Tag Archive for: Computer Science

Design Patterns and AI: Computer Science evolves at SOU

Design Patterns and AI: Computer Science evolves at SOU

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(Ashland, Ore.) — A new “Design Patterns” course in Southern Oregon University’s Computer Science program leans on artificial intelligence to perform coding tasks, allowing students to focus on the big picture and serve as architects rather than carpenters.

The course – an upper-division elective intended primarily for Computer Science majors – reflects an ongoing shift toward AI in software engineering by taking a deeper look at the structure of software, teaching students how to recognize recurring problems in programming and apply reusable solutions, or patterns.

“The main difference (from other coding courses) is the students aren’t doing much coding at all in this class,” said David Pouliot, an SOU associate professor of Computer Science and instructor for the course. “Instead they are designing the code, which is more like creating the blueprints and defining the functionality of the different pieces of software and how they interact.

“This approach lets different teams work independently, makes it easy to upgrade parts without breaking the whole system and keeps complex software manageable,” he said.

The Design Patterns course – offered for the first time this fall – acknowledges that tools such as ChatGPT and GitHub Copilot have become capable of generating short, functional pieces of computer code, and the role of computer scientists is moving from line-by-line implementation toward a higher-level of thinking.

AI can quickly generate snippets of code, but it still struggles with things that come more naturally to humans, such as design. Programmers still need the same core engineering skills to use AI effectively, as artificially generated code often contains bugs, logic errors or vulnerabilities that inexperienced developers may not recognize.

“Students analyze how programs are structured rather than the nitty-gritty details of the program,” Computer Science student Felicity Johnson said of the Design Patterns course. “You can think of it like how an architect creates blueprints for a building, but the builder actually makes the building itself.

“It teaches students how to structure software so that it’s flexible, efficient and easier to maintain.”

Students in Design Patterns learn how to think about structure, choosing between composition and inheritance, where to apply abstraction and how to design programs for scalability and flexibility. Those are decisions that require judgement, creativity and a good understanding of software architecture – traits that even the most advanced AI tools today don’t possess.

The course is intended to help students learn how to use AI as an assistant and increase their programming productivity. The field is moving in the direction of developers spending more time at the structural level, making design decisions and defining interfaces, while AI handles more of the low-level and repetitive work.

“First, they get experience designing large projects – something they don’t normally get until they have graduated and been in the industry for a while,” Pouliot said. “The other thing I hope is that this class will help prepare students for changing roles.

“It should help prepare students for any class where the students complete larger projects – primarily our capstone sequence where groups of students work on a real project over multiple quarters.”

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SOU Ashland's Chandler Campbell and Jacob Nowack present research on artificial intelligence

Graduate and current student present SOU research at national conference

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(Ashland, Ore.) — Southern Oregon University computer science graduate Chandler Campbell and current student Jacob Nowack attended a conference of research software engineers in Philadelphia last month to showcase their work on a pair of closely related projects that hinge on the use of artificial intelligence to simplify and organize highly complex research tasks.

Campbell presented a paper on his study of tacit knowledge in research settings – gathering, storing and retrieving the unspoken practices of academic teams that sometimes are lost when a project is disrupted or ends – and Nowack spoke about using a tacit knowledge tool to help UCLA astronomers rapidly expand their efforts to survey billions of distant galaxies. Both Campbell and Nowack work on their AI projects under Bernadette Boscoe, an SOU assistant professor of computer science who builds and researches infrastructures and tools to help domain scientists do their work.

Campbell and Nowack were presenters at the third annual national conference of the US Research Software Engineer Association, an organization that supports those who use expertise in programing to advance research. The association is a project of a California-based nonprofit.

“I got to meet a lot of really interesting people from all over the country, and learned more about cutting-edge AI technologies and software development techniques which I think will help me a lot in my future career,” Nowack said, describing his experience at the conference.

“I was a bit nervous initially going into it, but when the time came I had a great time presenting,” he said.

Nowack’s project is intended to help astronomers who measure the distances to far-flung galaxies so they can better understand how the universe has expanded and evolved. Spectroscopy, the traditional method of measuring those distances, is expensive and time-consuming.

