Applied Groups

The Computer Science Department organizes a number of applied CS groups. The primary aim of their projects is to give students an opportunity to apply and extend knowledge gained in the classroom to "real world" software and hardware projects. Students are encouraged, but not required, to participate in one or more of these groups as part of their educational experience while at Earlham.

• Content Administrators

  
  • This group is primarily responsible for developing and maintaining the CS Department's web presence, including course materials.
  • Detailed description
  • Content's site
  • Current students: Will Tomlinson, Chase La France, Sam Leeman-Monk
  • Current faculty: Jim Rogers

• Hardware Interfacing Project (HIP)

  
  • HIP develops hardware interfacing software for open source platforms.
  • Hip's site
  • Current students: Alex Lemann, Bryan Purcell, Jeff Klyce, Nhlanhla Maduna, Colin Copeland
  • Current faculty: Charlie Peck

• Pedagogical Tools

  
  • This group is responsible for development tools and support libraries in an environment with Mac and MSWindows workstations and open source Un*x servers.
  • Detailed description
  • Pedagogical's site
  • Current students: Nhlanhla Maduna, Nathan Meyers
  • Current faculty: Jim Rogers

• System and Network Administrators

  
  • The admins support the servers and workstations used by CS, Mathematics, and Physics in Dennis Hall. They support three flavors of open source Un*x running on over 50 machines.
  • Detailed description
  • Admin's site
  • Current students: Shawn Smith, Andrew Fitz Gibbon
  • Current faculty: Charlie Peck

• Database Administration Group, in conjunction with Earlham Computing Services

  
  • WebDB, Earlham's web based registration and advising tool, is the primary project of this group.
  • Detailed description
  • DBA's site
  • WebDB itself
  • Current students: Dylan Leeman, Nate Smith
  • Current faculty: Denise Crum, Kevin Hunter

During the academic year students are paid through work study. We hope that students will work between 8 and 10 hours each week, including at least one weekly planning meeting with their particular group. Many of the groups have projects which are more appropriate to work on during winter and summer breaks. We encourage students to spend one or more breaks working on campus. The wages are the same during breaks but we also provide housing on campus.

In all positions we're hoping, but not necessarily expecting, that students will be involved in the groups over an extended period (usually several semesters). This potentially includes people migrating from one group to another.

Research Groups

The research groups, while not benefiting the college as immediately as the applied groups, do have a larger impact on the CS community as a whole. Theory and Cluster perform undergraduate research, attend conferences, write papers, and seek to discover. Positions are unpaid during the school year; a student who stays over a break to work in a research group is paid at the work study rate. The benefits that can be obtained by working in a research group are: experience, credit, knowledge, and awesomeness.

• Cluster Computing Group

  
  • The cluster group works on tools and techniques for effectively using Beowulf style clusters for interdisciplinary computational science research. Within this framework they focus on various aspects of molecular dynamics software, a principle component of computationally based research into protein folding and structure determination.
  • Cluster's site
  • Current students:
  • Current faculty: Charlie Peck

• Theory Group

  
  • The theory group's broad focus is on problems in the area of formal language theory, particularly computational approaches to studying natural languages.
  • Theory's site
  • Current students: Recruiting
  • Current faculty: Jim Rogers

Much of our work in both applied and research groups involves others' information and equipment. This leads us to have high standards for the integrity, trustworthiness, and reliability of the students we work with. While the format of a simple code has shortcomings, a reasonable description of what we aspire to can be found in The System Administrators Guild (SAGE) Code of Ethics.

In early December of each year we solicit applications from students for each of these groups. A copy of the most recent application can be found here. The actual application can be obtained from Jim or Charlie. If you will be off campus during the application period, please get in touch with one of them to make arrangements to submit your application ahead of time.