Symposium BI01—Developing an Open Source Introductory Textbook for the Materials Community

A challenge in teaching materials science is the rapid pace at which the field is changing and the different audiences that want educated. Two decades ago Binghamton planned an MS in MS&E that could be taken on-line with all the material on-line and could be taken at the student’s pace. Today, there are continuous demands for a materials primer for advanced materials in the energy field, or for biomaterials. To satisfy those audiences an open-source textbook that could be readily modified and where modules could be plucked out to suit the audience level is needed. At Binghamton, we have begun such an effort in the areas of materials for energy storage and for electronics packaging. However, to achieve success a coordinated effort across several universities is necessary.

The ability for computational models and informatics techniques to rapidly provide scientific insights has led to their adoption across all areas of materials research, and there now exists tremendous opportunity to integrate these tools into materials science curricula [1]. However, even as advances in computing have made such tools accessible for teaching and learning, barriers to integration still exist partly due to the incoherent interface between research software (e.g., C++, Python, Julia) and curriculum design platforms (e.g., HTML, JavaScript, Microsoft Office). We show how the Jupyter Book platform [2] can be used to bridge this divide and create a digital textbook that synthesizes multiple sources of content, including rich computational narratives in Jupyter notebooks [3] that are widely used in the materials research community. The software is open source and the final textbook is accessible for not only readers, who engage with it dynamically in an internet browser or statically as a PDF, but also authors, who compile it directly from familiar file formats like Markdown and Jupyter notebooks.

We share our experience using Jupyter Book to design an open-source, introductory materials informatics curriculum [4] for a remote summer research internship at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory for UC Berkeley undergraduates in engineering. To accommodate their relative inexperience with programming and materials science, we support the Python programming exercises with prose, graphics, slides, polls, and discussion questions, all of which are seamlessly embedded into a common web interface as a digital textbook. In this way, the textbook is a one-stop-shop where the course information can be easily organized, accessed, and perused, which facilitates remote learning, user experience, and expansion to larger audiences. Most prominently, Jupyter Books have interactive programming capabilities, which we enable through the JupyterHub cloud infrastructure [5], that provide active learning opportunities in these digital spaces for students to interrogate the code, test their own hypotheses, and deepen their comprehension of the material. Through a combination of group-based exercises and self-directed research projects on data-driven design of photoactive materials, students are engaged in authentic learning experiences that demonstrate the broad utility of the Jupyter ecosystem in sustaining the growth of materials science education into new frontiers.

[1] Raúl A. Enrique, Mark Asta, and Katsuyo Thornton. “Computational materials science and engineering education: An updated survey of trends and needs,” JOM, 70, 9, 2018, pp. 1644-1651.
[2] Executable Books Community. Jupyter Book, v0.10, 2020. Zenodo. DOI:10.5281/zenodo.4539666
[3] Thomas Kluyver et al. “Jupyter Notebooks - a publishing format for reproducible computational workflows,” in Positioning and power in academic publishing: Players, agents and agendas (IOS Press, Netherlands), 2016, pp. 87-90.
[4] Enze Chen and Mark Asta. Introduction to Materials Informatics. 2021. Retrieved from https://enze-chen.github.io/mi-book
[5] Division of Computing, Data Science, and Society. DataHub. 2020. Retrieved from https://datahub.berkeley.edu/

An open-source digital textbook presents an opportunity to envision dynamic, model-based representations of materials knowledge unbounded by many of the limitations of traditional print media. With an emphasis on reactive computational notebooks that run in-browser, we discuss the ideation and development of supplementary modules, exercises, and other learning activities for students entering the field of materials science and engineering in the 21^st century. Authors of these notebooks—which blend code, prose, and other digital media—can demonstrate foundational concepts with parameterized explanations that allow readers to actively delve into models through embedded interactive elements. By facilitating exploration of domain models through a combination of enactive, iconic, and symbolic representations (Bruner, 1966), these interactive environments promote the formation of robust mental models around a given topic. While platforms such as Observable illustrate the state-of-the-art, they embody a decades-long trend toward literate programming, computational essays, “exploranations,” and other forms of dynamic expression with computational media. In addition to the pedagogical advantages of this approach with respect to reproducibility and modularity, we examine some of the practical considerations around managing scope, editorial quality, and maintenance of these notebooks.

