Education and Training in UK e-Science
Anne E Trefethen
Deputy Director
e-Science Core Programme
November 1, 2004
Education and Training
In a previous life…
• In mid 1990s I was an Associate Director at the
Cornell Theory Centre – an NSF Nationally funded
High-performance Computing Centre
• Centrally isolated in Ithaca upstate New York
• Goal to provide education and training for national
user community
– e-learning, multi-level, interactive, asynchronous courses
November 1, 2004
Education and Training
UK e-Research
e-Research is about multidisciplinary
collaborations using a
developing infrastructure
In what follows assume a UK focus – across disciplines –
scientists and computer scientists, resource owners and
service suppliers, academics and industry
November 1, 2004
Education and Training
Goal
• Raise awareness
– This is what an e-Infrastructure can offer you…
• Provide on-going training for fast moving technology
base
– This is how you can use it….
– This is what’s needed to install, support….
• Provide cross-discipline education
–
–
–
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Conversational and shared understanding
Complementary skills not duplicating
Industry & Academic
Use and support
• Creating the next generation of e-Researchers!
November 1, 2004
Education and Training
Activities now….
• Research Councils have funded PhD, MSc
and project studentships
• NeSC training and education
• Other e-Science centres training
• University MScs and modules in MScs
• DTI Grid Outreach (past)
• EGEE
• + ….
November 1, 2004
Education and Training
Challenges
• Trying to address a broad community
– Different levels of knowledge and requirements
• Infrastructure required for hands on
– Ever changing middleware
– Scalable security
– Hardware not always available
• Unstable middleware = unstable course content
• Meeting user requirements – particularly from the
science disciplines
November 1, 2004
Education and Training
Sharing materials/content
• Shared materials need to be modular and well defined and
structured to be of use in a different context
– can the community be suitably organised?
– a JORUM for e-Science?
• How can different discipline approaches be leveraged?
• Need to be willing to share – non-competitive
• Need to be willing to reuse – not built here
• IPR issues can be a barrier
– How big a problem is this? What can we do about it?
– Can we have open source licensing of material?
• The database act and DRM
November 1, 2004
Education and Training
Models
• Face to face courses
– Time investment (particularly for industry) can be a problem
• Summer schools, single topic workshops, vertically
across the stack…..
• Training the trainer
– Can this help bridge the disciplines – train different discipline
trainers to go into their communities?
• Using the e-Science Centers and Centers of
Excellence as nodes?
November 1, 2004
Education and Training
e-learning
Advantages
– Provide synchronous or asynchronous learning
environment – using collaborative tutor support –
access to resources when needed – lessens ‘cost’
in attending course
Challenges
– Needs to be interactive – multi-layered to be
effective – initial investment high – better for
stable content
November 1, 2004
Education and Training
Collaborations
• e-Research is about Collaborative Environments –
shouldn’t these be employed in education and
training?
• Expertise exists at different sites – can these be
brought in as and when needed
• Wouldn’t the creation and delivery of education and
training material benefit from the same approach as
the science research – multi-disciplinary?
November 1, 2004
Education and Training
Conclusions
• In spite of all the challenges and issues - social and
legal – we will all benefit from co-ordinated education
and learning activity
• It doesn’t make sense for everyone to be developing
e-Research content – let’s make sure there is re-use
• Providing web-based training as well as face to face
is likely to meet community requirements better
• Where it makes sense use the collaborative tools and
bring in the expertise from where it exists
• It is going to take significant co-ordination to do this
effectively
• Creating an open-source licensed repository may be
a suitable model – Jorum-like
• A need for a shared training infrastructure?
November 1, 2004
Education and Training