“Our project uses machine learning to solve this problem,” Nowack said. “We trained an AI model on approximately 286,000 galaxies whose distances were already measured using spectroscopy. Once trained, (the AI model) can estimate distances over 1,000 times faster than traditional spectroscopy, making large-scale cosmic surveys practical.”

His work with the UCLA astronomers is based on a Large Language Model (LLM) of artificial intelligence that is used to archive the group’s protocols.

Boscoe’s research group at SOU has developed a Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) system – an AI framework that pairs an LLM with an information retrieval system to improve accuracy and relevance of resulting data. Her research has received grants over the past two years from the Sloan Foundation and the National Science Foundation, and Boscoe has worked with Campbell to build the project’s RAG-LLM tool – AquiLLM, which was the subject of Campbell’s presentation at last month’s conference.

“Our work on AquiLLM is part software development and part social research,” he said. “We’re investigating the potential for an AI-enabled knowledge repository to improve how academic research groups function.”

Tacit knowledge – which can include informal practices such as notes, meeting transcripts and group communications – can sometimes be lost when participants come and go from academic research groups.

“Our hope is that if we can ingest enough informal communication into the system, and give an LLM access to that information, it will be able to help group members access the tacit knowledge of the group,” Campbell said. “To do this, we’ve written a custom Retrieval-Augmented Generation tool (AquiLLM) specifically for researchers. We have a beta version deployed for astronomers at UCLA, and we’re currently working on fleshing out more functionality.”

The Philadelphia conference included representatives from several national research labs and dozens of top research universities, and Campbell said many were thinking about the same issues that his work addresses.

“I got a lot of valuable feedback on our work, and got to see how other researchers are trying to use AI to solve adjacent problems,” he said. “I was very proud to be there in the mix, representing SOU.”

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Tacit knowledge grant awarded to SOU Ashland's Boscoe

SOU’s Boscoe awarded second “tacit knowledge” grant

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(Ashland, Ore.) — Bernadette Boscoe, an assistant professor in the Computer Science Department at Southern Oregon University, has been awarded a second grant to fund her study of tacit knowledge in research settings – gathering, storing and retrieving the unspoken practices of academic teams that sometimes are lost when a project is disrupted or ends.

The latest grant, from the National Science Foundation, totals about $164,000 over two years, beginning July 1.

Boscoe received a $250,000 grant last fall from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation to help fund her creation of a Large Language Model (LLM) of artificial intelligence to archive the protocols of scientific groups researching environmental science at SOU, astronomy at UCLA and violin acoustics at Cornell University. The tacit knowledge archive, if successfully developed, would benefit researchers in those and other academic disciplines by preventing the loss of unstated practices in research labs when participants leave the projects.

Research funded by the NSF grant is closely related to that funded by the Sloan grant, but is focused more on what Boscoe calls “the technical tool-building side” and looks exclusively at astronomy research.

“The Sloan grant is more (about) using three research group spokes and doing an investigation of the tacit knowledge capture,” Boscoe said. “The NSF grant doesn’t look at that – it is more about how we can improve astronomy workflows and tools.”

Boscoe is using Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG), an AI framework that pairs an LLM with an information retrieval system to improve accuracy and relevance of resulting data. She is working with SOU computer science graduate Chandler Campbell to build the project’s RAG-LLM tool, called AquiLLM – named after the constellation Aquila.

“Research groups often face challenges managing and accessing work such as paper drafts, research experiments, plots, and meeting notes, especially as these resources grow over time and researchers transition in and out of projects,” an NSF abstract on the project said.

“This project benefits research groups by offering a way to use natural language to ask questions about their data, yielding links to relevant documents.”

Boscoe is a computer and information scientist who builds and researches infrastructures and tools to help domain scientists do their work. She earned a bachelor of fine arts degree in painting from the Pratt Institute in New York, an associate degree in computer science from Northampton Community College in Pennsylvania, a master’s degree in mathematics from California State University-Northridge and a Ph.D. in information science from UCLA.

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SOU computer scientist Bernadette Boscoe receives Sloan grant

SOU computer scientist receives Sloan grant for “tacit knowledge” research

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(Ashland, Ore.) — Bernadette Boscoe, an assistant professor in the Computer Science Department at Southern Oregon University, recognizes a shared need in fields as dissimilar as astronomy, environmental science and violin acoustics, and a new grant will pay for research that may benefit those and other academic disciplines.