The ability for computational models and informatics techniques to rapidly provide scientific insights has led to their adoption across all areas of materials research, and there now exists tremendous opportunity to integrate these tools into materials science curricula [1]. However, even as advances in computing have made such tools accessible for teaching and learning, barriers to integration still exist partly due to the incoherent interface between research software (e.g., C++, Python, Julia) and curriculum design platforms (e.g., HTML, JavaScript, Microsoft Office). We show how the Jupyter Book platform [2] can be used to bridge this divide and create a digital textbook that synthesizes multiple sources of content, including rich computational narratives in Jupyter notebooks [3] that are widely used in the materials research community. The software is open source and the final textbook is accessible for not only readers, who engage with it dynamically in an internet browser or statically as a PDF, but also authors, who compile it directly from familiar file formats like Markdown and Jupyter notebooks.

We share our experience using Jupyter Book to design an open-source, introductory materials informatics curriculum [4] for a remote summer research internship at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory for UC Berkeley undergraduates in engineering. To accommodate their relative inexperience with programming and materials science, we support the Python programming exercises with prose, graphics, slides, polls, and discussion questions, all of which are seamlessly embedded into a common web interface as a digital textbook. In this way, the textbook is a one-stop-shop where the course information can be easily organized, accessed, and perused, which facilitates remote learning, user experience, and expansion to larger audiences. Most prominently, Jupyter Books have interactive programming capabilities, which we enable through the JupyterHub cloud infrastructure [5], that provide active learning opportunities in these digital spaces for students to interrogate the code, test their own hypotheses, and deepen their comprehension of the material. Through a combination of group-based exercises and self-directed research projects on data-driven design of photoactive materials, students are engaged in authentic learning experiences that demonstrate the broad utility of the Jupyter ecosystem in sustaining the growth of materials science education into new frontiers.

[1] Raúl A. Enrique, Mark Asta, and Katsuyo Thornton. “Computational materials science and engineering education: An updated survey of trends and needs,” JOM, 70, 9, 2018, pp. 1644-1651.
[2] Executable Books Community. Jupyter Book, v0.10, 2020. Zenodo. DOI:10.5281/zenodo.4539666
[3] Thomas Kluyver et al. “Jupyter Notebooks - a publishing format for reproducible computational workflows,” in Positioning and power in academic publishing: Players, agents and agendas (IOS Press, Netherlands), 2016, pp. 87-90.
[4] Enze Chen and Mark Asta. Introduction to Materials Informatics. 2021. Retrieved from https://enze-chen.github.io/mi-book
[5] Division of Computing, Data Science, and Society. DataHub. 2020. Retrieved from https://datahub.berkeley.edu/

An open-source digital textbook presents an opportunity to envision dynamic, model-based representations of materials knowledge unbounded by many of the limitations of traditional print media. With an emphasis on reactive computational notebooks that run in-browser, we discuss the ideation and development of supplementary modules, exercises, and other learning activities for students entering the field of materials science and engineering in the 21^st century. Authors of these notebooks—which blend code, prose, and other digital media—can demonstrate foundational concepts with parameterized explanations that allow readers to actively delve into models through embedded interactive elements. By facilitating exploration of domain models through a combination of enactive, iconic, and symbolic representations (Bruner, 1966), these interactive environments promote the formation of robust mental models around a given topic. While platforms such as Observable illustrate the state-of-the-art, they embody a decades-long trend toward literate programming, computational essays, “exploranations,” and other forms of dynamic expression with computational media. In addition to the pedagogical advantages of this approach with respect to reproducibility and modularity, we examine some of the practical considerations around managing scope, editorial quality, and maintenance of these notebooks.

