Summer Schools

FAQ

My issue is not listed here - how can I get help?

Just send us an email to help@sharcnet.ca - we'll be happy to help.

Do I need to have an Alliance account to register for Compute Ontario summer school courses?

The vast majority of our courses do not have such a requirement. The courses which do require this list this as a formal course prerequisite. For the rest of the courses you can create a Compute Ontario Training account, then use it to register for the courses you want.

I can login to the CCDB website using Alliance account, but the account doesn't work when I try to register for summer school courses - why?

When you login to the CCDB website, make sure you check the status of your account - most likely it is Deactivated. For almost all of our courses you can create a Compute Ontario Training account, then use it to register for the courses you want.

The course is full - do you have a waitlist? or can you register me manually?

Our summer school courses do not have waitlists. Also, once the course is full, we cannot add people manually. What you can do is to wait till the summer school is over, then send us an email (help@sharcnet.ca) asking for an access to the course contents including the recordings from the live sessions.

Do I need to be from Ontario to be able to attend Compute Ontario summer school courses?

No. Any Canadian researcher can register for our summer school courses. This applies to Canadian grad students, some undergrads (involved in research), postdocs, staff researchers, faculty etc. You can be in a Canadian university, college, national lab etc. The school is named so because it is organized by Compute Ontario and affiliated Ontario HPC consortia - SHARCNET, SciNet, CAC.

I am a high school student - can I attend the Compute Ontario summer school?

No. The school's material is designed for researchers, and will not be helpful for high schoolers.

I attended the summer school course X, but I was marked as absent by the system - can you fix it?

We can help - just send an email to help@sharcnet.ca . For the future, please make sure to run the Attendance activity (located at the top of the course web page) at the beginning of each session - morning and afternoon ones.

How can I mark myself as present in the course I am attending?

You need to run the Attendance activity (located at the top of the course web page) at the beginning of each session - morning and afternoon ones. You should do it in the first 30 minutes of the session.

The course I attended has a Completion Quiz at the end - when is the deadline for doing the quiz?

You should complete such quizzes (and any other completion assignments) before the end of the summer school.

Will I get a certificate after attending your summer school course?

All our courses will generate Attendance certificates for people who attended at least 50% of live sessions. Some courses will also issue Completion certificates - based on Completion quizzes, home assignments etc.

When will I get the summer school certificate?

Gathering all the data for certificates generation is fairly time-expensive, so expect some delays with getting your certificates. This could be late summer or early autumn.

Will I still have the access to the courses I attended after the school is over?

Yes, you can still access the course materials after the school is over.

I am getting an error when trying to create a Compute Ontario Training account - can you help?

The following steps should resolve the issue (if not, send us an email to help@sharcnet.ca):

• Go to https://training.computeontario.ca/createcotacct.php
• Type in your email and click submit.
  • Your browser will now be Step 2 of 3.
• Check your inbox for an email from the web site.
  • Only bother with the last email received.
• Instead of clicking the link in that email, right-click your mouse on it and copy the link.
  • Why? Because if your default browser is not the same browser as you used with step 2 then clicking will not work. This is why I mention copying the link instead.
• Paste the link in the web browser you used in step 2 within 10 minutes of doing step 2.
• Now you can complete filling in the details for your account and finalize account creation.

When is the deadline for registering for summer school courses?

We do not currently impose such deadlines. You can register any time - before, during or after the summer school - as long as the course is not full. (We do impose registration caps with our courses.) Registering after the course is over can still be useful as it will allow you access the course materials including live session recordings. You will not be able to qualify for an Attendance certificate though.

I registered for the summer school course X. How can I attend it? Where is the video link?

• First you go the top page for the summer school. For example for the 2024 summer school it is https://training.computeontario.ca/coss2024.php (just change the year number at the end for other

years.)