Boscoe has received a $250,000 grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation that will fund her study of tacit knowledge in research settings – gathering, storing and retrieving the unspoken practices of academic teams that sometimes are lost when a project is disrupted or ends. She will use a Large Language Model (LLM) of artificial intelligence to archive the protocols of scientific groups researching environmental science at SOU, astronomy at UCLA and violin acoustics at Cornell University.

“When students, postdocs, researchers or even professors leave a project or lab, much of the tacit, hands-on training practices are lost, because they are not documented,” Boscoe said. “With the rapid advances of LLMs in AI, we now have more computational capabilities to keep track of tacit knowledge, as well as query it in a natural language form.”

She said that mentorships are the main training method to transfer knowledge within most academic research groups – professors and researchers onboard new members to their groups, and train them to do research.

“AI can be used to have researchers rethink how they onboard newcomers, and consider how important tacit knowledge is in continuing collaborations and research over time,” Boscoe said.

She is using Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG), an AI framework that pairs an LLM with an information retrieval system to improve accuracy and relevance of resulting data. She is working with SOU computer science graduate Chandler Campbell to build the project’s RAG-LLM tool, called AquiLLM – named after the constellation Aquila.

Boscoe is a computer and information scientist who builds and researches infrastructures and tools to help domain scientists do their work. She earned a bachelor of fine arts degree in painting from the Pratt Institute in New York, an associate degree in computer science from Northampton Community College in Pennsylvania, a master’s degree in mathematics from California State University-Northridge, and a Ph.D. in information science from UCLA.

The research that will be funded over the next year by the Sloan Foundation grant is an extension of her previous work, with the addition of artificial intelligence frameworks.

The grant will fund the development of AquiLLM tools to be used at SOU, UCLA and Cornell, so that each research team can store and query its own tacit knowledge over time. It will also provide funding to students who are participating in the research projects at the three universities.

This material is based upon work supported by Alfred P. Sloan Foundation under Grant No.(APSF grant number G-2024-22720).

The Sloan Foundation is a not-for-profit, mission-driven, grant-making institution dedicated to improving the welfare of all through the advancement of scientific knowledge. It was established in 1934 by Alfred Pritchard Sloan Jr., then-president and chief executive officer of the General Motors Corporation. It provides grants in four broad areas: direct support of research in science, technology, engineering, mathematics and economics; initiatives to increase the quality, equity, diversity and inclusiveness of scientific institutions and the science workforce; projects to develop or leverage technology to empower research; and efforts to enhance and deepen public engagement with science and scientists.

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NSF grant for computational thinking research

SOU team gets NSF grant to work on “computational thinking” curriculum

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(Ashland, Ore.) — Southern Oregon University has been awarded a three-year grant totaling nearly $1 million from the National Science Foundation to help K-5 teachers develop  “computational thinking” skills in the Ashland and Phoenix-Talent school districts. The work will build upon a $299,000 grant SOU was awarded in September 2019 to launch the collaborative research project – which was a success despite the abrupt shift to an online format during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Both grants are part of the NSF’s Computer Science for All program, which is intended to extend computer science and computational thinking (CT) opportunities to all K-12 students in the U.S. Computational thinking refers to a set of thought processes traditionally used in computer science to identify and define problems and their solutions. The CT curriculum developed by local teachers, in partnership with SOU researchers, will address barriers associated with implementing computing curriculum in early grades because it will be incorporated into core subjects and introduced in an “unplugged” manner – without computers or technology.

Maggie Vanderberg, an associate professor of computer science at SOU and the leader of the research team for the NSF project, said the grant is dream come true.

“We need to find equitable ways to broaden participation in computer science to increase diversity in the traditionally white male-dominated field,” she said. “And this idea of integrating computational thinking into core subjects will ensure all students have the opportunity to build CT skills during their regular school day – which will also serve them in many other aspects of their lives.

“By building off of what we learned in the previous project, and creating new partnerships across Oregon, we have the ability to make a significant impact across the state.”