The purpose of this session is to discuss the administrative and academic details needed to coordinate writing a chapter addressing functional materials, which may include the electronic, magnetic, optic, thermal, and elastic properties and their cross-interactions. Our goal is to organize a working group that can engage in the writing and editing of content and create a rough outline for the chapter that will guide the development of content.

Recent developments in just-in-time compilers for dynamic languages have significantly improved the performance of web-based physics engines. Combined with the prevalence of interactive visualizations and the level of maturity of Document Object Model (DOM) manipulation libraries¹, this provides a unique opportunity to leverage such client-side physics engines for education. Force-directed graph layouts describe a broad class of algorithms which attempt to visualize the relationships between nodes in undirected graphs and hierarchical trees, via means of a physical simulation^2,3. Such graph layouts have recently enjoyed increased popularity in the domain of information visualization, given the rise of interactive visualizations and advancements in just-in-time compilers for Javascript⁴.

In this talk, we explore the use of physical simulations interactively on the client-side in the context of undergraduate education. We present an extension module to a popular open-source force-directed graph layout library which uses energy-conserving velocity Verlet integration to teach materials science concepts based on the Lennard Jones interatomic potential⁵. We find the ability to seamlessly integrate our numerical integrator with interaction techniques familiar to users, such as clicking, dragging, and brushing to improve the pedagogy of the simulations. The interactive exposition is deployed using a reactive notebook environment, which effectively intertwines textual explanations with multiple interactive visualizations⁶.

¹ M. Bostock, V. Ogievetsky, and J. Heer, IEEE (Proc. InfoVis) 2011
² W.T. Tutte Proc London Math Soc. s3-13(1) 1963
³ P. Eades Congressus Numerantium 42:149-160 1984
⁴ B. Hackett and S. Guo Sigplan Not. 47(6):239-250 2012
⁵ https://www.npmjs.com/package/d3-force-md
⁶ https://observablehq.com/@gvarnavi/teaching-materials-science-concepts-using-the-d3-force

The simulation-based adaptable Virtual X-ray Laboratories (v-XRLab) are designed to enable learners to perform a wide variety of authentic laboratory tasks online using a set of accurate digital replicas of X-Ray equipment. The main goals are to: (1) interest students in materials science and engineering studies, (b) help students acquire practical materials science knowledge, and (c) empower students to develop analytic skills.

The v-XRLab incorporates self-guided online activities, called Virtual Experiments (VE), that are focused on specific learning objectives. Students perform VEs following detailed on-screen or audio instruction. In addition to a main and auxiliary simulations, every VE comprises experiment objectives and description, an interactive tutorial, worksheet (optional), prerecorded tips, assessment.
A partial list of existing virtual experiments includes:
- Introduction to X-Ray Powder Diffraction (Braggs’ Law)
- Exploring X-Ray Powder Diffractometer and its Major Systems
- XRPD Data Collection, Measuring and Processing
- Accuracy of X-Ray Powder Diffraction (XRPD) Method
- Indexing of a XRPD Pattern
- Introduction to Cubic Crystal Lattice Structures
- XRPD Study of Perovskite Structure
- XRPD Study of Tetragonal–Cubic Transition in Lead Titanate
- Estimating Crystallite Size and Lattice Strain based on XRPD Data
- Identification of Silica Polymorphs
- Qualitative Phase Analysis of Human Kidney Stones
- Recording and Analyzing Wavelength Dispersive X-ray Fluorescence (WDXRF) Spectrum.

The complimentary authoring tool enables an instructor to create new VEs or to adjust and adapt existing ones.
The unique feature of the described system is an opportunity for users to add new samples that can be either measured XRPD patterns or theoretical ones, calculated from known structural data. Numerous file formats such as CCDC CIF, XY and many others are supported.

