Smart Computing, Building a Secure Sustainable Society (A 50 for 50 Strategic Plan for the Department of Computer Science at Missouri S&T) Smart Computing: the Big Vision: Imagine a world where humans move seamlessly through a sustainable society in which the environment anticipates and adapts to usage, to changes, and to unexpected events. Such Smart Environments (e.g., smart homes, offices, schools, cities, energy, and transportation) are becoming a reality due to the rapid advancements in many technologies. The combination of embedded sensors and smart devices, wireless communications and networking, cyberphysical-social systems, mobile and pervasive computing, data mining and computational intelligence, automation and decision control, security and privacy, software agents and middleware services enable a smart environment 1. Such smart environment is able to autonomously acquire and apply knowledge about inhabitants and their interactions with the environment, and adapt to improve users life experience without explicit awareness. However, smart environments are multi-disciplinary in nature and present many challenges in bringing all the various technologies together in an integrated knowledge system. These challenges are not only technical, but require consideration of human behavior and social aspects. Architectural integrity at the system level will be required to prevent failure as the environment changes rapidly to meet the most fundamental needs of a sustainable society: to be healthy, secure, safe, productive, and humane. Indeed, the World Health Organization 2 projects that the number of people living in cities will almost double for the next few decades and that urban centers need to provide more sustainable solutions for smart living. A variety of inter-related systems will be required to implement our vision of Sustainable Living through Smart Computing, These systems include infrastructures that are holistically designed to be human centered and adapt to our needs habits and preferences; utility and transportation networks that adapt to dynamic usage, traffic conditions or user behavior with minimum carbon footprint; clean and locally sourced (renewable) energy grid that actuates smart lighting; pervasive monitoring and surveillance that proactively detects and prevents potential security threats; smart living that senses behavioral and health risks and provides timely intervention; and situation-aware responses to emergencies, natural or man-made disasters. All these systems contribute to our vision that is beyond the known concepts of smart homes or smart cities. Although stand-alone smart environments are being built as an engineering exercise, there is a need to advance the underlying science, which we call Smart Computing, 3 that will holistically integrate cyber-physical-social environments to help realize Smart Living, the next frontier toward a secure, sustainable society with healthy life experience. As we approach our 50 th anniversary of our Computer Science Department, our strategy is to use this vision to form our areas of technical focus deep in software and computing algorithms, and enhance the overall capabilities required to engineer such complex multi-disciplined knowledge systems, to rank among the Top 50 Ph.D. granting departments in the nation (a 50 for 50 strategy). 1 D. J. Cook and S. K. Das, Smart Environments: Technology, Protocols and Applications, John Wiley, 2005. 2 What Life Will Be Like in the Cities of the Future: Smart buildings, smarter schools, and a parking system that's actually driver-friendly By Dan Macsai @dmacsai,read more: http://ideas.time.com/2013/10/19/what-life-will-be-like-in-the-cities-of-the-future/#ixzz2iyhpawer 3 Smart Computing is also the slogan of the Computer Science Department at Missouri S&T.
The Mission To create and convey knowledge in computer science through innovative research and education, and solve technological and societal problems through computing to improve the living experience of citizens in Missouri and beyond. As we move towards 2020, the challenges become more than just technological. Computer Science contributes to the campus mission of problem solving through the unifying aspects of smart computing. The Vision To be in the top 50 Computer Science Departments in the nation, nationally and internationally recognized for transformative research and education in computer science. We will produce a highly qualified, talented and entrepreneurial workforce possessing leadership in computer systems; create a dynamic learning environment for innovative research and educational programs in computer science and software engineering, leading to smart computing technology products, services and ideas to solve the great challenges of our time.
