Sage-based course for about 120 students

[Dima Pasechnik]

Here at NTU we'll start next week a semester-long course Experimental Maths, for our 2nd year majors.

It's going to be lab-based, with 120 people (should I say "w00t" here?)  sitting at the same time for labs (in 2 large computer labs with thin clients).

We'll be running two (or even four) multiprocessor VMs running Centos Linux (on VMWare ESX servers on big Intel boxes), to cope with the load. (And of course the servers will remain running for almost 24/7).

The team consists of Rado, Keshav, your humble servant, one more maths professor, and 3 more Sage-unaffiliated TAs.

 

Apart from the course material (in various stages of readiness), which will be shared with the world, we have managed

to fix an LDAP-based authentication to the servers, so that the undergrads log in using their regular university (Active Directory, duh...) accounts. 

We'll keep you posted---AFAIK no-one did such a large-scale thing before using Sage.

Dima