A Shared, Interinstitutional Undergraduate Minor Program in Computational Science

Nine Ohio higher education institutions combined expertise to implement an interinstitutional, competency-based undergraduate minor curriculum in computational science. The program, which began in Autumn 2007, is part of an National Science Foundation Cyberinfrastructure Team Award and the new, statewide virtual Ralph Regula School of Computational Science. Key program elements include the definition of the program's interdisciplinary competency requirements, sharable instructional modules, and interinstitutional agreements for cross registration. Many courses are offered remotely, so students can access computational science instruction likely unavailable at their home institutions. The program is a model for interdisciplinary, interinstitutional activities that provide the expertise required to advance the application of computational methods to new discoveries in science and engineering.