• Next you click on the course you are trying to attend (this assumes you already registered for it.)
• On the next page, log in to the summer school site using either your Compute Ontario Training account (the usernames always start with "cot-"), or your Alliance (CCDB) account. If you have both accounts, use the one you used when registering for the course.
• Then you will find yourself on the course web page. The video links (separate for each session - morning and afternoon) will be located near the top of the page - the link Live Course Video Links.

I created a Compute Ontario Training account, but when I try to use it to register for courses it doesn't work

One common mistake is forgetting to prepend the username you provided when creating the Compute Ontario Training account with "cot-". For example, if you provided the username john.smith, use the following to login to the summer school site: cot-john.smith .

Are your courses recorded? How to access the recordings?

All are courses are recorded. The recordings are posted on the course web page typically within a couple of days. To access the recordings, you need to be registered for the course. If the course you are interested in is full, you can contact us after the summer school (help@sharcnet.ca), we will be able to register you to the course, so that you can watch the recordings and access other course materials.

I cannot find the recorded videos on the course webpage. Could you please let me know where to find them?

It typically takes a couple of days for the recordings to be posted. Once ready the recordings will be posted on the course webpage (section "Live Session Recordings" at the bottom of the page) and a message will be posted for all the participants.

Overview

Ontario Summer School on Advanced Research Computing (ARC) is an annual educational event for graduate/undergraduate students, postdocs and researchers who are engaged in a compute intensive research. The online summer schools provide attendees with the opportunity to learn and share knowledge and experience in high performance and technical computing on modern HPC platforms. Our summer schools offer intensive courses on a number of selected subjects, including

• Programming distributed systems using message passing (MPI);
• Programming shared memory systems with threads (e.g. OpenMP);
• Programming GPGPUs (CUDA);
• Common programming languages: Modern Fortran, C/C++, R, Python, MATLAB/Octave etc.;
• Debugging;
• Visualization;
• Cloud computing;
• Big data and deep learning;
• Domain specific tools.

Every year the curricula change to reflect the current HPC trends and ever changing needs of the Advanced Research Computing community. The summer schools include both in-class lectures and hands-on computer labs. Prerequisites vary depending on the sessions you choose, but all require a basic familiarity with the Linux shell, and most require a certain level of programming experience.

There have been annual training and education events offered by the three HPC consortia of Compute Ontario: SHARCNET, SciNet and Centre for Advanced Computing, for more than a decade. Formerly the Fall Workshop, the HPC Summer School was offered by SHARCNET since 2007, and was expanded to three provincial offerings (West, Central, and East) in 2011. Since 2022 the school became a single annual online training event called "Compute Ontario summer school" jointly organized and delivered by SHARCNET, SciNet and Centre for Advanced Computing.

Summer School 2025

The Compute Ontario Summer School offers a comprehensive curriculum packed with around 40 free courses. Delivered by experts in the field, these sessions cover a wide range of topics including Advanced Research Computing (ARC), High Performance Computing (HPC), and Research Data Management (RDM). With presentations and workshops available at introductory to advanced levels, there is something for everyone.

Registration is expected to open in mid-May. Stay tuned for more updates!

Past schools

• 2024 (Online) - Compute Ontario summer school.
• 2023 (Online) - Compute Ontario summer school.
• 2022 (Online) - Our first joint Compute Ontario summer school.
• 2021 (Online)
• 2020 (Online)
• 2019 (McMaster, UofT, Ottawa)
• 2018 (Western, UofT, Queen's)
• 2017 (Waterloo, UofT, Queen's)
• 2016 (McMaster, UofT, Ottawa)
• 2015 (Western, UofT, Queen's)
• 2014 (Waterloo, UofT, Carleton)
• 2013 (Western, UofT)
• 2012 (Western, UofT, Ottawa)
• 2011 (Sheridan, UofT)
• 2010 (Sheridan)
• 2009 (Sheridan)
• 2008 (York)
• 2007 (McMaster)
• 2006 (Waterloo)
• 2005 (York)
• 2004 (Wilfrid Laurier)
• 2003 (Western)
• 2002 (McMaster)