Proposals

Abstract

Jupyter Notebooks are a widely used tool in both academia and industry. Paired with JupyterHub, Jupyter Notebooks allow students to ramp up quickly and collaborate effectively in data science, scientific computing, computational journalism, and machine learning tasks. The UW JupyterHub for Teaching service provides web-based interactive Jupyter Notebook environments and fulfills a demonstrated need for UW students to be able to access this popular technology. The managed approach of the UW JupyterHub for Teaching implementation reduces friction in setup and configuration of these tools. Students and instructors can focus on learning, leaving the technical implementation to the service providers. This is especially critical given that data science concepts and practices are permeating a multitude of disciplines outside of traditional computer science fields. UW JupyterHub for Teaching helps students build skills that they can use both inside and outside the classroom. It encourages inquiry and exploration by providing an environment that is pre-configured and unbreakable. Being a web-based tool, Jupyter Hub also supports equity by requiring only that students have a browser to access it. This service is currently being used across all three UW campuses with Seattle accounting for 94%, Bothell 2%, and Tacoma 4% (for 2022), with growth in adoption from 2021 being 33%, 428%, and 26%, for each campus respectively. The requested STF funds will help support ongoing development and operations for co-curricular and project-based student use of this service.

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