NeSC Training Team

1
NeSC Training Team

• Enabling, facilitating and delivering quality
  training in the UK and Internationally

2
Background

• The NeSC training team was formed in April 2004.
• With initially two staff it has now grown to five
  dedicated trainers.
• Members of the training team are supported by EU
  and Research Council grants.

3
Scope of training

• The training team has delivered training ranging
  from introductory material on grids to advanced
  courses for application developers and research
  leaders in other fields.

4
Courses delivered

• In the 6 months since its inception the training
  team has directly delivered
• 5 training events in the UK
• (35 trainees - advanced)
• At NeSC and the University of Stafford
• For JISC and EGEE
• 6 training events in Europe
• (183 trainees introductory/advanced)
• At CERN, FZK Karlsruhe, CNB Madrid, Lithuania and
  Italy.
• For EGEE
• Also dissemination presentations to introduce
  people to the concept of the grid

5
Coordination of training in Europe

• The NeSC training team is the leading partner for
  the training effort in the EGEE project.
• It coordinates and provides quality assurance for
  training with 22 partner institutions in 13
  countries.

6
EGEE training delivery
EGEE NA3 has trained more than 400 people in
courses ranging from introductions to EGEE
(induction) through Application Developer to
Advanced level.
NeSC is committed to maintaining and developing
the quality of training. To do this feedback is
collected from the users of courses.
7
Example GGF Summer School
The NA3 training team made a central
contribution planning, organising and presenting
the 2004 GGF Summer School. Presentations were
given on High-level Grid applications a portal
based approach Introduction to Web Services
a tutorial Introduction to the GENIUS
portal and the GILDA Test bed and An
Introduction to Data Services OGSA-DAI The
event was attended by 84 selected advanced
international students.
8
Internationally recognised teaching quality

• Example NeSC training staff shared sessions at
  the GGF summer school with some of the leaders in
  the development of grid computing.
• eg. Carl Kesselman and Miron Livny

9
Demand for courses

• Many of the courses delivered by the training
  team have been heavily over subscribed.
• For instance the recent Madrid Web Services
  course was planned for 20 students and had 60
  applications (300 oversubscription).
• Current demand for repeat courses outstrips the
  teams resources

10
Enabling training in the UK and Europe

NeSC is providing web support for the EGEE
training activity. Web traffic Average
successful requests for pages/day 49. Distinct
file requests/week 116
11
Community support

• The EGEE training material is being made
  available to the whole community at
  http//www.egee.nesc.ac.uk/trgmat/index.html
• A training materials repository allowing flexible
  searches of the available material is currently
  under development and testing.
• Database design documentation available
• SQLServer Database created and populated
• Coldfusion interface under development
• Full attributions supported in the database

12
Involvement in research projects

• In order to maintain a high level of technical
  awareness the members of the training team are
  actively involved in research projects linked to
  NeSC
• For instance BRIDGES and EDINA.

13
Future plans

• The NeSC training team expects to be coordinating
  a further 16 courses for EGEE by the end of
  February 2005
• Two more advanced courses will be delivered at
  NeSC by the end of February 2005.
• Modes of training are being developed to support
  local training at the UK eScience centres and
  other centres of excellence
• The training team is involved in developing
  teaching excellence for a grid MSc at Edinburgh
  University.
• The training team will be contributing to the
  NeSC workshop on Education and Training in UK
  e-Science
• Mechanisms to support eLearning for EGEE
• Installing a training grid resource for EGEE and
  the UK.