Our Values Computer Science reflects the campus values in a computing-centric way. Above all, we strive for Impact on society through smart computing. Social and Economic Impact We provide socially relevant computing solutions to enhance the population's life experience through innovation, investment, and economic development. Lifelong Learning and Success We provide a broad educational background that helps foster interdisciplinary connections and provides a solid foundation for life-long success. Creativity and Critical Thinking We create innovative knowledge and make original contributions with documented impact and clear objectives grounded in strong problem solving skills. Integrity and Ethics We hold an awareness and understanding of the professional, societal, and ethical issues of the rapidly evolving computing industry and the judgment to apply this understanding. Sustainability We provide a contribution to the greater good, professionally and in the community, via mentoring, disseminating, writing, speaking, and professional involvement. Our computing solutions will be sustainable by their governance through society s worldview. Partnerships We are great partners. We focus on adding value and creating mutually beneficial partnerships. The solutions to today s great challenges require agile collaboration, teamwork and engagement with our stakeholders, both on campus and in the greater business, civic, alumni, government, national and international communities. Inclusion We are an inclusive, welcoming community. We seek to build a creative learning environment marked by openness, diversity, understanding and valuing all disciplines, people and perspectives.
Our Strategy We will provide by 2020 a top return on investment among Ph.D. granting Computer Science departments to our stakeholders through strategic hiring of top faculty and training outstanding students aligned with the Best-in-Class strategic areas leveraging our unique expertise in Smart Computing. Our Governance and Leadership The strategic plan will be led and administered by the Department Chair assisted by the Associate Chairs and overseen by the Executive Committee which also include coordinators of our six research focus areas. External constituencies provide input and monitoring through the Computer Science Academy and the Advisory Board.
Themes and Levers/Categories of Actions Smart Computing drives our overarching philosophy in developing themes; we seek to improve the department to contribute fundamentally to improving all aspects of society through smart living. Creative Thinking for Life Long Success Campus Lever 1.1 Campus Lever 1.2 Departmental Lever Experiential (multidisciplinary) Learning and Externships Problem Solving & Transforming Research into Entrepreneurial Activities Mentor and graduate well-rounded students with solid foundation in computer science, problem solving skills, and outstanding written and oral communication skills Action Baseline Target Start/End Date Improve writing and critical thinking skills of graduate students Develop Entrepreneurial Experiential Learning Create Start up Companies from Entrepreneurial Course Expand National Lab Internships Low Admission Standards Higher Admission Standards, > 75%-ile on standardized scores. SP 2014/SP 2015 0 Courses 1 Course/40 Students SP 2014/FS 2014 0 Per year 1 Per Year FS 2014/FS 2016 2 Internships/10 Students 3 Internships/30 Students FS 2014/FS 2015 Develop Smart Living Experiential Learning Enhance Experiential Learning in Solar House Refine Departmental Senior Projects class into a CAPSTONE to improve Maintain CO-OP Program 5 Internships/50 students 0 Courses 1 Course/30 Students FS 2016 SP 2016/FS 2018 1 student 5 Students SP 2014/FS 2016 2 Courses/ 60 Students, Teamwork and Writing Measures pass Departmental Standard 20% of students on Internship or Formal CO-OP 2 Courses/60 Students, Establish Problem Solving Skills to Pass Departmental Standard 20% of students on Internship or Formal CO-OP FS 2015/FS 2017 Ongoing