The project will include 20 local elementary teachers from the Phoenix-Talent School District’s Orchard Hill, Phoenix and Talent elementary schools, and the Ashland School District’s Bellview, John Muir, Helman, Walker and Willow Wind elementary schools. As co-researchers, the teachers will construct a computational thinking curriculum by embedding the thought processes into existing lessons and then test and refine the effectiveness of those lessons. The goal is to empower all students with the skills necessary for success in middle and high school computing curriculum, and eventually in technologically-rich careers .

“We are excited to continue our partnerships with the Ashland and Phoenix-Talent School Districts,“ said project team researcher Eva Skuratowicz, director of the Southern Oregon University Research Center (SOURCE). “This is a unique opportunity for K-5 and higher education in the Rogue Valley to work together and create a curriculum that can be used nationwide.

Ashland Superintendent Samuel Bogdanove explained the benefits for his district.

“The NSF grant has provided a great opportunity for teachers to delve into strategies that support early computational thinking skills development,” he said. “The project supports the work of the regular classroom teacher in an accessible way by offering tools and strategies that fold easily into classroom learning.

“I look forward to the expansion of the work provided by the grant, and the passion it will spark in the minds of students.”

Phoenix-Talent Superintendent Brent Barry shares in the excitement of continuing work on the project. “Our teachers benefit from top-notch professional development and training, which in turn will benefit all of our students as they continue their education,” he said. “This grant provides the opportunity to expand what we have learned to more teachers and students. Phoenix-Talent is grateful for the partnership with SOU and Ashland School District.”

The program will grow over the next three years to include collaborations with researchers at the College of William & Mary in Virginia and Oregon State University’s Cascades Campus in Bend, and teachers in Lincoln County School District and Redmond School District, The ultimate goal is to develop the beginning of a K-12 computing curriculum pipeline in the state of Oregon. The three-year NSF grant totals $999,806 and will fund the team’s work beginning in October and running through September of 2025.

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Hackathon participants coded games in eight hours

SOU coders create Mt. Shasta-themed games in Hackathon event

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Shasta Networks, an Ashland-based leader in healthcare technology, teamed up this month with the SOU Computer Science Club and the Alan and Priscilla Oppenheimer Foundation to host SOU’s 2nd annual Hackathon.

Students came together via Zoom for the April 4 event in which they created small coding projects in only eight hours using either Java or Python.

The Hackathon was judged by Shasta Networks software engineers on originality and creativity, technical difficulty, completeness and clean structure of the code, elegance of the code, and functionality of the developed software.

“We used GitHub, which allows people to publish their code in a shared repository,” said Priscilla Oppenheimer, an assistant professor in SOU’s Computer Science Program. “That way, the judges could see the contestants’ code, once they pushed the final version to GitHub.”

After a difficult deliberation, the judges announced this year’s winners.

In first place, and the recipient of $300, was Richard Coleman and his game, “Shasta Battle.” Players of the game must throw snowballs at the top of Mt. Shasta to keep it snowy and intact, and prevent the volcanic mountain from erupting.

“Complex game that used PyGame library. Good graphics,” said judges, “Professionally done, especially considering the eight-hour time limit for working on it.”

Denis Roman finished in second place for his interactive skiing game. Going above and beyond in a short time, the game includes sprites, collisions, a collision sound, and increasing difficulty as time passes.

“Nice graphics and good sound effects,” judges wrote. “(We) were especially impressed by the well-structured and clean code.”

Taking third place was Samuel James, for his text-based adventure game with great ASCII art. The game – which dives into Mt. Shasta and myths about creatures said to live in the mountain – left the judges impressed.

“Good story, good coding, good art,” they said.

Hackathon participants were able to overcome the obstacle of social distancing and form a collaborative environment during a time when community is difficult to achieve.

“I think we were able to emulate a ‘real’ hackathon,” Priscilla Oppenheimer said. “We weren’t really hampered by the need for physical distancing.

“Technology is really saving the day with the coronavirus,” she said. “Meetings, exercise classes, hackathons, book clubs and even scientific collaboration can all be done with Internet-based tools. Whether it’s Zoom, Google docs, GitHub or other tools that allow for collaboration, technology is helping us maintain our ties with colleagues, friends and family.”

Story by Kennedy Cartwright, SOU Marketing and Communications assistant and student writer