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Radovan Bast @__radovan
Nordic e-Infrastructure Collaboration/ UiT The Arctic University of Norway
Slides (text is CC-BY): http://add-link.here
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- Theoretical chemist turned research software engineer.
- I write research software and teach programming to researchers and lead the CodeRefinery project.
- Co-author of the CMake Cookbook. ]
.right-column50[
- DIRAC
- Dalton
- OpenRSP
- XCint
- XCFun
- Numgrid
- GIMIC
- Parselglossy
- Autocmake
- Runtest
- Sonar
- Smeshing
- Blob
- SMARTool ]
We teach tools and practices for the development of reproducible and reusable research software.
- Why this project
- History and funding
- Team and community
- Our curriculum
- CodeRefinery and Carpentries
- Moving online and scaling up
- Impact
- Nordic research software engineers
- The value of the network
- Research Software Hour
- Future and challenges
- How to get involved
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.cite[citation/source for this image needed] ] .right-column50[
- Quality of scientific software is critical to modern research
- Reproducibility of many computations is questionable
- Scientists often lack the necessary training in practices to enable them to collaboratively write high-quality scientific software ]
- 2014: developed 1-week course "Scientific software development toolbox" at KTH within Swedish e-Science Education
- 2015: Proposal submitted to .emph[Nordic e-Infrastructure Collaboration (NeIC)] for a Nordic-wide program, accepted
- 2016: updated 1-week course "Scientific software development toolbox"
- Sep. 2016: CodeRefinery project starts with 2.5 FTE budget (Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland)
- Dec. 2016: first workshop, reduced from 5 to 3 days and adopted Carpentries teaching style
- 2018: Phase 2 of CodeRefinery project approved for funding by NeIC, with a 3.5 FTE budget (Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Estonia)
- .emph[Phase 2 will conclude Sep. 2021]
- Involve institutions as partners (example: Aalto University)
- In-kind contributions from partners
- Coordination using a smaller budget
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- 12 persons are on contract (~ 3 FTE)
- Major in-kind partner: Aalto Scientific Computing
- Major training hubs: Aalto, Stockholm, Oslo, Trondheim
- 173 persons on https://coderefinery.zulipchat.com/
- 552 followers on @coderefine
- 8 volunteer instructors (also TU Delft and NL eScience Center)
- over 60 volunteer helpers ]
- .emph[Basic and collaborative Git]: Basics, branching, merging, archaeology, pull requests, code review, project organization
- .emph[Social coding and open software]: Sharing, open source, licenses
- .emph[Reproducible research]: Organizing projects, sharing data, recording dependencies, environments, and steps
- .emph[Jupyter notebooks]: Deploy a reproducible notebook on Binder
- .emph[Code documentation]: Versioned documentation, Sphinx, Read the Docs, and GitHub pages
- .emph[Automated testing]: pytest and GitHub Actions
- .emph[Modular code development]: Pure functions, side effects, group discussions
CodeRefinery and Carpentries
- Carpentries "teach foundational coding and data science skills to researchers worldwide"
- No competition but .emph[collaboration]
- We use an .emph[interactive style of teaching], like Carpentries
- Most of CodeRefinery lesson material uses the same "look"
- Target audience are students and researchers who already write code
- Intermediate level
- Problem: many students and researchers do not regard themselves as "developers"
- NeIC is Carpentries platinum .emph[member organization]
- All CodeRefinery instructors take .emph[Carpentries instructor training] and are encouraged to teach Carpentries workshops
- CodeRefinery project co-funds a .emph[Carpentries coordinator position] Nordics/Baltics
- .emph[All lessons are CC-BY and developed in the open]
- Reverse lesson design process: .emph[start from learner personas and learning outcomes]
- Iterative improvements
- Changes are submitted as pull requests
- Non-trivial suggestions are submitted as issues (proposals) and discussed
- We would like to make it easier to experiment with new ideas and try them in workshops
- So far no official lesson owners/maintainers yet
| Phase 1 (Sep 2016 - Aug 2018) | Phase 2 (Sep 2018 - Nov 2020) | |
|---|---|---|
| Full workshops | 13 | 17 |
| Instructor training events | 3 | |
| Other workshops | 5 | 14 |
| Number of persons trained | 477 | 1073 |
- Reminder: ~ 3 FTE project
- Number of participants by countries
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- Lectures & code-along exercises in the main room: .emph[stream and also record]
- Get help and group exercises in a breakout room
- 100 participants, 20+ helpers
- Participants can register as teams ("bring your own breakout room")
- Installation sessions and helper preparation sessions
- Operation manuals
- Asynchronous Q&A via HackMD -> we publish these (example)
- An .emph[effective team work!]
