NeSC Training Team Enabling, facilitating and delivering quality training in the UK and Internationally

2 Outline Training beyond the UK Training in UK Plans

3 Background The NeSC training team was formed in April 2004 People: 4 trainers 2.5 developers (e-Learning; gLite) 0.5 admin support 0.5 system support (GOSC) 0.5 dissemination Funding: e-Science Core Programme, PPARC, and EU grants GOSC

4 And recent appointments: Alison McCall, Sara Collins

5 Training in EGEE The NeSC training team leads the training effort in the EGEE project. It coordinates 22 partner institutions in 13 countries Quality assurance Management Facilitation and persistent support >130 events since April 2004 >2000 attendees

6 EGEE 22 Training Partners NeSC Edinburgh UK & Ireland GUP Linz Austria Innsbruck Austria CESNET Prague Czech Rep. BUTE Budapest Hungary ELUB Budapest Hungary MTA SZTAKI Budapest Hungary ICM Warsaw Poland PSNC Poznan Poland II-SAS Bratislava Slovakia FZK Karlsruhe Germany INFN Rome Italy KU-NATFAK Copenhagen Denmark IHEP Moscow Russia IMPB RAS Moscow Russia ITEP Moscow Russia JINR Dubna Russia PNPI Petersburgh Russia RRCKI Moscow Russia GRNET Athens Greece TAU Tel Aviv Isreal ICI Bucharest Romania

7 Process Guiding principles Light weight processes Value in QA is that it encourages people not to avoid the process Encourage events – don’t make it difficult Foster local provision of courses Provide help where necessary Provide services – registration, GILDA/GENIUS Provide central support and ‘safety net’ Encourage local experimentation and development of expertise

8 Inter-Federation cooperation UEDIN providing speakers to events (in Italy, Germany, Spain, CERN) Greek support for events in Slovakia, Baltic, etc Italian support for events in other areas. Experimentation with AccessGrid provision UK-> Germany Slovakia VRVS

9 Outreach Baltics UEDIN provided training as part of the process of bringing the Baltic states into EGEE Australia Far East (Japan. Korea, Tawian) Venezuela Roberto Barbera’s group from INFN provided training as part of the process of bringing the South American states into EGEE

10 EGEE Highlights 1 st EU EGEE review - Feb 2005 Training activity singled out as “excellent” EGEE Training External review – April 2005 Enthusiastic – recommended more resources in future Applications communities survey Training - 72% good/very good Cooperation in training with: DILIGENT – virtual digital libraries: Athens, (Pisa?) Biomed communities – ongoing series of events MAGIC astronomy community

11 GGF Summer School The NA3 training team made a central contribution planning, organising and presenting the 2004 & 5 GGF Summer Schools. The events were attended by 107 selected advanced students.

12 Registration support UEDIN is providing a registration services for other sites This has been used by a number of sites for events (France, Germany, etc) NB. Cannot provide support for collecting fees.

13 Web site support

14 Web site features Home page redesign Federation links Contacts Objectives Statistics News Links to GENIUS Training roadmap Single reference to all training events, linked to agendas, registration and statistics Suggestions form

15 Repository page html Structure Implementation IPR Attributation EGEE copyright and open repository

16 Archive relational design

17 Repository implementation ER

18 Repository search interface

19 Search result

20 TRAINING ARCHIVE Metadata Date, course topic, module, author, location, language, version, file type, practical resources, external resources, comments, course level used to search for material through query interface Archive now has over 100 presentations, over 300 files, 34 modules 7 course topics  EGEE induction  Globus ToolKit  LCG2 APIs  LCG2 Installation and Administration  UML for developing web services  Web Services Web-based centralised registration & scheduling of courses Supported by UEDIN Integrated support using database infrastructure Revision and refinement of material improves its quality

21 T-Infrastructure provision

22 T-Infrastructure Training often requires special e-Infrastructure T-Infrastructure emulates e-Infrastructure technical, operational & management aspects required by courses T-Infrastructure may anticipate a future platform Preparing for gLite Preparing for next scheduled release Authentication at (or just before) a course Flexibility, light-weight – don’t frighten the participants Authorisation may restrict imposed loads Limit student & course impact – e.g. from errors T ‑ Infrastructure may be operated in isolation Guarantees of availability and response Student exercises generate peak loads Pedagogical requirement for a quick response

23 GILDA/GENIUS GILDA provides a prototyping mechanism to bring applications and communities to EGEE GENIUS provides a user friendly portal for introducing users to grids GILDA/GENIUS provide support to training activities Demo mode, no certificates required Certificated users – special VO, portal access to many applications Developer access to GILDA

24 Issues The training team's primary concerns are Sustain high-quality training across the region needs Continuous collaboration Focus Leadership Communication Resources Experts under heavy demand needed to inform planning, preparation and delivery of new courses Consequence of rapidly developing e-Infrastructure Demand for training is growing rapidly expands with each new community and operational advance

25 PLANS Focus on Application Developer courses Support new application domains brought in by NA4 Partners have been asked for new commitments in this direction The limitations of ad hoc t-Infrastructure recognised UEDIN physical resources to address this requirement. Expansion of the materials archive Improvements to structure and interface Based on feedback from trainers and self-paced learners

26 Summary Established an effective and federated collaboration for training Across the whole of the EGEE geographic area Significantly exceeding our first year goals In the provision of training Identified and met the requirement for t-Infrastructure Pioneering its provision with GILDA Establishing shared training material repository Training has been extended to many other countries Bringing new communities to EGEE Plans Focus on application developer and advanced courses Further develop training support mechanisms  t-Infrastructure, e-Learning & gLite migration support Respond adroitly to new requirements

27 UK highlights Condor, Globus weeks WS / WSRF Induction to NGS December Workshop: agreed agenda Two courses in March, well-received by participants and NGS/GOSC PPARC Summer School JISC-funded courses on UML, WSDL for e- Learning projects

28 Training team delivered April – 11 Oct Oct May 2005 In UK5 events (35 trainees) 12 events (355 trainees) In (rest of) Europe 8 events (224 trainees) 8 events (131 trainees)

29 Funding proposals Awarded ICEAGE (1.2 M Euro total, 4FTE)  Grid education into academic teaching In Preparation JISC-OMII (1.2M Euro, 4FTE)  UK eScience training with particular reference to OMII components Submitted BIOSIMGRID (China) (2M Euro total, 1FTE)  Foster collaboration in bio applications EGEODE (2M Euro, 1FTE)  Geo applications using EGEE EGEE-2 (32M Euro total, 6FTE)

30 Summary Praise from students, EGEE and NGS OMII and NGS see NeSC as primary providers of their training Continue increasing number and depth of “off-the-shelf” courses gLite focus in near term T-cluster in use: core of T- Infrastructure UK training: building collaboration and momentum

31 Overall Summary Have established an effective network of collaborations in Europe. Build on this with ICEAGE to establish grid training in academia Build a similar network at all scales (U Edin, UK, Europe, Worldwide). Provide user centric training which allows researchers to effectively use the facilities available to them.