June BEAR Newsletter
Left: New Ice Lake compute cores. Centre: New Introduction to BlueBEAR Canvas course. Right: Call for Tier 2 expressions of interest.
Welcome to the BEAR Newsletter, bringing you the latest news from the BEAR team (Birmingham Environment for Academic Research), as well as other relevant computing and data-related news from both within the University of Birmingham and outside.
This month we have been pleased to welcome the delivery of 9,500 Ice Lake compute cores destined to support BEAR compute facilities, as well as a new member of the team, Gavin Yearwood, who will be busy building applications for Baskerville. We have just published a new Canvas course to help you get started using our supercomputer, BlueBEAR and we have a call for new Carpentries instructors, as well as pilot users for Tier 2 HPC facilities.
In this newsletter we cover:
- Opportunity to join the BEAR team
- NEW! Introduction to BlueBEAR Canvas course
- Call for new Carpentries Instructors
- Migration from BEAR DataShare
- Call for Tier 2 HPC Pilot Users
- UoB Open Research Forum Event
- CCB RNA-seq workshop
- bear-updates mailing list
- Virtual BEAR drop-in sessions
Opportunity to join the BEAR team
We have a new opportunity to join the BEAR team’s pool of Research Software Engineers as a Senior RSE, 3 year fixed-term. The work will be varied and challenging over a wide variety of research software projects, in a supportive and highly skilled team. Please spread the word to anyone who may be interested, further details here: https://bham.taleo.net/careersection/external/jobdetail.ftl?job=210000UI
NEW! Introduction to BlueBEAR Canvas Course
We are pleased to announce that we now have a Canvas course on Introduction to BlueBEAR, covering the same content as our face-to-face/virtual workshops but accessible anytime. The course covers the basics of how supercomputers work before taking you through specific details on how to run jobs on BlueBEAR, with some tips for more advanced users. You can self-enrol here: https://canvas.bham.ac.uk/enroll/LFRK99 The pre-requisite course ‘Introduction to Linux’ is also available as a Canvas course or face-to-face/virtual workshop.
Call for new Carpentries Instructors
Do you have experience of Git, Python, MATLAB or R and would like to help others by becoming a Carpentries trainer? We currently have funded places available to become an accredited trainer. You may want to gain teaching experience, and this is definitely a good addition to the CV! In return for being trained, we will expect you to deliver up to 3 training courses per year. If you are interested in finding out more please contact: bearinfo@contacts.bham.ac.uk
More information about Carpentries can be found here: https://intranet.birmingham.ac.uk/bear-carpentries
Migration from BEAR DataShare
We announced back in March the retirement of BEAR DataShare in January 2022 and we recently ran a drop-in session on options for migrating from BEAR DataShare. The recording for the ~30 minute talk is now available here (passcode: 4D2!3O=4). Due to increased demand we will be running weekly drop-in sessions for the next month, where we can discuss migration from BEAR DataShare with you (see below for upcoming dates).
Call for Tier 2 HPC Pilot Users
New Tier 2 HPC facilities (Sulis & Baskerville) will become available for pilot users from July onwards. As Birmingham is either a consortium partner or lead in these facilities, there is a dedicated amount of compute resource available for our researchers. If you would be interested in using either Tier 2 facility then please express your interest via the IT Service Desk, Other BEAR Request form.
UoB Open Research Forum Event
The Open Research Board chaired by Professor Softley have organised an Open Research Forum event for the week commencing 14th June 2021 (next week), with four sessions held over lunchtime. The virtual event series will focus on highlighting the opportunities of cross discipline engagement with Open Science through practical examples, presented by UoB staff and external colleagues. Further details and registration available here: https://bham-ac-uk.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZEtcuCpqjsuHdyMy56k0ue0ojP1CbMNL67S
Bioinformatics Workshop on RNA-seq Data Analysis
The CRUK and CCB bioinformatics workshop on RNA-seq data analysis is now available on Canvas, developed by the Centre for Computational Biology (CCB). The workshop includes pre-recorded lectures and a practical session on differential gene expression and pathway analysis. You can self-enrol using the following link: https://canvas.bham.ac.uk/enroll/96NTL9
bear-updates Mailing List
We just wanted to remind those who receive our newsletter via the bear-updates mailing list that this is an optional mailing list. Researchers can add themselves by logging into the identity database on https://bearadmin.bham.ac.uk/ (using the University’s VPN) and going to the mailing lists section. Alternatively, they can email bearinfo@contacts.bham.ac.uk and ask to be added. Please spread the word to your colleagues and PGR students, particularly if they would be interested in attending our training workshops.
Virtual BEAR Drop-in Sessions
We are running our virtual drop-in sessions via Zoom as it allows us to create breakout rooms to discuss particular questions face-to-face. You can use these sessions to find out more about BEAR in general and the advanced research computing facilities we provide or we can answer specific questions e.g. running jobs on BlueBEAR, using the BlueBEAR portal or how to migrate from BEAR DataShare.
Current dates are listed here and below:
- Friday 18th June 11:00-12:00
- Thursday 24th June 11:00-12:00
- Thursday 1st July 13:30-14:30
To join the drop-in sessions, email bearinfo@contacts.bham.ac.uk and we will send you the Zoom link and instructions on joining. Please let us know the topic of your query, so we can find the most suitable BEAR team member to speak to you.
Missed last month's newsletter?
Find May's newsletter here.