- Right now running the 3rd workshop at this scale
- Blog post: https://coderefinery.org/blog/2020/07/31/mega-coderefinery/
- Presentation at CarpentryCon@Home 2020
.footnote[https://coderefinery.org]
.footnote[https://coderefinery.org]
- .emph[Demand for training] is huge.
- The Carpentries offer great courses in basics but there is .emph[need for more advanced courses].
- There is definitely also need for HPC Carpentry lessons (Teaching basic skills for high-performance computing). We have co-organized an instructor training event together with Focus CoE.
- Online workshops allowed us to increase reach.
- They require more organizers/instructors/helpers but helpers are also easier to recruit if they don't have to travel.
- Let's solve this together. Our funding runs out end of 2021.
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A research software engineer is someone involved in research, but more focused on the computational skills than publications. Nordic-RSE is the network of these people in the Nordics and Baltics.
- Not a formal organization yet
- Few volunteers who think this needs to be done and do it
- Discuss on https://coderefinery.zulipchat.com
- Weekly community calls
- Learning from and connecting with organizations in UK, Netherlands, Germany, US, Belgium, and others
- Organizing events: .emph[Online get-together Nov 30 - Dec 2, 2020], first conference May 27-28, 2021, Stockholm.
- We need to improve: diversity.
- Bring together research software engineers from Nordics/Baltics and beyond
- Informal presentation sessions and tutorials
- Discussions and networking
- Not only about tools, also about career development
- 77 registrations so far - registration still open!
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- Collaboration of Aalto, Stockholm, Oslo, and Tromsø
- We created a workshop in two weeks
- 1 event in collaboration with TU Delft and NL eScience Center
- 1 event in collaboration with Focus CoE
- https://nordichpc.github.io
- We are a loose collaboration of computing facility staff and friends.
- Special focus on .emph[usability and reimagining HPC] for the modern age.
- Goal: Share solutions and problems across centers and across countries.
- We had our first Workshop in Helsinki, 2019: https://nordichpc.github.io/2019-11-14-helsinki/
- Richard Darst (Aalto), Anne Fouilloux (Oslo), and Radovan Bast (Tromsø)
- https://researchsoftwarehour.github.io/
- Every Thursday evening on Twitch
Research Software Hour is an online stream/show about scientific computing and research software. It is designed to provide the skills typically picked up via informal networks: each week, we do some combination of exploring new tools, analyzing and improving someone's research code, and discussion.
- .emph[Funding]
- Better credit for volunteers and in-kind contributions
- Go beyond Nordics
- Possibly establish a non-profit organization
- Governance model
- Welcoming atmosphere and diversity
- https://coderefinery.org
- Community chat open to all: https://coderefinery.zulipchat.com
- Lesson sources: https://github.com/coderefinery
- Twitter: @coderefine
- Newsletter: https://coderefinery.org/outreach/#the-coderefinery-newsletter
- Support requests: [email protected]
- Progression: workshop participant -> .emph[helper/ exercise leader] -> instructor training -> instructor -> lesson contributor
- We hope for support from institutions and our employers to keep this project going
- Lesson reuse, remixing, contributions, and suggestions most welcome
- .emph[Collaboration on lessons and workshops] most welcome