One or more virtual experiments combined with associated local and/or distributed learning resources form a self-contained educational module (EdMod). Each VE is linked to and synchronized with the relevant multimedia resources such as YouTube videos, prerecorded lessons, e-textbooks, manuals, quizzes, references, etc. While performing a VE, students are encouraged to learn the underlying fundamental theories or practical rules in the context of their applications. This connection facilitates efficient contextual just-in-time learning as opposed to traditional just-in-case learning. Thus, an EdMod helps instructors to organize developing skills and learning theory into a cohesive process. At the same time, more traditional learning and instructional strategies are supported as well. EdMods can be easily incorporated, individually or as a set, into various online courses.

The v-XRLabs are being used by many universities and colleges around the world. They have been incorporated into courses (including those available on MOOC platforms) on chemistry, materials science, forensics, mineralogy, metallurgy, and materials characterization techniques, among others. The labs have been used as follows: (i) for lab practice by the students who have no access to real equipment; (ii) for preparing students and tech personnel to effective and meaningful hands-on practice in actual X-ray labs; (iii) for hybrid experimentation in combination with equipment; (iv) for performance-based assessment of students’ understanding, and their ability to apply acquired knowledge and skills for performing experiments, and solving practical tasks; and (v) for lecture demonstrations.

Virtual experimentation prior to a hands-on practice have prepared learners for more efficient performance of hands-on tasks with greater understanding and fewer mistakes.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the virtual labs helped instructors minimize drawbacks of lost access to actual physical laboratories.

The v-XRLabs can be accessed at https://atelearning.com/XRLab/

Chemistry has long rested on its laurels as “the central science”: the fulcrum about which all scientific endeavours pivot. Yet this view is based on the (arguably outdated) delineation of long-established traditional scientific disciplines and their associated epistemological hierarchy. This is limiting, for it doesn’t take into account the technological dimension of scientific research (not to mention the final element of the Aristotelian triumvirate: phronesis). Were we to do so, I contend that Materials Science and Engineering (MSE) would be a more viable candidate for “the central science”. This is not only important for raising the profile of the subject, but also for shaping what should be included in an undergraduate introductory text.

MSE, as a formalised subject with dedicated university departments, is a young discipline. It emerged out of the chaos of the Second World War to become the primary innovation and technology driver, with the recognition that the material realisation of advanced scientific, technological and, indeed, societal visions could not be achieved without dedicated research on understanding materials themselves. This understanding fundamentally boils down to the relationship between processing, structure and properties. As such, the subject inherently demands an intimate relationship with a vast array of characterisation techniques. It covers a huge range of length scales and spans all technology readiness levels. It is this explicit link between fundamental scientific understanding (episteme) and technological implementation (techne)—and the complete embedding of the subject in the tangible, physical, material world—that sets MSE apart from all other physical sciences.

This research endeavour unified scientists and engineers from across disciplines—physics; chemistry; mineralogy; chemical, mechanical and electrical engineering—giving rise to a highly interdisciplinary field that continues to this day to sprawl across boundaries. Indeed, it now defines itself adjacent to a plethora of even more diverse disciplines—computer science, medicine, the life sciences, sustainability, conservation, archaeology, and more—and its methodologies are propelling the establishment of a crucial new discipline in its own right: nanoscience and nanotechnology.

None of the above is news to an audience of materials science researchers and academic staff. But it would be remiss to assume that undergraduates had such a holistic overview and appreciation of the centrality of MSE in the networks of modern scientific research and contemporary human existence. This is especially true when considering audiences such as first-generation students and those majoring in other disciplines but who might require knowledge of some aspect of MSE. I anticipate that such knowledge would help all students to understand better their chosen subject and succeed in their MSE education. As such, I would like to take this opportunity to provoke discussion around how an open-access introductory undergraduate textbook can best incorporate such insights. I will offer some initial thoughts on how this might be achieved through, for example, the structure and content of the text, as well as embedding examples and problems.