Reputation and Visibility - Improve Ranking and Perception of the Department Campus Lever 2.1 Campus Lever 2.2 Campus Lever 2.3 Campus Lever 2.5 Invest in BIC Area Leverage S&T as Missouri s Technological Research University Improve Faculty Mentoring and Research and Culture of Excellence Innovate Teaching and Research and modify conventional methods Action Baseline Target Start/End Date Invest in Smart Computing and Living through Hiring Invest in Smart Computing and Living through Staff Support Invest in Smart Computing and Living through Marketing to Donors Develop Smart Living Outreach to Community and Legislature through Smart Living Lab Develop I/UCRC in Smart Living Develop Multidisciplinary NSF ERC or STC in Smart Living Revise Performance- Based Workload Formula Improve Funding Expenditure Balance Teaching Load for Research Faculty 9 Faculty in Pervasive/Mobile/ Security/Embedded Systems/ Computational Intelligence/ Algorithms 17 Faculty in Pervasive/Mobile/ Security/ Big Data Analytics/ Embedded Systems/ Smart & Sociotechnical Systems 0 staff 1 staff in graphics design/grant writing/grant management No Activity No Activity No Activity $3M Endowment Marketing of Smart Living to Donors through Social Relevance Marketing and Engagement of Smart Living through Social Relevance 1 I/UCRC (node) 2 I/UCRCs, one lead, 6 companies total (2) SP 2014/FS 2014 (1) FS 2014/FS 2015 (2) FS 2015/FS 2016 (1) FS 2016/FS 2017 (1) FS 2017/FS 2018 (1) FS 2018/FS 2019 SP 2016/FS 2016 SP 2014/ FS 2017 FS 2015 ongoing FS 2016 - ongoing SP 2014/FS 2016 1 (non lead) Center 2 Centers FS 2014/FS 2017 Informal Workload Formula $80K/Yr Workload Formula based on Scholarly and Financial Output, PhD graduation $100K/yr $125K/yr $150K/yr $200K/yr 4 courses/year 3 courses/year avg 2 courses/year for exceptionally productive faculty SP 2014/FS 2014 SP 2014/SP 2015 SP 2015/SP 2016 SP 2016/SP 2017 SP 2017/SP 2018 SP2014/SP2014
Improve Publication Performance in High Quality Conference and Journals 2.5 journals/fte, 5 conferences/fte per year 4 journals/fte, 10 conferences/fte per year SP 2014/FS 2016 Improve PhD Recruitment and Graduation Rate 40 students in Program 80 students in Program FS 2014/FS2018 3/year graduation 6-7/year graduation Improve Undergraduate Program 5% Undergraduate Research Participation 15% Undergraduate Research Participation SP 2014/FS 2017 Improve Graduate Program Improve Undergraduate Program Offer individual year review (beyond 3 rd year review) 10% from MS to Ph.D. pipeline 80% compliance with ACM Curricula 25% Undergraduate Research Participation Increase to 25% from MS to Ph.D. pipeline 100% compliance with ACM Curricula SP 2018/FS 2020 SP 2014/FS 2019 FS 2014/SP 2016 None 1/TT, Non-tenured SP 2014/SP 2014 Explore Blended Learning 1 course 3 courses 3 courses Improve Student Problem Solving (with Lever 1.1) FS 2015 FS 2017
Themes and Levers/Categories of Actions Sustainable Growth to Ensure Best ROI Campus Lever 3.4 Campus Lever 3.5 Departmental Lever Increase Diversity of Faculty, Staff and Students Implement a Student and Alumni Lifetime Engagement Strategy Create awareness and opportunity to serve the community, society, and the world. Action Baseline Target Start/End Date Target hiring to improve diversity of faculty through dual career hiring and minority targeted recruiting 3 women 1 Hispanic 5 women 2 Black/Hispanic SP 2014/SP 2017 SP 2014/SP 2018 Improve linkages with McNair programs leading to recruitment Increase diversity of students through marketing programs at the K-12 level of societal relevance Engage Existing Social Media Structures for Student and Alumni Engagement using Student Groups Engage On-Campus Students through Outreach 1 program 3 Students 0 5 visits with admissions/yr 2 Social Media Outlets, 350 subscribers 3 Social Media outlets 1500 Subscribers 3000 Subscribers SP 2015/SP 2016 SP 2015 SP 2014/SP 2014 SP 2014/SP 2015 SP 2015/SP 2016 3 Activities/Semester 6 Activities/Semester FS 2013/SP 2015
Meaningful Facilities Campus Lever 4.2 Campus Lever 4.4 Campus Lever 4.5 Campus Lever 4.8 Campus Lever 4.9 Enhance Instructional Labs Ensure Renowned Faculty Teach/Interact with Undergraduate Students Transformative Doctoral Student recruiting Expand access to renowned faculty Promote nontraditional activities Action Baseline Target Start/End Date Enhance Instructional Labs with Mobile Systems Enhance Instructional Labs with Embedded Systems Ensure Renowned Faculty Teach/Interact with Undergraduate Students Transformative Doctoral Student recruiting through Social Appeal 0 labs 1 lab for mobile development 0 labs 1 lab for embedded systems 4 Master Teachers in Undergraduate Classes 8 Master Teachers in Undergraduate Classes (with GTA support of 8 GTAs) 0 activities Double Number of Ph.D. Students using Smart Computing and Smart Living Activities Hire Renowned faculty 1 Endowed Chair 1 additional Endowed Chair FS 2015/ FS 2016 FS 2016/ FS 2018 FS 2013/ FS 2016 SP 2014/ FS 2018 FS 2015/FS 2020 Establish Cooperation Agreement with Partner Institutions Develop 50 th Anniversary Celebration Bring major conferences to the region Develop local computing conference 1 Curator s Professor FS 2014/FS 2018 5 agreements, 10 agreements, FS 2014/FS 2019 2 visitors/year 5 visitors/year 0 1 Activity SP 2014/FS 2016 0 IEEE PERCOM SP 2015/FS 2015 0 1 FS 2015/FS 2017
