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HPC Carpentry Pre-Workshop Survey

Updated 7 October 2021

A much better starting point is here:
HPC-in-a-day Pre-workshop Survey

Survey Overview

HPC Carpentry is an unofficial, Carpentries-style suite of materials intended to ease the adoption of high-performance computing resources. We welcome feedback of all kinds, and look forward to seeing you on our screens.

Introduction and Purpose

Thank you for volunteering to take part in our research study, which is about understanding the effectiveness of our workshops. To participate in the study, you will complete a short survey about your skills and perspectives related to our workshop content before and after your workshop. Depending on your location, the survey will be 16-18 questions long and will take approximately 5-10 minutes to complete.

Confidentiality

Your responses will be recorded anonymously. Additionally, you will be asked to create a unique identifier. This identifier will be confidential to you and will help us compare your results with the post-survey. Your anonymous and aggregate responses will be shared with workshop Coordinator, Instructors, Helpers, and the HPC Carpentry Steering Committee for the purpose of understanding the learners' experiences, improving future workshops and providing in-depth feedback to allow Instructors to reflect their teaching strategies.

Risks and Benefits

There are no direct risks or benefits to you from filling out this survey, and no compensation. We hope to use these results to improve workshops for future learners.

You are not required to take this survey to participate in our workshop. You may quit the survey at any time or skip any item other than those required to correctly sort your responses.


You are not required to take this survey to participate in our workshop. You may click through to see what is being asked, but please do not submit at the end. Responses submitted without consent will be deleted.

  1. Yes
  2. No

Are you 18 years of age or above? Required.

You must be at least 18 years of age to participate in this survey. Please do not continue. Responses submitted by people under 18 years of age will be deleted.

  1. Yes

Workshop Details

In what country is your workshop being held? Required

For online training, please enter the country you are located in.

«short answer text»

What is the full URL of your workshop? Required.

The code combines the date (YYYY-MM-DD) and location of the workshop. It is everything after the final "/" in the URL of your workshop.

«short answer text»

Cut this question

What is the name of the machine or cluster of machines you will be discussing?

This may be in the URL, or in the workshop announcement materials.

«short answer text»

Please indicate your relevant fields or disciplines.

Choose as many as you like.

  • Agricultural or Environmental Sciences
  • Biomedical or Health Sciences
  • Chemistry
  • Aeronautical, Civil, Mechanical, or Nuclear Engineering
  • Chemical or Materials Engineering
  • Computer Science or Electrical Engineering
  • Earth Sciences
  • Economics or Business
  • Education
  • Genetics, Genomics, or Bioinformatics
  • High Performance Computing
  • Humanities
  • Library and Information Science
  • Life Sciences
  • Mathematics or Statistics
  • Medicine
  • Organismal Biology (Ecology, Botany, Zoology, Microbiology, etc.)
  • Physical Sciences
  • Planetary Sciences (Geology, Climatology, Oceanography, etc.)
  • Psychology or Neuroscience
  • Social Sciences
  • Space Sciences
  • Other

What is your current occupation/career stage?

Choose as many as you like.

  • Administrative Staff
  • Analyst
  • Commercial Software Developer
  • Faculty
  • Government Employee
  • Graduate Student
  • Industry Employee
  • Librarian or Archivist
  • Management
  • Postdoctoral Researcher
  • Research Staff (including Researcher-Programmer)
  • Retired or Not Employed
  • Support Staff (including Technical Support)
  • Undergraduate Student

What operating system is on the computer you are using at the workshop?

  1. Android or ChromeOS tablet
  2. iOS tablet
  3. Linux
  4. macOS
  5. Windows
  6. unsure

Wirawan I wonder if anyone would use a Chromebook or a tablet to connect. An artifact from SwC is that they strongly recommend against using less-capable devices to do the workshops, because in many cases they want to install & run the software on that computer. However, with HPC Carpentry, it seems like a less capable device may be ok for working remotely (as long as there is a SSH client or a web browser in the case of Open OnDemand).
Can we think of a reason why we want to record the OS?


Your Experience

The following questions relate to your frequency of use and experience with various types of software.

How often do you use specialized software with a point-and-click graphical user interface?

Examples include ArcGIS/QGIS, SAS/SPSS, Solidworks/AutoCAD, ParaView/Mayavi/VisIT, etc.

  1. Never
  2. Less than once per year
  3. Several times per year
  4. Monthly
  5. Weekly
  6. Daily

How often do you write code in a formal programming language?

Example languages include Python, R, C/C++, Java, etc.

  1. Never
  2. Less than once per year
  3. Several times per year
  4. Monthly
  5. Weekly
  6. Daily

How often do you interact with a formal database?

Examples include SQL, Access, MongoDB, etc. We are excluding file-based data for the purpose of this question.