A challenge in teaching materials science is the rapid pace at which the field is changing and the different audiences that want educated. Two decades ago Binghamton planned an MS in MS&E that could be taken on-line with all the material on-line and could be taken at the student’s pace. Today, there are continuous demands for a materials primer for advanced materials in the energy field, or for biomaterials. To satisfy those audiences an open-source textbook that could be readily modified and where modules could be plucked out to suit the audience level is needed. At Binghamton, we have begun such an effort in the areas of materials for energy storage and for electronics packaging. However, to achieve success a coordinated effort across several universities is necessary.

Vision Panel Discussion

Not available.

A key element of materials is their electronic properties. However, this topic is rarely covered in detail in conventional introductory materials textbooks and there is a general lack of good coverage even in more advanced books. The topic as covered in Materials departments but without good textbook support includes the following: fundamental concepts in electronic structure, conduction (electricity, light, heat, ions, superconductivity, etc), magnetism and magnetic properties, dielectric properties, and semiconductors. These should be accompanied by applications of each of these concepts. A particular advantage of an open source textbook is that additional background can be added as needed. This is particularly important to the topic of electronic properties as it relies significantly on physics and chemistry concepts.

Critical issues of supply chain, sustainability and jobs are all directly tied to the United States’ ability to manufacture what it needs and uses. Its widely recognized that even if through economic means like tariffs and taxes US-based manufacturing were completely competitive with overseas manufacturing, the US does not have the talent needed to rapidly ramp up manufacturing. The inability to execute an effective manufacturing policy have led to a shortage of essential workers in welding, machining, equipment maintenance and installation, leading to bottlenecks in new technology deployment and innovation in the US. Multiple studies and technical society initiatives have focused on this problem, but with only modest success.

There are bright spots that we will focus on. The ASM Materials Education Foundation has successfully provided professional development to K-12 teachers at scale, leading to many new materials courses in high schools, and the broader problem is well understood. I will issue a call to action to bring together the stakeholders, largely through the technical societies to coordinate on one roadmap and use collective action to plow through the roadblocks.

As we begin to make strides towards building more inclusive, diverse and equitable academic spaces, it is of vital importance to concomitantly increase the diversity of voices in academia. Firstly, we need to realize that non-diverse voices have dominated the literary world, and begin to ask ourselves the hard questions. How do we diversify our literature and research? And how might diversifying the community impact the future generation and society as a whole?
Increasing the diversity of academic voices, be it as invited authors to textbooks or invited speakers at conferences or recognizing their impactful research contribution, creates powerful reverberations to the future generation of underrepresented minority students and to the growing understanding of other people’s culture and experiences, while mitigating biases or blind spots in research and teaching.
Increasing diversity in higher education and academic spaces serves to enrich the educational experience of everyone. It is well established that learning from those whose experience, beliefs and perspectives differ from our own provides a rich diverse intellectual and social environment [1, 2]. From a student’s perspective, learning from textbooks written by diverse authors can provide a source of inspiration, and may provide a better sense of belonging in the STEM fields [3,4].
As we begin making headway to a pluralistic society and inclusive academic spaces, a greater effort must be placed to seek and recruit high caliber researchers of diverse backgrounds. This means updating the current method for how we recruit those authors, personal invitations to our colleagues that are in our social circle may not align with the overall mission - increasing and amplifying diverse voices.
We propose that the materials society be conscious of the need for diverse voices when recruiting authors for its open source textbook. Instead of only reaching out to colleagues, or only broadcasting a general open call for authors, there is a need to actively recruit talented authors from diverse backgrounds. This might entail strategically looking for talent in minority professional organizations, reaching out to recipients of prestigious fellowships, following the research of underrepresented minorities in top institutions, and making an open call for researchers from underrepresented backgrounds to apply to author open source textbooks.
If we ever want to increase the diversity in our institutions and improve retention in STEM and academia, begin amplifying and hiring high caliber researchers and instructors. The future generation of diverse leaders need to see, need to hear, and need to learn from their predecessors - who have overcome insurmountable barriers to be where they are.

