An official website of the United States government
OpenMP is one of the most popular programming models to exploit node-level parallelism of supercomputers. Many researchers are interested in developing OpenMP compilers or extending existing standard for new capabilities. However, there is a lack of training resources for researchers who are involved in the compiler and language development around OpenMP, making learning curve in this area steep. In this paper, we introduce an ongoing effort, FreeCompilerCamp.org, a free and open online learning platform aimed to train researchers to quickly develop OpenMP compilers. The platform is built on top of Play-With-Docker, a docker playground for users to conduct experiments in an online terminal sandbox. It provides a live training website that is set up on cloud, so anyone with internet access and a web browser will be able to take the training. It also enables developers with relevant skills to contribute new tutorials. The entire training system is open-source and can be deployed on a private server, workstation or even laptop for personal use. We have created some initial tutorials to train users to learn how to extend the Clang/LLVM and ROSE compiler to support new OpenMP features. We welcome anyone to try out our system, give us feedback, contribute new training courses, or enhance the training platform to make it an effective learning resource for the HPC community.
more »
« less
This content will become publicly available on March 7, 2026
PLUMED Tutorials: A collaborative, community-driven learning ecosystem
In computational physics, chemistry, and biology, the implementation of new techniques in shared and open-source software lowers barriers to entry and promotes rapid scientific progress. However, effectively training new software users presents several challenges. Common methods like direct knowledge transfer and in-person workshops are limited in reach and comprehensiveness. Furthermore, while the COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the benefits of online training, traditional online tutorials can quickly become outdated and may not cover all the software’s functionalities. To address these issues, here we introduce “PLUMED Tutorials,” a collaborative model for developing, sharing, and updating online tutorials. This initiative utilizes repository management and continuous integration to ensure compatibility with software updates. Moreover, the tutorials are interconnected to form a structured learning path and are enriched with automatic annotations to provide broader context. This paper illustrates the development, features, and advantages of PLUMED Tutorials, aiming to foster an open community for creating and sharing educational resources.
more »
« less
- Award ID(s):
- 2305164
- PAR ID:
- 10594116
- Author(s) / Creator(s):
- ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; more »
- Publisher / Repository:
- American Institute of Physics
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- The Journal of Chemical Physics
- Volume:
- 162
- Issue:
- 9
- ISSN:
- 0021-9606
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
More Like this
-
-
Computing landscape is evolving rapidly. Exascale computers have arrived, which can perform 10^18 mathematical operations per second. At the same time, quantum supremacy has been demonstrated, where quantum computers have outperformed these fastest supercomputers for certain problems. Meanwhile, artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming every aspect of science and engineering. A highly anticipated application of the emerging nexus of exascale computing, quantum computing and AI is computational design of new materials with desired functionalities, which has been the elusive goal of the federal materials genome initiative. The rapid change in computing landscape resulting from these developments has not been matched by pedagogical developments needed to train the next generation of materials engineering cyberworkforce. This gap in curricula across colleges and universities offers a unique opportunity to create educational tools, enabling a decentralized training of cyberworkforce. To achieve this, we have developed training modules for a new generation of quantum materials simulator, named AIQ-XMaS (AI and quantum-computing enabled exascale materials simulator), which integrates exascalable quantum, reactive and neural-network molecular dynamics simulations with unique AI and quantum-computing capabilities to study a wide range of materials and devices of high societal impact such as optoelectronics and health. As a singleentry access point to these training modules, we have also built a CyberMAGICS (cyber training on materials genome innovation for computational software) portal, which includes step-by-step instructions in Jupyter notebooks and associated tutorials, while providing online cloud service for those who do not have access to adequate computing platform. The modules are incorporated into our open-source AIQ-XMaS software suite as tutorial examples and are piloted in classroom and workshop settings to directly train many users at the University of Southern California (USC) and Howard University—one of the largest historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs), with a strong focus on underrepresented groups. In this paper, we summarize these educational developments, including findings from the first CyberMAGICS Workshop for Underrepresented Groups, along with an introduction to the AIQ-XMaS software suite. Our training modules also include a new generation of open programming languages for exascale computing (e.g., OpenMP target) and quantum computing (e.g., Qiskit) used in our scalable simulation and AI engines that underlie AIQ-XMaS. Our training modules essentially support unique dual-degree opportunities at USC in the emerging exa-quantum-AI era: Ph.D. in science or engineering, concurrently with MS in computer science specialized in high-performance computing and simulations, MS in quantum information science or MS in materials engineering with machine learning. The developed modular cyber-training pedagogy is applicable to broad engineering education at large.more » « less
-
Recent years have shown increased cyber attacks targeting less secure elements in the software supply chain and causing fatal damage to businesses and organizations. Past well-known examples of software supply chain attacks are the SolarWinds or log4j incidents that have affected thousands of customers and businesses. The US government and industry are equally interested in enhancing soft- ware supply chain security. On February 22, 2023, researchers from the NSF-supported Secure Software Supply Chain Center (S3C2) conducted a Secure Software Supply Chain Summit with a diverse set of 17 practitioners from 15 companies. The goal of the Summit is to enable sharing between industry practitioners having practical experiences and challenges with software supply chain security and helping to form new collaborations. We conducted six-panel discussions based upon open-ended questions regarding software bill of materials (SBOMs), malicious commits, choosing new dependencies, build and deploy, the Executive Order 14028, and vulnerable dependencies. The open discussions enabled mutual sharing and shed light on common challenges that industry practitioners with practical experience face when securing their software supply chain. In this paper, we provide a summary of the Summit.more » « less
-
Ecological Dynamics and Forecasting' is a semester-long course to introduce students to the fundamentals of ecological dynamics and forecasting. This course implements paper-based discussion to introduce students to concepts and ideas and R-based tutorials for hands-on application and training. The course material includes a reading list with prompting questions for discussions, teachers notes for guiding discussions, lecture notes for live coding demonstrations, and video presentations of all R tutorials. This course material can be used either as self-directed learning or as all or part of a college or university course. Individual learners have access to all of the necessary material - including discussion questions and instructor notes - on the website. The course focuses on papers with an open-access or free-to-read version where possible, though some materials still rely on access to closed-access papers. The course is structured around two sessions per week, with most weeks consisting of a one hour paper discussion session and a 1-2 hour session focused on applications in R. R tutorials use publicly available ecological datasets to provide realistic applications. Because the material is organized around content themes, instructors can modify and remix materials based on their course goals and student levels of background knowledge. These course materials have been taught for several years at the authors’ university and have also generated significant online engagement with course videos tens of thousands of times.more » « less
-
The typical software tutorial includes step-by-step instructions for installing developer tools, editing files and code, and running commands. When these software tutorials are not executable, either due to missing instructions, ambiguous steps, or simply broken commands, their value is diminished. Non-executable tutorials impact developers in several ways, including frustrating learning experiences, and limiting usability of developer tools. To understand to what extent software tutorials are executable---and why they may fail---we conduct an empirical study on over 600 tutorials, including nearly 15,000 code blocks. We find a naive execution strategy achieves an overall executability rate of only 26%. Even a human-annotation-based execution strategy---while doubling executability---still yields no tutorial that can successfully execute all steps. We identify several common executability barriers, ranging from potentially innocuous causes, such as interactive prompts requiring human responses, to insidious errors, such as missing steps and inaccessible resources. We validate our findings with major stakeholders in technical documentation and discuss possible strategies for improving software tutorials, such as providing accessible alternatives for tutorial takers, and investing in automated tutorial testing to ensure continuous quality of software tutorials.more » « less
