Training, Outreach and Dissemination

4.Training, Outreach and Dissemination

4.1Training and Content Management

Consistent with the change in focus, Content Management has been added to the area with the realization that improved documentation forms the basis for improved training. A study of OSG documentation, conducted in the spring of 2009, involved interviews of 29 users and providers of OSG documentation and subsequent analysis of the results to produce recommendations for improvement. These study recommendations were reviewed and analysedanalyzed in a two daytwo-day workshop of relevant experts. The implementation of those recommendations began in October, 2009 and will continue through 2010.

The OSG Training program brings domain scientists and computer scientists together to provide a rich training ground for the engagement of students, faculty and researchers in learning the OSG infrastructure, applying it to their discipline and contributing to its development.

During 2009, OSG sponsored and conducted numerous training events for students and faculty and participated in additional invited workshops. The result was that grid computing training reached about 200 new professionals. Training organized and delivered by OSG in 2009 is identified in the following table:

Workshop	Length	Location	Month
Chile Grid Workshop	3 days	Santiago, Chile	January
OSG Site Administrators Workshop	2 days	Clemson, SC	March
New Mexico Grid School	3 days	Albuquerque, NM	April
North Carolina Grid School	3 days	Chapel Hill, NC	April
Site Administrators Workshop	2 days	Indianapolis, IN	August
Columbia Grid Workshop	2 weeks	Bogata, Columbia	October

OSG staff also participated as keynote speakers, instructors, and/or presenters at four venues in 2009 as detailed in the following table:

Venue	Length	Location	Month
International Winter School on Grid Computing	8 sessions	Online - 6 wks	Feb-Mar
Easter recess UJ Research Cluster	6 days	Johannesburg, South Africa	April
International Summer School on Grid Computing	11 days	Nice, France	July
Grace Hopper Conference 09	4 days	Tucson, AZ	Oct

OSG was a co-organizer of the International Summer School on Grid Computing (ISSGC09). The OSG Education team arranged sponsorship (from NSF) for US-based students to attend this workshop; we selected and prepared ten US students who participated in the this school. In addition, OSG staff provided direct contributions to the International Grid School by attending, presenting, and being involved in lab exercises, development, and student engagement. Another aspect of the EGEE-OSG collaboration at the education level involves the participation in the International Winter School on Grid Computing (IWSGC09); US graduates of these grid schools include system administrators of CMS Tier-3 sites.

The content of the training material has been enhanced over the past year to include an updated module targeting new OSG Grid site administrators. Work continues to enhance the on-line delivery of user training and we are seeing an increased number of students and faculty that are signing up for the self-paced online course (about 50 active participants). In addition to individuals, we have made the course accessible as support material for graduate courses on grid computing at universities around the country, such as Rochester Institute of Technology, University of Missouri at St. Louis and Clemson University.

The Content Management project has defined a collaborative process for managing production of high-quality documentation, defined document standards and templates, reviewed and identified documents for improvement or elimination, begun improvement of storage documentation, assisted in production of ATLAS and CMS Tier-3 documentation, and begun reorganization of documentation access by user role. This work will continue through 2010.