Addressing HPC skills shortages with parallel computing MOOC

Abstract

The technical inflection points in the route to Exascale and the existing talent gap in Computational Science and HPC are well publicized. In this paper is described the development of a xMOOC format course with the aim at reaching a target audience composed of BSc, MSc and professional training students that have no experience in parallel programming, as one approach to deal with the lack of specialists that can tackle parallelism. This MOOC utilizes UCATx platform based on and linked to edX. Relying on the expertise of BSC Education and Training Team and UPC Computer Science Lecturers, was devised a course syllabus at introductory level. The paper outlines the design of the course and highlights some of the problems to deliver on-line courses on technical subjects while highlighting the developers' approach to tackle them. An evaluation process for the course is described and the current trends of MOOC courses are reviewed.