---
# System prepended metadata

title: NSF Project Report - Cybertraining 2024

---

# NSF Project Report - Cybertraining 2024
# Accomplishments
## What are the major goals of the project?
Our project goal is to effectively and equitably build the computational workforce needed for the next generation of dark matter experiments.  We proposed doing this by:

* Working with our individual collaborations and the collaborative team of this proposal to unify training.
* Having experts within our groups develop missing material across a range of expertise levels.
* Hosting cross-experiment workshops to train new junior scientists.

## What was accomplished under these goals and objectives?
The primary work done this year was determining a feasible path forward for building a webpage to serve as a hub for our materials.  Establishing contracts outside of our university has been extremely difficult and there was the additional concern of identifying funds for continued hosting of the website.  After discussion with the department chair, we have changed plans: we will hire an undergraduate or graduate Computer Science student to create a website hosted on github pages similar to the Software Carpentry website.  This will provide long-term hosting, be reasonably easy to manage, and not require any external contracts.

## What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?
This past year has offered limited professional development since the students previously involved in creating material have moved on to other research projects.

In the upcoming year I expect to involve three undergraduate students, one developing material, one creating technical illustrations, and one developing the website.

## Have the results been disseminated to communities of interest? If so, please provide details
The in-person training at Snowmass was communicated and accessible to anybody in the dark matter and neutrino community. This material is still online at https://indico.cern.ch/event/1151329.

Other materials created by this grant are available at https://zenodo.org/communities/dance-edu/?q=&l=list&p=1&s=10&sort=newest.

Our upcoming work will focus on creating a website that allows posting of new material and advertisement of existing material.  The goal is to have this site live before the in-person workshop so that we can use the site during the workshop.

## What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?
I plan to run a cross-experiment workshop in Spring 2025, with a focus on recruiting early-career scientists from dark matter experiments.  I will also recruit from the neutrino, neutrinoless double beta decay, and HEP communities local to the front range.

We plan to continue the fellows program, with an emphasis on core knowledge that is necessary for research in the field yet difficult to obtain.  I will particularly recruit for topics that would be suitable for cross-listing on existing cybertraining sites.  For example, topics that would be suitable for cross-listing on the IRIS-HEP lesson page are:  version control skills that are needed for feature developers like pulling frequently from the main branch and building containers for AI work.  Some cybertraining skills, like using python for likelihood fits and using MCMC for parameter width estimation using python libraries like emcee and the BAND framework, fit in more with Data Carpentry and will be cross-listed through their incubators interface.

Our new budget allows for creation of training materials by CU Denver students.  I plan to recruit  students to (1) create training materials for version control skills needed by developers of open-source packages, (2) improve the digitizer tutorial so that it is publishable in the Journal of Open Source Education, (3) create a tutorial on file formats, and (4) improve the ssh tutorial offered by FIRST-HEP.  We will undertake additional projects as time and student interest allows.

In addition, we plan to hire a student from the Computer Science department to make a website similar to the Software Carpentry website to host the material created by this project.  I will reach out to Rick Knepper, another Cybertraining recipient who is working on appropriate metadata for describing CI training materials, to ensure quality metadata tags.  I will also reach out to Erik Saule, who is indexing CI training materials, and make sure that our materials are indexed on his site.



# Impact
## What is the impact on the development of the principal discipline(s) of the project? 

Our field (like many) has a substantial amount of "hidden knowledge" that scientists must learn individually through massive struggle with the literature and/or legacy code bases or through discussion with experts in the field.  This often slows down scientists new to the field, places a burden on experts that the small groups in Dark Matter can rarely afford, and gives nearly every group the role of gate-keeper.

We will explore how to collect metrics from the website use with the student(s) who create the website.  The impact on the discipline depends on how widely the platform is known and how well the materials fit the needs of the community.

## What is the impact on other disciplines?
There is overlap in training materials needed for the dark matter field and other compute-heavy scientific disciplines, specifically software engineering skills that bridge between the basic Software Carpentry introduction and those needed by scientists working on experiment code.