[1] van Vught, F., 2008. Mission Diversity and Reputation in Higher Education. Higher Education Policy, 21(2), pp.151-174.
[2] Kamerlin, S., 2020. When we increase diversity in academia, we all win. EMBO reports, 21(12).
[3] Reason, R., 2009. Student Variables that Predict Retention: Recent Research and New Developments. Journal of Student Affairs Research and Practice, 46(3).
[4] Estrada, M., Burnett, M., Campbell, A., Campbell, P., Denetclaw, W., Gutiérrez, C., Hurtado, S., John, G., Matsui, J., McGee, R., Okpodu, C., Robinson, T., Summers, M., Werner-Washburne, M. and Zavala, M., 2016. Improving Underrepresented Minority Student Persistence in STEM. CBE—Life Sciences Education, 15(3), p.es5.

Africa is the world’s second largest and second most populous continent in the world. Generally, it has a rich concentration of a wide range of natural resources such as oil, copper, diamonds, bauxite, lithium, gold, graphite, iron ore, coal, hardwood forests, tropical fruits among others. It is estimated that 30% of the earth's mineral resources are found in Africa. However, there is underutilization of the resources partly because materials science has not been embraced effectively across the continent. This is evidenced by the fact that there some countries that do not have materials science programmes at any of their Universities.

The presentation will give an overview of the status of materials science in Africa, the efforts of the African Materials Research Society to close the materials science development gaps and the need for open access to materials science literature.

Not available.

A recap of the day including a chance for Q&A with the Speakers.

Not available.

An overview of what will be done in the five Working Groups:
Math and Computation—Michael Falk
Inorganic Functional Materials and Electronic Properties—Scott Beckman
Structural Materials and Mechanical Properties—Amy Clark
Organic Functional Materials—Dave Martin
Characteriazation—Marc DeGraef

Not available.

Research in materials science in the modern age involves far more data and software code than ever before. This makes it ever more important that researchers in materials science develop a good grasp of approaches for data management for their data and version control for their software code, scripts and other artifacts. There are also circumstances where data itself may need to be version controlled which presents unique challenges, along with the challenges of expressing the interplay between data and the software code/scripts used to analyze it.

An overview of some of the existing approaches to data management will be presented, along with discussions of the use of metadata, data, and programming interfaces that can be used to expose these things to the wider world. Approaches for small, medium and large data will be discussed including how data management approaches can document the links between raw data, reduced data and analyzed/derived data. The use of licenses to encourage sharing will be discussed along with the pros and cons of different licensing schemes.

Approaches to version control will look at pragmatic approaches to version control using mainstream version control projects, command-line, graphical interfaces and some embedded integrations in code editors. The interplay of version control and data along with some practical advice on different approaches there, along with the importance of licensing, documentation, and using standard development practices. Some discussion of licensing, distribution, archiving and the generation of digital object identifiers and similar using integrations with platforms/minting of identifiers to increase the citability of data and code.

Organizations to encourage better data management are an important component of the community, along with those that encourage better coding practices in the sciences and alternative career paths to better address these areas. It is important to consider how the community can better scope proposals and projects in order to fully cover not only the capital equipment costs, but also the data management and software/coding requirements to fully support instruments/projects is an important emerging area.

Not available.

A group discussion with the speakers of the session.

I had no plan to be a materials science educator and researcher. It was only after seeing, experiencing, and applying the concepts that I even became interested. Too often we assume others have the natural inclinations we have to study and be motivated by the fundamentals of materials, and we under emphasize the reasons we became interested and still are. As an educator in manufacturing, mechanical, and materials engineering, I have sought to incorporate the principles of materials science within broader contexts so that there is reason for each of my students to care. Distilling concepts to ensure the weakest student understands and highlighting current research to give the strongest student opportunity for growth is a difficult but valuable approach to presenting such a diverse topic. This presentation has three suggestions for future materials education: 1) It should be relatable, 2) it should be unique, and 3) it should accommodate both the student and professor. The basis for these aspects comes from my own experience writing an introductory materials and manufacturing textbook including more than 500 figures of original artwork and photography. I will share the struggles and successes I encountered along the way, and how that may help shape open-source materials education initiatives.

