Developing a sustainable future for HPC and Research Software Engineering skills

Training Pathways and Structures

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ISC24 BoF Session

This session is organised in collaboration with

Introduction: Session Organisers

Weronika Filinger, EPCC, University of Edinburgh

Jeremy Cohen, Imperial College London

Anshu Dubey, Argonne National Laboratory, University of Chicago

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Radovan Bast, UiT, The Arctic University of Norway

Jeffrey Carver, The University of Alabama

Samantha Wittke, CSC - IT Center for Science, Finland

Developing a sustainable future for HPC and Research Software Engineering skills:

Training Pathways and Structures

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ISC24 BoF - Wednesday 15th May 2024

Introduction: Overview

Introduction (10-15 minutes)

• What are training pathways and why do we need them?
• Challenges
• Other efforts and activities in this area

Interactive activity (20 minutes)

• Build your pathway

Discussion and feedback (20 minutes)

Developing a sustainable future for HPC and Research Software Engineering skills:

Training Pathways and Structures

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ISC24 BoF - Wednesday 15th May 2024

Introduction: Background

• The demand (and need) for HPC skills is now greater than ever
• Developing these skills can be challenging and time-consuming
• Knowing what to learn, in what order and to what level is not obvious
• Potential HPC developers now come from a wider range of different research and technical backgrounds than ever before

Developing a sustainable future for HPC and Research Software Engineering skills:

Training Pathways and Structures

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ISC24 BoF - Wednesday 15th May 2024

What are learning pathways?

• Learning pathways define “skill routes”
• They provide guidance of:
• what to learn
• in what order
• to reach a given training goal
• They link together groups of skills in a coordinated manner
• They may not be linear!
• May involve revisiting a given topic at different skill levels

Developing a sustainable future for HPC and Research Software Engineering skills:

Training Pathways and Structures

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ISC24 BoF - Wednesday 15th May 2024

Why do we need learning pathways?

• To address the demand for HPC expertise, we need more structured training options
• They offer an important alternative to an ad hoc training approach
• Pathways provide structure to support learners and trainers
• Can also support effective development of training material
• Practitioners increasingly coming from a wider range of technical/research backgrounds
• Training routes/needs are much more complex

Developing a sustainable future for HPC and Research Software Engineering skills:

Training Pathways and Structures

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ISC24 BoF - Wednesday 15th May 2024

Challenges

• Different starting / end points => paths increasingly bespoke?
• Skill space is more complex than ever
• Multiple languages
• Multiple tools
• Heterogeneous hardware
• Links with industry training structures / pathways
• What training materials exist? Are they compatible?
• Generic or specific pathways?

Developing a sustainable future for HPC and Research Software Engineering skills:

Training Pathways and Structures

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ISC24 BoF - Wednesday 15th May 2024

Designing Your Pathway

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Interactive exercise

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This session is organised in collaboration with

Exercise structure

• Your chance to tell us about how you gained your technical skills
• or the technical skills you would like to gain
• or a more general path for gaining skills that you’d like to tell us about
• Taking the old-fashioned approach - a pen and paper exercise (more details in a minute)
• You’re welcome to work individually or in small groups
• We’ll have 20-25 minutes for undertaking this exercise

Developing a sustainable future for HPC and Research Software Engineering skills:

Training Pathways and Structures

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ISC24 BoF - Wednesday 15th May 2024

The exercise sheet and an example pathway

ISC24 BoF - Training Pathways - Wednesday 15th May 2024

Pathway exercise: What you need to do

• Starting point: Where is this pathway starting from?
• (Any of the following:) Current role, skill level, experience, etc.
• Learning objective: Where does the pathway aim to get to?
• E.g. target role, technical capabilities, etc
• The pathway: Link the skills that need to be developed, in the order that you think fits best
• Feel free to annotate
• Something missing? Feel free to add new skills / topics

Developing a sustainable future for HPC and Research Software Engineering skills:

Training Pathways and Structures

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ISC24 BoF - Wednesday 15th May 2024

Pathway exercise: Further points

• Your pathway may not be linear - loops are fine!
• e.g. revisiting the same topic at different skill levels
• Where practical, include skill levels or other detail
• You can use B, I, A to denote Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced
• You can note programming language names or tool names in a skill box or on the links between nodes.
• If you want to add notes about how to read your pathway, feel free to write something on the back of the paper.
• Fill out the sheet in a way that works for you, anything goes!

