design would take account of the environmental cost-benefit of replacing a system with a marginally more efficient one.

  15. Examples of material: http://sustainablit.wikispaces.com • Social networking, Web 2.0 and Sustainable Societies: changes and developments enabled/encouraged by Web 2.0 have significant impacts on global and national societies. Suitable for modules considering the wider ethical and social impact of computing, and of issues system developers should consider • Cloud computing and virtualisation: e.g. suppliers’ claims that cloud and virtualisation represent the answer to all matters of sustainability, allows exploration with students of the need for independent verification & validation of published data, & the need for a common set of measurement and reporting techniques. Also legal and financial awareness can be raised through exploration of the SLAs and cost models used in purchasing cloud resource.

  16. Web 3.0: the greater breadth and depth of interaction, with consequent increased data transfer and storage needs & the number and power of web connected devices. In SD terms this allows the discussion of the growth and development of more efficient technology: greening by IT, as a contrast to greening of IT. • System Design: the entire system lifecycle can offer discussion of sustainability and awareness of factors such as embedded energy (energy used to construct a piece of equipment); responsible disposal and opportunities of virtualisation and cloud computing of replacing physical assets with non-physical ones. Also alternative business models which may be needed to support this activity.

  17. http://sustainablit.wikispaces.com

  18. Sample Learning Object: Hardware and sustainability

  19. Approximately 2500 users to date.

  20. Conclusions: future work • The examples considered demonstrate the relevance of SD and some ways in which content can be motivated to exploit links with computing • Meeting the needs of graduates provides an imperative for this – developing their sustainable literacy • This includes developing the trend to move from the greening of IT (energy saving of IT systems etc.) to the greening by IT (e.g. smart homes, organisational changes etc.) • Please use and contribute to http://sustainablit.wikispaces.com

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