Plans/Actions and Metrics The following is an overall picture of the Computer Science Department s Strategic Plan.
Best-In-Class (BIC) and Strategy Targets The Smart Living vision presents unprecedented challenges, such as scalability, adaptability, heterogeneity, usability, reliability and robustness. Indeed, the realization of smart living will require breakthrough technology innovations in a multitude of cross-disciplinary areas with a strong core group of researchers working on different aspects of smart living. Significant challenges also lie in fundamental understanding and modeling of converged cyber-physical-social systems, including human, which call for further synergistic collaboration with natural and social sciences, and active engagement of the community at large, industry, policy makers, national labs, and the government. In particular, novel solution approaches are required to deal with complex interactions between the physical domain (e.g., chemical and biological environments, mobile devices, sensors, smart grids, transportation system, healthcare, human relation networks) and also in the cyber domain to handle the huge amount of data generated from social networks, internet usage, environmental and infrastructure sensors, and other pervasive systems. To this end, Missouri S&T has strong expertise and a sustained research record in various component areas that form integral pillars of Smart Living, such as pervasive and mobile computing, wireless communications, sensor networks, social networking, cloud computing, cyber-security, network control and computational intelligence, along with design and modeling of smart environments, cyber-physical systems, smart transportation, energy, structural materials, thermally responsive materials, green materials, coatings, sensors, environmental psychology, indoor environmental health and sustainability. Additionally, we have NSF I/UCRC centers on Net-centric systems and software, and intelligent maintenance system, NSF ERC on energy, the Environmental Research Center, and an NSA center of national security excellence with emphasis on critical infrastructure protection. Growing from our existing strengths, Missouri S&T must invest in the following areas (both in terms of manpower and infrastructure for test-beds) to recognize Smart Living as an innovative Best-in-Class umbrella theme. We hypothesize that next generation sensing, computing and communications play a pivotal and centerpiece role to realize this vision. Pervasive Mobile Computing and Networked Sensors: Pervasive mobile computing and networked sensor systems blur the boundaries among computers, mobile devices, communication networks, and physical infrastructure. Smart Living blurs these boundaries even further, for instance, transportation merges with energy, which merges with building occupancy; a smart home communicating with smartphones can detect user mood and behavior to provide context-aware counselling and interventions through entertainment media. In its ideal, pervasive and networked sensors manage the Internet of Things in which people inside the system are unaware of exactly what entities are facilitating their life experience in the future cyberphysical-social converged world. The biggest challenge here is to address uncertainty related to intermittent connectivity, security, energy and reliability issues in (dynamic) heterogeneous domains. In addition, these systems cannot work effectively unless the interface between users and pervasive systems are designed and analyzed via a human-centered approach. Cyber Security: Security is, always has been, and will be a major system concern. In Smart Living, all the entities exist within the same world. As such, we need to develop vastly different security models with overlapping domains that embrace the