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generic WS-PGRADE instance. It is con
gured to run jobs on a PBS cluster located
at the AMC, as well as on the gLite grid resources provided by the Dutch NGI.
Each student receives an individual account and has access to the
site on
the Liferay container. This site has a subset of the pages and portlets from the full
WS-PGRADE distribution, namely workflow, storage and security, to avoid dis-
traction and errors during the assignments. Short lived robot proxies and SSH keys
are preloaded to the WS-PGRADE portal prior to the course, such that the students
only need to download them to their environment in order to access the grid and
cluster resources, respectively.
In a very short time (<2 h), the students have been able to run simple compu-
tations on various locations, which is an eye-opener for them. They could see how
simple it can be to link programs together in a workflow and how the programs can
be migrated between different execution environments. We observed that the stu-
dents have more dif
“
Students
”
culty to follow the advanced assignments because these
involve complex concepts that would require more introduction time than available
within the course timeframe.
Along the years we have improved the exercises and the setup of the course, so
that nowadays running such a course has become straightforward. The software
installation requirements on the laboratory computers are minimal (web browser
and Java compiler), which facilitates preparations. This was not the case with other
platforms we used in the past, which required command-line interfaces and the
installation of various dedicated clients.
16.2.3 Massive Open Online Course on Grid Computing
Massive open online course (MOOC) is a new teaching method that aims to
communicate educational content to worldwide audiences on various topics.
SURFsara, the national e-infrastructure provider in The Netherlands, has recently
presented a MOOC on grid computing that introduces concepts and practices for
large-scale computing on the European Grid infrastructure. The syllabus of the
course is partly dedicated to Workflow Management and Science Gateways, which
were co-developed with the Academic Medical Center of the University of
Amsterdam (AMC).
The primal scope of the course is to introduce the bene
ts of grid computing to
researchers and provide tools such as web portals to advance their research work.
The background of the MOOC students is highly diverse with respect to prior
experience in programming and distributed computing. For this reason, the course
syllabus and presentations are constructed to appeal to participants who are com-
pletely unfamiliar with programming, up to highly skilled software developers.
Prior to the presentation of
'
'
topics, the students have
already become familiar with various command-line tools and concepts related to
distributed and cluster computing such as: grid certi
Workflow Management
cates, VO, user-interface
machines, job submission and data-management.
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