Developing a Sustainable Future for HPC and RSE Skills: Training Pathways and Structures

Despite the quantity of existing training materials, acquisition and development of the specialist skills required for HPC is not straightforward enough to address the needs of the growing and diversifying HPC community. To address this, the HPC teaching and training ecosystem needs to mirror the growth and diversification of the HPC community and related technologies. This BoF will explore the arising new requirements in order to identify further entry points to HPC and RSE skills development. It will also support the building of well-defined learning pathways that more accurately represent the aims of the user/learner community and changing technology landscape. The learning pathways provide two major benefits, first they encourage a shift from teaching topics in a linear manner toward concept based learning pathways that better align with adult learning models. Secondly, they are the next step in developing guidelines to make the training content more FAIR - findable, accessible, interoperable and reusable. Developing interoperable, citable and persistent training materials is key to creating personalised learning pathways that directly correspond to the training needs and job requirements of HPC community members, especially in the exascale era. This session gathers experts from several HPC and RSE projects and initiatives from across the world to lead the community discussion on the development of novel learning pathways. It will build on previously collected data and an understanding of community perspectives to advance the development of approaches to learning in the HPC community. We encourage everyone involved or interested in HPC training to attend.