OSPool Resources for Teaching & Education¶
The OSPool provides a free, ready-to-use platform for instructors who are teaching high throughput computing concepts for academic courses, conference workshops, and other events.
Instructors can choose for their students to have Guest or Full Accounts on the OSPool. For Guest Accounts, students/attendees can launch an OSPool Notebook at any time and practice job submission with smaller workflows. For Full Accounts, students/attendees will need to request an account (which will be approved within one business day), but then are able to submit large scale high throughput computing workflows free of charge.
The table below outlines suggested steps for bringing OSPool resources to your training or event. Please reach out to the facilitation team at any time if you have questions or want to chat about your goals.
| Explore our Tools | Explore HTCondor job submission with a OSPool Guest Account
- To launch a guest OSPool Notebook, go to https://notebook.ospool.osg-htc.org using an internet browser. - Visit our OSPool Jupyter Notebooks guide to learn about Guest and Full Accounts |
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| Conduct Initial Testing of your Event Materials | Using the Guest Account, we recommend conducting initial testing of your event materials to help inform next steps.
We provide supplementary materials supplementary materials that you may use to help teach high throughput computing and OSPool-related concepts. |
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| Discuss your event goals with a Research Computing Facilitator (Optional) | The Facilitation team is here to help discuss your event goals and provide guidance about how to best leverage existing OSG services and resources. Fill out this form and a Facilitator will contact you within one business day about scheduling a short virtual meeting. | |
| Evaluate Guest or Full Account for Attendees | Option 1: Guest OSPool Accounts
You are welcome have your attendees use an OSPool Guest Acccount for the event. This is a good option for events that: - may not know registrants in advance - run less than 4 hours, or can easily recreate files that may be lost upon session time out (4 hours) - want to only use a notebook interface |
Option 2: Full OSPool Accounts
You can request that your students have the ability to submit jobs to the OSPool using Full Accounts. This is a good option for events that: - know registrants in advance - will run for more than 1-2 days - with more than 50 participants - would like jobs to access the full capacity of the OSPool - would like to submit jobs using a notebook or classic terminal interface |
| Prior to the Event | If using full accounts, the instructor will provide a list of participants to the OSG Research Facilitation Team, and participants should request an account a few days in advance of the event (does not apply to guest accounts). It is also good practice to test your full workshop code and any software on your account of choice. | Start of Event | We require all events to provide a short (~5 minute) introduction to OSG Policies. |
| Feedback | After your event, please email us to let us know how it went, and the number of participants. | |
Teaching Resources¶
Here are some resources you can use for your event:
Worksheets for Public Use¶
Scale Out My Computing Brainstorming Worksheet
Slide Presentations for Public Use¶
OSG Policies and Intro for Course Use
OSPool Training Slides and Recordings
Video Recordings¶
OSPool Training Slides and Recordings
Partnership to Advance Throughput Computing YouTube channel
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)¶
Why use OSPool resources for my course/event?
OSPool resources provide a free, easy-to-use toolkit for you to use to teach computing concepts at your next course/event. Event attendees do not need an account, but can request continued access to use OSPool resources for their own research.
The OSPool staff also offer free assistance with helping you convert an existing workflow to work on the OSPool. We provide guidance about using OSG resources, using HTCondor, and are happy to answer any questions you may have regarding our resources.
If I request full accounts for my students/attendees, when will their accounts be deactivated?
We work with instructors to choose a date that works well for their event, but typically accounts are deactivated several days after the event completes. If attendees are interested in continuing to use OSPool resources for their research, they can request their account remains active by emailing [email protected].
Do you have slides and video recordings of workshops that used OSPool resources to help me prepare for my event(s)?
Yes!
We provide hands-on tutorial materials for topics such as running common software or workflows on the OSPool (e.g., python, R, MATLAB, bioinformatic workflows), recordings of tutorials and introductory materials, presentation slides, and other materials. Some of the materials are linked under the Teaching Resources section above.
When should I not use OSPool resources for my course/event?
Events are typically bound by the same limitations as regular users/jobs. This means that any event needing to use licensed software or submit individual multi-core jobs or jobs running longer than 20 hours may not be a good fit for our system.
Who should I contact with questions or concerns?
The OSG Research Computing Facilitation Team is happy to answer any questions or concerns you may have about using OSPool resources for your event(s). Please direct questions to [email protected]. A Facilitator will respond within one business day.