The development of innumerable number of technologies of the twenty first century is based on the knowledge generated through the subject of Materials Science and Engineering, paving the way for our comfortable living. The materials are classified into the following categories. a) Metals b) Ceramics c) Polymers and d) Composites. A number of books (1-4) have been written on these materials for teaching undergraduate and graduate level courses. Our understanding of their behavior has been increasing over the years by constant research activities; this has resulted in the discovery and development of nanomaterials. The planned text book is an e-book with power point illustrations with vocal lectures. The book addresses a basic question on the stability of the materials; do they remain in the same virgin state over a long period of time or degrade with time. If they do not remain in virgin state, what are the causes for the change and how to overcome this problem. Our curiosity has driven us to explore interstellar planets which requires utilization of the above mentioned materials driving us to understand the behavior of materials in different atmospheric conditions. Will their behavior on our planet (earth) different from outer interstellar space due to the presence of meteorites and high energy radiation such as X-rays, g-rays and ultraviolet rays. On earth, we have besides moisture, atmospheric gases like oxygen, nitrogen and carbon dioxide and sunlight that are free from high energy radiation except for small quantities of ultra violet, visible and infra red radiations. In addition, there is hydrodynamical and mechanical effects that would be imposed on the materials. With metals, there has been well focused degradation processes (3,4) that are based on electrochemical theories providing solutions to greater stability of metals. Today, we have durable materials starting from microelectronics chips to large scale industrial processes for the betterment of humanity. Polymers fall into a different class and the degradation occurs by a) swelling and distortion b) bond rupture caused by radiation/chemical/thermal processes c) weathering d) mechanical oxidation and e) biodegradation. The mechanism of degradation is complex and contrasts metals and ceramics. The composites provide unique answers to many of the problems faced with metals and polymers; here composites with nanomaterials appear to offer distinctive advantages (5). Overall, the text book amalgamates the behavior of materials on earth and in outer space, in a combined fashion to bring the relative merits of the earth and outer space.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
1. W.D. Callister Jr., D.G. Rethwisch, Materials Science and Engineering: An Introduction,Wiley PLUS, 10^th Edition, 2018; ISBN-13: 978-1119721772.
2. Donald R. Askeland (Author), Wendelin J. Wright, The Science and Engineering of Materials, 7th Edition, CENGAGE learning, 2015.
3. M.G. Fontana, Corrosion Engineering, 3Ed, Mc Graw Hill India, (2005);ISBN-13
978-0070607446
4. R.W. Revie and H.H. Uhling, Corrosion and Corrosion Control, John Wiley and sons, 2008; ISBN 978-0-471-73279-2
5. Book review: K.S.V. Santhanam,"Graphene: Preparations, Properties, Applications, and Prospects Kazuyuki Takai, Seiya Tsujimura, Feiyu Kang, and Michio Inagaki Elsevier, 2019,." Rev. of Graphene, by Kazuyuki Takai, Seiya Tsujimura, Feiyu Kang, and Michio Inagaki. Materials Research Society Bulletin,15 Oct. 2020

