This year starts with the publication of three papers by SciNet analysts in the Journal of Computational Science Education that are a reflection of SciNet’s ten years of training and educating academic researchers in the practical and scalable use of high performance computing.

1. Bridging the Educational Gap between Emerging and Established Scientific Computing Disciplines
   Marcelo Ponce, Erik Spence, Ramses van Zon, and Daniel Gruner, Journal of Computational Science Education Vol 10 (1) 4-11 (2019)
   https://doi.org/10.22369/issn.2153-4136/10/1/1

   In this paper, we describe our experience in developing curriculum courses aimed at graduate students in emerging computational fields, including biology and medical science. We focus primarily on computational data analysis and statistical analysis, while at the same time teaching students best practices in coding and software development. Our approach combines a theoretical background and practical applications of concepts. The outcomes and feedback we have obtained so far have revealed several issues: students in these particular areas lack instruction like this although they would tremendously benefit from it; we have detected several weaknesses in the formation of students, in particular in the statistical foundations but also in analytical thinking skills. We present here the tools, techniques and methodology we employ while teaching and developing this type of courses. We also show several outcomes from this initiative, including potential pathways for fruitful multi- disciplinary collaboration.

2. Scientific Computing, High-Performance Computing and Data Science in Higher Education
   Marcelo Ponce, Erik Spence, Ramses van Zon, and Daniel Gruner, Journal of Computational Science Education Vol 10 (1), 24-31 (2019)
   https://doi.org/10.22369/issn.2153-4136/10/1/5

   We present an overview of current academic curricula for Scientific Computing, High-Performance Computing and Data Science. After a survey of current academic and non-academic programs across the globe, we focus on Canadian programs and specifically on the education program of the SciNet HPC Consortium, using its detailed enrollment and course statistics for the past six to seven years. Not only do these data display a steady and rapid increase in the demand for research-computing instruction, they also show a clear shift from traditional (high performance) computing to data- oriented methods. It is argued that this growing demand warrants specialized research computing degrees.

3. Trends in Scientific Computing Training Delivered by a High-Performance Computing Center
   Ramses van Zon, Marcelo Ponce, Erik Spence, and Daniel Gruner, Journal of Computational Science Education Vol 10 (1), 53-60 (2019)
   https://doi.org/10.22369/issn.2153-4136/10/1/9

   We analyze the changes in the training and educational efforts of the SciNet HPC Consortium, a Canadian academic High Performance Computing center, in the areas of Scientific Computing and High-Performance Computing, over the last six years. Initially, SciNet offered isolated training events on how to use HPC systems and write parallel code, but the training program now consists of a broad range of workshops and courses that users can take toward certificates in scientific computing, data science, or high-performance computing. Using data on enrollment, attendence, and certificate numbers from SciNet’s education website, used by almost 1800 users so far, we extract trends on the growth, demand, and breadth of SciNet’s training program. Among the results are a steady overall growth, a sharp and steady increase in the demand for data science training, and a wider participation of ‘non-traditional’ computing disciplines, which has motivated an increasingly broad spectrum of training offerings. Of interest is also that many of the training initiatives have evolved into courses that can be taken as part of the graduate curriculum at the University of Toronto.

We also recently gave a webinar on these topics.

Other publications by SciNet people can be found at here.