Developing a sustainable future for HPC and Research Software Engineering skills:

Training Pathways and Structures

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ISC24 BoF - Wednesday 15th May 2024

Pathways exercise (~20 minutes)

Developing a sustainable future for HPC and Research Software Engineering skills:

Training Pathways and Structures

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ISC24 BoF - Wednesday 15th May 2024

Developing a sustainable future for HPC and Research Software Engineering skills

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Training Pathways and Structures

Part III: Discussion, Feedback and Next Steps

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ISC24 BoF Session

This session is organised in collaboration with

Discussion: The pathway design process

• How did you go about creating your pathway?
• What were the drivers? End goal? Need/interest to learn specific individual skills? etc.
• What challenges did you find with the pathways sheet?
• Were many/most of the topics you were looking for present?
• Missing data?
• Can this be done purely by linking skills or is there other data required that you think should be included? How could this be improved?

Developing a sustainable future for HPC and Research Software Engineering skills:

Training Pathways and Structures

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ISC24 BoF - Wednesday 15th May 2024

Discussion: What did you create?

• Did you end up with something that you expected?
• How much complexity is present?
• Were you able to represent the detail you wanted?
• What issues or challenges did this exercise highlight for you when thinking about learning pathways?

Developing a sustainable future for HPC and Research Software Engineering skills:

Training Pathways and Structures

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ISC24 BoF - Wednesday 15th May 2024

Feedback: Mentimeter survey

• Answer some of the questions about the design process

Developing a sustainable future for HPC and Research Software Engineering skills:

Training Pathways and Structures

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ISC24 BoF - Wednesday 15th May 2024

Next steps

• We plan to take forward our pathway design activities
• Work is being done within the UNIVERSE-HPC project and by a range of other groups
• Further sessions to build on the activity undertaken here:
• PEARC24
• SC24?
• …

Developing a sustainable future for HPC and Research Software Engineering skills:

Training Pathways and Structures

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ISC24 BoF - Wednesday 15th May 2024

Data collected from the community:

• ISC’23 BoF - Understanding Community Perspectives on HPC Skills and Training Pathways
• Survey results from the session - https://zenodo.org/records/8321376
• JOSCE - https://doi.org/10.22369/issn.2153-4136/15/1/9 (SC’23 workshop submission)
• SC’23 BoF - Pathfinding in HPC Education and Training
• Building HPC Learning Pathways: Understanding our community (PEARC’24 long paper submission - Accepted)
• Developing HPC Learning Pathways: Challenges and Recommendations (PEARC’24 short paper submission - Submitted)

Developing a sustainable future for HPC and Research Software Engineering skills:

Training Pathways and Structures

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ISC24 BoF - Wednesday 15th May 2024

Nominations Open - Educational Award For

Outstanding Contribution to Computational Science Education

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We are seeking nominations for candidates who have led projects or programs that have made significant contributions to computational science education, defined broadly to include all disciplines and all education levels.

The recipient will receive a $2000 cash award, and travel support to attend the SC conference.

Applications are due by Friday June 28, 2024 at anywhere on earth.

More details at: https://sighpceducation.acm.org/events/award24_nominations/

Questions concerning award eligibility and nominations can be directed to award@sighpceducation.acm.org .

Thank you

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Thanks for your participation,

thanks for engaging with the session and providing your insights,

thanks for being a great BoF audience 🙂

Weronika Filinger, Jeremy Cohen & Anshu Dubey

+ our session organising colleagues who weren’t able to join today

This session is organised in collaboration with