Therefore, working on gaps in the training materials for the dark matter community is an opportunity to address the gaps in software engineering training across multiple scientific discplines.  The challenge here is to coordinate with already-existing efforts, of which there are many through the Cybertraining program.  As mentioned above we intend to coordinate with Rick Knepper on metadata for materials and Erik Saule, who is indexing Cybertraining materials.  FIRST-HEP is another project that has substantial overlap in their CI training needs and we hope to cross-list their training materials on our site.

## What is the impact on the development of human resources?
People participating in workshops gain concrete software engineering and analysis skills.  

In addition, fellows that have prepared material have learned about online publishing tools like github and Whole Tale in addition to learning more about their target area.

Undergraduates working on the project develop technical writing skills and deeper subject-matter expertise.  

## What was the impact on teaching and educational experiences?
Having introductory materials available that are specific to the dark-matter field has been invaluable in bringing new students up to speed. 

A previous student developed material on signal digitization, a hardware technology that underpins many dark matter (and beyond) detectors.  Students in our local department's Advanced Lab course have used this material extensively.  The goal now is to make this material more widely known through a webpage and publication in JOSE (Journal of Open Source Education).  

## What is the impact on physical resources that form infrastructure?
Nothing to report

## What is the impact on institutional resources that form infrastructure?
Nothing to report

## What is the impact on information resources that form infrastructure?
Nothing to report

## What is the impact on technology transfer?
Nothing to report

## What is the impact on society beyond science and technology?
Nothing to report

## What percentage of the award's budget was spent in a foreign country?
None

# Changes/Problems

## Changes in approach and reasons for change 
To better share materials between dark matter collaboration, we plan to create a website.  Originally, we planned to contract with SDSC to create a website based on the QUBES model, a website and organization created to share computational biology training materials.  However, establishing contracts outside of our university has been extremely difficult and there was the additional concern of identifying funds for continued hosting of the website.  After discussion with the department chair, we have changed plans: we will hire an undergraduate or graduate Computer Science student to create a website hosted on github pages similar to the Software Carpentry website.  This will provide long-term hosting, be reasonably easy to manage, and not require any external contracts.



## Actual or Anticipated problems or delays and actions or plans to resolve them 

Establishing contracts outside of our university has been extremely difficult and I was concerned that we would not be able to contract with SDSC on the time scale of the grant for a QUBES-like website to host materials.  After discussion with the department chair, we have changed plans: we will hire an undergraduate or graduate Computer Science student to create a website hosted on github pages similar to the Software Carpentry website.  This will provide long-term hosting, be reasonably easy to manage, and not require any external contracts.  CU Denver has a strong computer science department and I have had success with hiring both undergraduate and master's students for programming-heavy research tasks.

I was also concerned with my ability to navigate the administrative system for paying fellowship recipients and organizing pay for a conference.  After talking to the physics department chair about these concerns, I learned that the physics department administrative assistant - who unlike the grants office is readily available - can help me navigate these payments.  I am now reasonably confident that I can advertise for fellowship participants and successfully plan a workshop.

In previous years we have encountered problems with UofH's participation; this is included below for reference.

Unforeseen circumstances have resulted in UofH no longer being able to participate in this project, where UofH will not use their Y3 money for this award to NSF (which was the year that the money went to them for workshops) and any unspent other funds. Each institute has two key roles so the impact on the project has two parts: material development and hosting a workshop in a certain year of the award. UofH will return the money to NSF as they have been unable to subaward the money to Rice.

Material development: Due to personnel turnover, UofH will not be able to develop material in Y3 (and part of Y2) of the award, which means that the total material development for advanced cybertraining. However, this has had only a small impact on Y2 as partnerships with other entities (CoDaS/FIRST-HEP) and our pay-it-forward fellowship model during the pandemic has resulted in more total material enabled by the project than we expected. This can be seen in our ability to run
a multiday workshop consisting of trained analysts. CU Denver will continue with material development planned in Y4. 

Workshops: Due to the pandemic, we had Y1 underspend where the rate of spend for smaller workshops with our pay-it forward fellowships was naturally lower than a big workshop in terms of participant support. CU Denver plans to spend its remaining workshop funds during the no-cost extension. 

## Changes that have significant impact on expenditures

Rather than budgeting for a subcontract to build the website, we are instead putting this money into student salary.  We are able to more easily spend money within the institution, so this way the website will be able to be built within the time of this grant.


## Evaluation