Simulation plays a valuable role in engineering education, allowing students to explore phenomena and gain a greater comprehension of physical systems. Cloud-based simulation can also level the playing field by making powerful simulation tools available to students across a variety of institutions. nanoHUB provides free access to a wide range of simulation tools and computational resources that can be accessed online by users from around the world. Via easy-to-use nanoHUB apps, computational scientists can put powerful scientific software in the hands of instructors and students. This frictionless access lowers access barriers and accelerates innovation. Importantly, nanoHUB apps can be accessed via a standard web-browser and run in the cloud, so no downloading or installation of software for classroom use is required. With recent developments, nanoHUB apps can now be consumed as a web-service and be seamlessly incorporated into online courses and textbooks.
While many powerful, research-grade computational engines such as LAMMPS, OOF2 and Quantum Espresso are installed and available in nanoHUB, they are made accessible to a wide range of users, from beginner to advanced, through apps that are designed with interactive graphical user interfaces. Students can select input parameters and generate engaging images, atomic-level visualizations, graphs, trajectories, animations, and other types of data to explore and analyze, and thus engage more interactively in their learning. There are nanoHUB apps designed to explore a wide range of materials science topics, including, but not limited to: bonding, crystal and electronic structure, polymer structures, tensile testing, dislocations, plastic deformation, crack propagation, thermal transport, phase transformations, phase diagrams, microstructural analysis, optical properties, and magnetic properties.
nanoHUB provides instructor-friendly features such as the ability to share a simulation session with an entire class, or smaller groups within a class, and assign control of the shared simulation to any student. Caching of simulation runs allows the rapid retrieval of simulation results if a specific set of inputs has previously been run, significantly reducing the time required. Jupyter notebooks in nanoHUB come with a wide range of libraries and packages to provide a powerful platform for interactive computing. These tools have been used to deploy learning modules in data science and machine learning in the field of materials.
This presentation will demonstrate some of the interactive nanoHUB apps that have been used to teach materials science skills and concepts, illustrate nanoHUB features that are beneficial for the classroom use of simulation apps, and show how nanoHUB apps can be incorporated into an online electronic materials science textbook.

The understanding of basic concepts in crystallography and diffraction is foundational for the study of solid-state physics, chemistry, and materials science. In this talk, I will describe how open access structure visualization software, such as VESTA (https://jp-minerals.org/vesta/en/), can be used to help make learning the fundamentals of crystallography and X-ray diffraction active, engaging, and effective. The ability for 3D visualization of crystal structures, bonding, lattice planes, and simulation of powder X-ray diffraction patterns in a single software package allows students to discover and explore important concepts such as Bragg’s law, symmetry, Miller indices, systematic absences, and the relation between the location and type of atoms in the unit cell influence and relative intensity in the diffraction pattern. Learning modules using such open access software give students familiarity with tools that are also used in authentic research and could be readily integrated with an open access introductory textbook.

The Open Textbook Initiative to teach materials science is welcome and long overdue. A wealth of knowledge in the designing of new materials has been created over decades in various research centres and corporations worldwide, albeit in silos - hence the need of a community-driven open initiative to serve not only as a structured textbook but also a common repository of materials science knowledge and innovations from various sources.
Montreal-based Bioastra Technologies has taken a leading role locally, in training the next generation of materials scientists and engineers through work-study programs in the company and industry case studies in classrooms at McGill University, Ecole Polytechnique de Montreal and University of Quebec. These case studies cover real-world problems such as desalination of water, thermal management of buildings, durable surgical face masks or even robotic interfaces - many of them drawn from Bioastra's own experience but also increasingly from other companies.
These case studies - structured along the lines of similar materials found in medical or business schools - allow for both a real world introduction to materials science while drawing on the student's material science and problem-solving skills to come up with solutions.
Some case studies are purely for in-class exercises while other more elaborate case studies call for actual designing and prototpying of solutions.
These case studies deployed across three universities have proven to not only engage and excite students but allow for a synthesis and application of their materials science knowledge and an appreciation of the real world implications of chosing and designing the right materials for the application at hand.
Alongside materials science notions, these case studies also introduce important techno-economic aspects including materials cost, scale-up challenges, user acceptance, success criteria, among others.
Case studies, when structured properly, can be a very enriching and rewarding complement to the standard textbook or curriculum.
This talk will cover the structure and content of various case studies, the pedagogical philosophy behind them so as to open the door to a discussion on how they can be integrated into the open textbook initiative.