Cybertraining: Pilot: Collaborative Research: Cybertraining for Earth Surface Processes Modelers

在一个快速变化的星球上可持续地生活是现代科学和社会面临的最大挑战之一。全球变化的一个关键方面涉及地球表面本身：通过滑坡、泥石流、洪水和海岸侵蚀等过程重新排列其地貌、土壤和沉积物。社区地表动力学建模系统(CSDMS)创建了网络基础设施，以实现对地球表面、其随时间的变化以及人类活动的影响的高级数字模型。然而，传统的地球科学教育通常不会让学生具备成为有效的网络基础设施用户和网络基础设施贡献者的技能。为了开发分析和预测地球表面如何响应环境变化和人类影响的创新模型，地球表面过程(ESP)建模社区需要一个平台来教授现代编程实践和高性能计算方法。该项目在地球表面过程研究所(ESPIN)为科罗拉多大学博尔德分校CSDMS集成设施的研究生、博士后研究员和职业生涯早期教师实施了为期10天的网络基础设施，在2020-2021年夏季培训下一代成为创新者。ESPIN的目标是通过跨学科、基于问题的、模式的使用和发展的“及时教学”来超越传统的以部门为基础的研究生教育模式。40多名参与者从不同的学科背景中挑选出来，明确为代表不足的少数群体保留了名额，他们在将研究代码转换为开放源码分布式软件方面获得了直接经验。ESpin主持开发了在线开放获取教育资源库中的课程材料。ESpin帮助培养新一代精通计算、综合能力强的科学家，同时完成社区科学的主要优先事项。因此，正如NSF的使命所述，该项目符合国家利益：促进科学进步；通过建设一支有能力的地球科学工作者来促进国家繁荣和福祉。地球表面过程研究所(ESPIN)是一个为期10天的沉浸式体验，面向研究生、博士后研究员和职业生涯早期教师，使他们能够利用最先进的建模工具在关键地球表面过程研究问题上取得进展。该项目的目标是那些将受益于关键知识、技能和工具的学习者，通过仔细、包容的选择程序成为更好的网络基础设施用户和开发人员。该项目旨在帮助在研究地球表面过程(ESP)方面取得科学进展，利用新的网络工具的强大和先进的能力，如Python建模工具。为此，主要目标是通过以下培训扩大ESP研究界成员对网络基础设施的使用：(1)提高他们使用网络基础设施工具、方法和资源的能力和信心，(2)推动更大的ESP社区更广泛地采用工具，以推进预测表面变化的基础科学。经验丰富的科学家、客座教师和软件工程师协助培训和指导参与者。ESpin提供最佳编程实践、数值方法、开放源码软件开发、版本控制系统的高级使用、编写单元测试、基于HPC的灵敏度测试和模型不确定性量化技术的实践培训。有几天时间专门用于研究和编码项目的协作工作。参与者致力于开发他们自己的代码，目的是使代码更健壮，并与现有的ESP CI框架兼容。对夏季学院的学习效果进行定量评估，并使用评估来反复评估课程材料的质量。ESPIN提供所有开发的课程材料作为在线学习和教学模块，并向地球科学界广泛宣传这些资源。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Living sustainably on a rapidly changing planet is one of the greatest modern scientific and societal challenges. One critical aspect of global change involves the earth's surface itself: the rearrangement of its landforms, soils, and sediments by processes such as landslides, debris flows, floods, and coastal erosion. The Community Surface Dynamics Modeling System, CSDMS, creates cyberinfrastructure to enable advanced numerical models of the earth's surface, its changes through time, and the influence of human activity. However, traditional earth science education does not usually equip students with skills to become effective cyberinfrastructure users and cyberinfrastructure contributors. In order to develop innovative models for analyzing and predicting how the earth's surface responds to environmental change and human influence, the earth surface processes (ESP) modeling community needs a platform to teach modern programming practices and High Performance Computing methods. This project implements a 10-day Cyberinfrastructure in Earth Surface Processes Institute (ESPIn) for graduate students, postdoctoral fellows and early career faculty at the CSDMS Integration Facility at the University of Colorado in Boulder in the summers of 2020-2021 trains the next generation to be innovators. ESPIn aims to transcend the traditional model of department-based graduate education through interdisciplinary, problem-based, "Just in Time Teaching" of model use and development. Over forty participants, selected from diverse disciplinary backgrounds with explicit slots reserved for underrepresented minorities, gain direct experience in converting their research codes into open-source distributed software. ESPIn hosts developed lesson material in online open access educational repositories. ESPIn helps to train a new generation of computationally savvy, integrative scientists, while accomplishing major community science priorities. This project thus serves the national interest, as stated by NSF's mission: to promote the progress of science; to advance the national prosperity and welfare by building a capable geoscience workforce.The Earth Surface Processes Institute (ESPIn) is a 10-day immersive experience for graduate students, postdoctoral fellows and early career faculty, allowing them to make advances on critical earth surface processes research questions with state-of-the-art modeling tools. This project targets learners who would benefit from critical knowledge, skills, and tools to become better cyberinfrastructure users and developers through a careful, inclusive selection procedure. This project aims to help make scientific advances in the study of Earth Surface Processes (ESP) that leverage the powerful and advanced capabilities of new cybertools, such as the Python Modeling Tool. To these ends, the primary objective is to expand the use of cyberinfrastructure among members of the ESP research community with training that (1) increases their competence and confidence with using cyberinfrastructure tools, methods, and resources and (2) moves the larger ESP community towards more widely adopting tools to advance the fundamental science of predicting surface change. Experienced scientists, visiting faculty, and software engineers assist with training and mentoring of the participants. ESPIn offers hands-on training in best programming practices, numerical methods, open source software development, advanced use of version control systems, writing unit tests, HPC-based sensitivity testing and model uncertainty quantification techniques. Several days are dedicated to working collaboratively on research and coding projects. Participants work on developing their own codes, with the intent of making codes more robust and compliant with existing ESP CI frameworks. The Summer Institute is quantitatively evaluated for learning efficacy and evaluations are used to iterate on lesson material quality. ESPIn provides all developed lesson material as online learning and teaching modules and broadly advertises these resources to the geoscience community.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.