  1. Never or unsure
  2. Less than once per year
  3. Several times per year
  4. Monthly
  5. Weekly
  6. Daily

How often to you use version control software?

Examples include CVS, Git, Mercurial, Subversion, etc.

  1. Never or unsure
  2. Less than once per year
  3. Several times per year
  4. Monthly
  5. Weekly
  6. Daily

How often to you use a terminal or command-line interface?

Usually accessed through Terminal on macOS or PowerShell on Windows.

  1. Never
  2. Less than once per year
  3. Several times per year
  4. Monthly
  5. Weekly
  6. Daily

How did you find out about this workshop?

Choose as many as you like.

  • Received an email or saw a flyer about the workshop
  • Read about the workshop in a newsletter or on university website
  • Saw the workshop listed on hpc-carpentry.org
  • My advisor or supervisor told me about the workshop
  • A friend or colleague told me about the workshop
  • Saw the workshop advertised on social media (Twitter, Facebook, etc.)
  • Heard about the workshop at a conference, meeting, or seminar
  • Heard about the workshop from a funding organization or program officer
  • Other:

Why are you participating in this workshop?

Choose as many as you like.

  • To learn new skills.
  • To refresh or review my skills.
  • To learn skills that I can apply to my current work.
  • To learn skills that I can apply to my work in the future.
  • To learn skills that will help me get a job or a promotion.
  • As a requirement for my program or current position.

Your Relationship to Code and Data

These questions are optional. If you prefer not to answer a question, skip it. Please rate your level of agreement with the following statements.

I am satisfied with my data management and analysis workflow.

  1. Strongly Disagree
  2. Disagree
  3. Neutral
  4. Agree
  5. Strongly Disagree

Having access to the original, raw data is important to be able to repeat an analysis.

  1. Strongly Disagree
  2. Disagree
  3. Neutral
  4. Agree
  5. Strongly Disagree

I can write a small program, script, or macro to address a problem in my own work.

  1. Strongly Disagree
  2. Disagree
  3. Neutral
  4. Agree
  5. Strongly Disagree

I know how to search for answers to my technical questions online.

  1. Strongly Disagree
  2. Disagree
  3. Neutral
  4. Agree
  5. Strongly Disagree

While working on a programming project, if I got stuck, I can find ways of overcoming the problem.

  1. Strongly Disagree
  2. Disagree
  3. Neutral
  4. Agree
  5. Strongly Disagree

I am confident in my ability to make use of programming software to work with data.

  1. Strongly Disagree
  2. Disagree
  3. Neutral
  4. Agree
  5. Strongly Disagree

Using a programming language (like Python or R) can make my analyses easier to reproduce.

  1. Strongly Disagree
  2. Disagree
  3. Neutral
  4. Agree
  5. Strongly Disagree

Using a programming language (like Python or R) can make me more efficient at working with data.

  1. Strongly Disagree
  2. Disagree
  3. Neutral
  4. Agree
  5. Strongly Disagree

Please share what you most hope to learn from participating in this workshop.

«short answer text»


Your Demographics

Thank you very much for participating in this survey. We appreciate your input, which will help us to create a diverse, inclusive and welcoming event.

HPC Carpentry strives for a scientific computing community that is an inclusive and welcoming environment for all. In order to further this goal, we hope to understand the makeup of the community and the experiences of individuals within it. The data from this survey will help us to assess the diversity of our community.

Do you identify with a gender?

  • No (agender)
  • Non-binary
  • Non-conforming
  • Genderfluid
  • Female
  • Male
  • I prefer not to say
  • Other

Do you identify with an ethnic or cultural group?

  • No.
  • American Indian or Alaska Native: having origins in any of the original peoples of North and South America (including Central America), and who maintains a tribal affiliation or community attachment.
  • Asian: having origins in any of the original peoples of the Far East, Southeast Asia, or the Indian subcontinent including, for example, Cambodia, China, India, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Pakistan, Indonesia, the Philippine Islands, Thailand, and Vietnam.
  • Black or African American: having origins in any of the Black racial groups of Africa – includes Caribbean Islanders and others of African origin.
  • Hispanic or Latinx: a person of Spanish- or Portuguese-speaking origin or ancestry and/or Latin American origin or ancestry.
  • Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander: having origins in any of the original peoples of Hawaii, Guam, Samoa, or other Pacific Islands.
  • White: having origins in any of the original peoples of Europe, the Middle East, or North Africa.
  • I prefer not to say.
  • Other:

Thank You!

We appreciate the time you have spent answering these questions. We will review your answers ahead of the workshop and keep them in mind as we prepare.

Be sure to check out our website, and follow @hpccarpentry on Twitter.

Our long-term survey measures the impact our workshops are having on learners 6 months to a year after completing a Carpentries workshop. If you want to participate please click on the "Participate" button below.