converged cyber, physical and social worlds. The security of connectivity among devices and services is central to all these domains. In addition, understanding social implications of security and how people perceive security in their daily lives or its psycho-physiological assessment on humans need to be investigated and analyzed. Big Data Fusion and Analytics: Understanding big data challenges along with efficient and secure storage and management is very important for Smart Living. For example, to reduce energy consumption in buildings instrumented with sensors and other smart devices, sophisticated data analytic models and visualization tools need to be developed to aggregate and fuse millions of data samples per day followed by learning and intelligent decision making to efficiently and cost-effectively actuate various appliances, real-time diagnosis of system faults, scaling up and optimizing energy usage from buildings to city level, secure data access to adapt/exploit interactions across multiple smart infrastructures such as buildings, transportation and the energy grid. Software Engineering for Smart Living: In our daily lives, software is pervasively embedded in the systems and infrastructures we interact with. Design of complex, reliable middleware systems with high quality on schedule for smart living poses a significant research challenge. Innovative software models, processes, and tools for human-machine and machine-to-machine communications need to be developed. Socio-technical Sustainability: The technological solutions must be responsive to societal needs, individual health and user behavior, and must also be sustainable. In a socio-technical system, the society enables the system, not the technology, and thus is governed by the society. At the same time, smart technology helps transform the behavior of the people and the
community. Without societal worldview, a primary aspect of sustainability, namely equality, will not be met, and hence the Smart Living concept will not be realized. The environmental aspect of sustainability must be supported through careful coordination of finite resources, such as those envisioned as participants in Smart Living. Smart Living Laboratories: Missouri S&T is geographically positioned to develop Smart Living labs integrating the above concepts. A micro-level Smart Living environment could be deployed into the solar village while a micro-level vision can be demonstrated on the S&T campus. Rolla has small neighboring communities that could become showplaces for our efforts. In these laboratories, the occupants and technology become part of a smart living cloud. This unique vision will soon place S&T and Rolla on national and global maps. Inter-disciplinary Nature: The development of the Smart Living concept will not only require a close collaboration with faculty from various disciplines and centers at Missouri S&T, but will also foster exciting collaborations with other UM campuses, industry, government (including city and state officials) and the community at large. Students from almost all disciplines will have extensive opportunities for cross-disciplinary experiential learning experiences. Technological and Economic Development: The Smart Living vision will lead to technology innovations that will (1) train and educate the next generation workforce (B.S., M.S., Ph.D.), (2) translate ideas from research labs to the real world, and (3) create start-ups and jobs. Technology innovation in Smart Living impacts us the people and society and has the potential to lead to a billion dollar industry, similar to the way Google changed the world. Action Item Time Frame Hire NAE status faculty to lead the effort 2015 Hire new faculty in this cluster with expertise in Sociotechnical Systems & Sustainability, Pervasive 2015-2018 Systems, Security, Big Data Analytics, and Algorithms/Theory Establish Center on Smart Living in Solar Village and Instrument Computer Science and Butler 2015 Carlton as Smart Buildings Establish ERC on Smart Living with significant industrial liaison program with tech transfer and 2019 patents 20 PhD students per year working on the Smart Living concept and 5 postdocs per year with BS and 2019 MS involvement. 50 top tier journal, conference publications per year 2019 $200K grant expenditure per faculty involved in Smart Living research 2019 City of Rolla as an ERC testbed 2020