Session 1: Professional Grid Certification
Kathryn Cassidy presented the current version of the Professional Grid Certification
Document to the Education and Training Community Group. During review of the
document discussion arose about:
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the way in which OGF’s role was being described in the document
what market was being targeted
the proposal of a Grid Professional Institute
Group members agreed that it was important to make clear from the outset that OGF is
not a certifying body. OGF is producing this document, can hold best practice workshops
and draw on expertise within the group, but OGF will not be attempting to make a profit
or to develop or define skill sets. The document offers best practice so that accreditation
bodies can decide to adopt this accreditation scheme, using it as a starting point. The
OGF provides a neutral space in which various stakeholders have the opportunity to
discuss professional grid certification.
Discussion also turned to the question of what market was the focus of the document.
There are references to “markets” and “major players in the market”, but this is
ambiguous and needs clarification. Future versions of this document will address this
ambiguity.
A final important discussion point involved the proposal of a Grid Professional Institute.
Members of the group believed that it was outside of the scope of OGF to establish or
recommend the establishment of such an institute. Instead, it was decided that this
section should be revised to focus on sustainability issues and present a number of
different possible models including the Grid Professional Institute model, or a model in
which existing accreditation bodies such as the ACM and IEEE take up the accreditation
task.
Action Points:
Document Revisions
1) Explicitly state in the document, at the beginning, that OGF is not a certifying
body
2) Define the market that is being targeted in this document
3) Replace the “Grid Professional Institute” section with a section on sustainability
4) Define the goals and target audience of the document
5) Rewrite the document's abstract
It was agreed that the document needs some refinement and will be revised based on
these discussions. In general, however, there was support for the idea of progressing with
this document and the group hopes to be in a position to submit it to the OGF editorial
process soon.
Session 2: National and International Grid Education and Training Policy
Malcolm Atkinson presented the current version of the Policy for Supporting Grid
Education and Training Document to the Education and Training Community Group
(ET-CG). During review of the document discussion arose about:
In general the need to get more input from other continents was raised, as the current text
is quite Europe-focussed. Asian and American input would be useful.
It was agreed that the Definitions section should probably be removed as the ET-CG will
be publishing a separate Glossary information document which can be referenced. Some
terms should still be clarified as regards their usage in this document, however, for
example, the terms “Cyber-Infrastructure”, “e-Infrastructure” and “Grid” are here used
relatively interchangeably and this should be stated.
Action Points:
Document Revisions
6) Make a request on the mailing list for input from continents other than Europe
7) Replace Definitions section with a reference to the ET-CG Glossary document
and instead clarify the usage of certain non-educational terms (which do not
belong in the Glossary) within the document.
8) Define the document's goals and target audience
9) Rewrite the document's abstract
It was agreed that the document needs some minor revisions, however, there was support
for the idea of progressing with this document and the group hopes to be in a position to
submit it to the OGF editorial process soon.
Curriculum Development Workshop Report
Elizabeth vander Meer then presented a report of the activities the recent Curriculum
Development Workshop jointly organised by the OGF Education and Training
Community Group (ET-CG), The ICEAGE project and the e-Infrastructures Reflection
Group (e-IRG) Education and Training Task Force (ETTF) in Brussels earlier this year.
There was some discussion on the notion of whether a curriculum should propose that
English competency be a recommended prerequisite. This had been suggested by some
members of the Curriculum Development Workshop but had been opposed by other
members. At the ET-CG session participants were asked for their experiences in
Education outside of English-speaking countries and the consensus was that English was
not required for Grid Education in most countries and so it was agreed that English
competency could not be expected as a prerequisite for any international e-Science
curriculum.
There was also discussion on the notion of core and elective curriculum prerequisites and
components, with a general feeling that it should be mentioned early on in the document
that not all components of the proposed curriculum were required core elements, and that
what aspects would be taught would vary depending on the discipline of the students.
A request had been made at the workshop for participants to provide examples of how the
topics in the curriculum would be taught to students from different disciplines. Some
participants of the ET-CG session also volunteered to help collect such examples.
Action Points:
Document Revisions
10) English should be removed as a recommended prerequisite
11) It should be made clear early in the document that not all proposed curriculum
topics are core.
12) Examples of how these topics could be taught in different disciplines should be
collected to flesh out the curriculum.
It was agreed that this was a valuable document but that it would require significantly
more work before it could be proposed as an actual curriculum. To that end a further
workshop was suggested to be co-located with OGF23 in Barcelona in June 2008.
Session 3: IPR for Grid Education and Training
David Fergusson presented the current version of the IPR for Grid Education and
Training Document to the Education and Training Community Group. During review of
the document discussion arose about:
The document is quite EU and UK centric and it was agreed that this should be made
clear early in the document, along with a request for input from other continents.
Some inconsistency in the use of the term “author” was noted and it was agreed that this
needed to be reviewed and changed to “copyright holder” where appropriate. Similarly
the terms used for users who deposit and download materials should be reviewed.
Two additional recommendations were proposed:
 The ability to search for materials by license type or to conduct searches with a
license type filter so that users can easily ensure that they only use material under
a license such as Creative Commons, for example, which allows republishing.
 A FAQ or short explanation of the potential issues for depositors. This would
explain common problems which might arise when depositing materials. For
example the author may not be aware that their institute holds the copyright for
materials that they have produced, similarly, they may not realize that their
inclusion of a portion of material from another source could pose problems if that
material is used under fair dealing terms as this would not allow them to republish
that material in a digital repository.
It was also suggested that a special note should be added about the IPR issues which
pertain to medical data and how these differ from those of other educational materials.
Action Points:
Document Revisions
13) Clarify the EU/UK bias of the document
14) Define the goals and target audience of this document
15) Review use of terms such as Author, Depositor, User, etc.
16) Add specific examples of problems faced due to IPR restrictions
17) Recommend a licence-type filter for searches on digital repositories
18) Recommend a FAQ for depositors
19) Note that particular issues relate to medical data and materials and that these are
not covered in this document.
20) Rewrite the document's abstract
It was agreed that the document needs some refinement and will be revised based on
these discussions. In general, however, there was support for the idea of progressing with
this document and the group hopes to be in a position to submit it to the OGF editorial
process soon.
Session 4: t-Infrastructures Experiences
Giuseppe Andronico presented the current version of the IPR for Grid Education and
Training Document to the Education and Training Community Group.
While the sections on GILDA, GENIUS and P-GRADE were written by representatives
of those infrastructures, some of the other infrastructure descriptions were developed
from notes captured at previous ET-CG sessions. It was proposed that representatives of
middlwares or vendors whos t-Infrastructures are covered in the document but but who
were not present at the session should be contacted directly and given a chance to review
the descriptions of their t-Infrastructures.
It was also suggested that Platform Computing be encouraged to add something on the
Platform t-Infrastructures as this would give us two industry participants.
Action Points:
Document Revisions
21) Invite representatives of middlewares and vendors whos t-Infrastructures are
covered in the document to rewrite their sections.
22) Invite a representative from Platform Computing to contribute a section.
23) Define the goals and target audience of this document
24) Rewrite the document's abstract
It was agreed that the document needs some refinement and will be revised based on
these discussions. In general, however, there was support for the idea of progressing with
this document and the group hopes to be in a position to submit it to the OGF editorial
process soon.