Training Planning Meeting

Europe/Zurich

Meeting 2020-03-09

Present: Kilian Lieret, Sam Meehan, Clemens Lange, David Lange, Mark Neubauer, Adam Parker, Mason Louis Proffitt, Eduardo Rodrigues, Henry Schreiner, Dan Katz

Apologies: Graeme (meeting clash), Sudhir (ill)

pyHEP and HSF Training

  • Eduardo’s talk was recorded

  • pyHEP uses gitter channels for a lot of communication

  • Very low overlap between SWC and pyHEP conference audience (very different levels, pyHEP becomes relevant a year later)

  • pyHEP training focuses on specific python packages: awkward-array, uproot, etc. -- it does not focus on training the basics of python and vcs/git

  • Important to at least make SWC attendees aware of pyHEP material (e.g. slides with links in the last session) 

    • In the past (last SWC), the last day covered material from pyHEP

  • Style of pyHEP trainings: Jupyter notebook (hosted de-centrally)

  • Henry: Jupyterbook as a new training format: Collections of notebooks together with table of contents rendered into webpage https://jupyterbook.org

    • somewhere in between plain juptyer notebooks (where participants only shift-enter everything) and very verbose carpentry-style websites

    • Examples:

    • Jupyterbook might be bridge between SWC-style HSF/training modules and HSP/pyhep training

    • Sam: Might do a small pyhep/training bootcamp, where we create a new jupyter-book style module

      • Carpentry-style trainings are well-tested now, this would be a first, so need to test this

  • HSF-pyHEP is curious about our experiences with software training: How can training sessions be made more didactic and a better experience for students.

  • It would be nice to provide a similar look and feeling for both pyHEP and HSF material: Students profit from perceived consistency and homogeneous feeling

  • Might do a combined advanced-SWC + pyHEP training workshop?

  • https://hsf-training.github.io/analysis-essentials/git/03-create.html : LHCb Starterkit material, ALICE etc.

ATLAS/CMS Analysis preservation post-mortem

  • Slides: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1saqe1J0VHPd0x6dEjk5LBLf53camnW2U-QA02y0rjPQ/edit#slide=id.p 

  • Use “awesome H(tautau) analysis” as playground also for merge conflicts etc.?

  • Organizing discussion with theorists was difficult

  • Dinner was a nice addition (IRISH-HEP covered food, drinks: 8 franks per person, ): Makes it an "official" event, such that people who sign out actually show up. Good for networking and fostering real connections. Makes it feel like a real conference (not just another training session)

  • Criticism: Rooms (too cramped), too small screens?

  • Length of workshop

    • Sam: 3 full days are the maximum number of days for training that participants can handle

    • CMS has 1 week long analysis starterkits (--> Clemens)

    • Most students can’t handle 8h of pure information

    • Important to have enough breaks

    • Depends on how much material builds on itself/cascades; if workshop consists of lots of orthogonal modules, it can be longer

    •  
  • Might need to advertise HSF and training material etc. more (lot’s of people aren’t aware of it). Eduardo: Important to have contacts in the different collaborations and advertise the material on the mailing lists. `

  • Future instructors: Lot’s of participants want to teach themselves; collected their emails

  • VIP workshop for seniors (most training workshops aimed at young people)

    • Have small numbers of seniors also in “normal” trainings, but could increase that by specifically targeting seniors

    • Might be uncomfortable for seniors to ask “stupid questions” openly? → survey

    • Might do survey: 

      • E.g.: How comfortable are you with X?

      • Eduardo made a large LHCb survey. Specifically stress that also the opinion of the seniors is requested here

  • Clemens: Would ideally need two large screens (one for vidyo webcasting for remote participants and for the slides) 

Software Carpentry @CERN

  • For the Software Carpentry event we have said “postponed”, which I think means that when we find another date we keep the registrations as they are, but we confirm with people their continued interest in attending.

  • I think there’s no point at all in trying to reschedule in advance of June; I had a quick look at the Indico calendar and Kjell Johnsen is fairly busy all of June; virtually unused in July (could tentatively book 7-10 July…?)

  • Can’t schedule anything, before CERN revises Covid-19 rules.

  • Do we want to announce support for self-study in the old slot? 

    • Status of the lessons:

      • Software Carpentry core lessons are complete; 

      • material on ML and numpy it’s less clear that this exists in a shape where it can be used; 

      • Mason’s uproot+awkward is in decent shape AFAICR.

    • Life support (chat etc.):

      • If yes, how do we do it? Mattermost channel? (Then people could break out into a permanent Vidyo room for the event if needed?) 

ESCAPE Summer School

  • (22 June - 1 July), https://indico.in2p3.fr/event/20306/ 

  • Thomas Vuillaume is organising: thomas.vuillaume@lapp.in2p3.fr

  • Mason agreed to re-teach his uproot+awkward tutorial as a HEP domain specific part (thanks!)

  • There is 12 hours scheduled for Machine Learning topics in the school; we are trying to identify suitable material and tutors for this

    • Kevin Nelson (Michigan) did volunteer to help (thanks!)

    • Discussed with Martino the material (as he was going to do a scikit-learn session for us); carpentries are developing something (https://github.com/machinelearningcarpentry/machine-learning-novice) but it’s little more than a skeleton

      • Do people have knowledge of other material we could use?

      • Would people like to get involved in developing material like this in the next few months?

    • Are other people interested in helping out at the event itself? Let Graeme know.

 

MISC

  • Adam has time to work on modules for uproot, etc.

There are minutes attached to this event. Show them.
    • 15:30 15:50
      PyHEP and HSF Training 20m
      Speaker: Eduardo Rodrigues (University of Liverpool (GB))
    • 15:50 16:10
      ATLAS+CMS Analysis Preservation Bootcamp Post-mortem 20m
      Speakers: Clemens Lange (CERN), Lukas Alexander Heinrich (CERN), Samuel Ross Meehan (CERN), Savannah Jennifer Thais (Princeton University (US))
    • 16:10 16:40
      Discussion 30m