January 2023 - Physics-Departmental-Computing

Use of Software engineers in research and teaching
by David Colling 25 Jan '23

25 Jan '23

Hi All, I am trying to assess how best the Department (and maybe faculty) can best support software engineers both in teaching and research. This clearly depends on how they would be used. I have put together a survey for people to fill in at: https://forms.office.com/e/Y8kMh48hDm I am sending this to the computing committee in physics, the heads of the different labs and the DUS. Please circulate it to all the relevant people in your groups. This form will be used by other departments in FoNS. Please complete by *** FRIDAY 3RD FEB *** Best, david

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Does anybody still use OriginPro?
by David Colling 20 Jan '23

20 Jan '23

Hi All, I guess that the question is in the subject line. The college has been sent a quote for the license renewal and it is not small (not huge but not small). I know that we used to use in in the UG labs but believe that this has all changed to python now. Is my belief correct? Do any research groups use it. Clearly if it is widely used then we should renew the license but if it isn't ... Best, david

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Re: [Physics-Departmental-Computing] MOSS and Gradescope - plagiarism comments
by David Colling 16 Jan '23

16 Jan '23

Hi Tim, Thanks for these comments - some of the other aspects look quite useful. The part about previous years is something that we should talk to Ed Tech people about. I have cc'ed the list so that others can see your email and can comment. Best, david On 10/01/2023 16:24, Evans, Tim S wrote: > Hi David, > > After our discussion in the meeting I looked up gradescope and found the > following UK based discussion of this software > > https://www.elearning.fse.manchester.ac.uk/fseta/gradescope/ > <https://www.elearning.fse.manchester.ac.uk/fseta/gradescope/> > > Has some advantages/disadvantages bullet points that might be useful. > > Gradescope is much more than just MOSS so we might not want the other > stuff. For instance, it contains AI “marking” of assignments. It > generally reproduces all the structure of Blackboard/Turnitin reports > but for code. MOSS is just the turnitin replacement though it is more > limited than Turnitin. Not sure we need all that other guff or if it is > helpful. Perhaps it can be if we learn to use it. > > My biggest concern is that MOSS only checks code against what you > submit. So I submit all the code (now 9 years worth) to MOSS and that > works for me. Not sure it is possible to add this old code to > Gradescope when checking an assignment. So Gradescope does NOT appear to > compare code outside the one assignment, so previous years work is not > checked. Nor does gradescope check against github or anywhere else on > the internet. It is not simply Turnitin for code in that sense – I > don’t need to submit past reports for the same project, Turnitin find > matches for those (only trivial text matches so far). I find the most > serious problems are people using bits of code which was placed on > Github in previous years (I found 20 examples then stopped looking) then > changing the variable names and sometimes a bit more. I think > Gradescope is designed for simple code examples and to catch in class > copying. It is not designed for bigger projects (3^rd year computational > physics) where chunks of standard code reappear legitimately – you can > only implement Maxwells equations and Runge-Kutta in so many ways – but > where code is most likely to be copied from previous years. I also find > code in my 3^rd year course is too long/hard to check by eye. I have to > use grep to check for identical strings to be able to be sure. [Labels > and comments are the best as students forget to change those when > changing variable names though the best I found was a misspelt word in a > comment as they had changed part of the word that had been used in an > old variable name!] > > So I am not convinced Gradescope does the job I want. However it seems > to be the only option other than MOSS. Gradescope might be a partial > solution for others however e.g. cover 1^st year lab exercises. I’d > like to test the AI marking out, that could be interesting. > > Thanks for all your work with the committee > > Tim > > Dr Tim Evans, > > Senior Lecturer, Theoretical Physics group, Centre for Complexity Science, > Room H609, Physics Dept., Imperial College London, SW7 2AZ > > 020 7594 7837 http://imperial.ac.uk/people/t.evans > <https://exchange.imperial.ac.uk/owa/redir.aspx?C=esaZLh0UHEqt0kuUzGCfC2DJkF…> > > @netplexity http://netplexity.org/ > <https://exchange.imperial.ac.uk/owa/redir.aspx?C=esaZLh0UHEqt0kuUzGCfC2DJkF…> >

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Disappearance of H: drive
by David Colling 13 Jan '23

13 Jan '23

Hi All, My apologies for sending so much traffic to this normally very lightly loaded list. On Tuesday some of us met to discuss computing support for teaching computers. One thing that came out of this meeting, which I wasn't suspecting, was the reliance of some parts of teaching on the H: drive. At yesterday's H: drive meeting I brought this up but I hadn't written down the name of the packages and agreed to follow it up and find out more. I was going to only write to the people who were in that meeting to get the names of the packages but then I thought that it might be useful to send it to everybody in case there were other surprises that required the H: drives that I didn't know about. So: 1. If you were in the meeting on Tuesday and have software that required the H: drive then please let me know ASAP so that we can get support from ICT on how to deal with this (they are happy to help but will not be experts in the particular software and so may need your cooperation). 2. Whoever you are, please do see if there are any pieces of software on which your group's research or teaching rely that need access to the H: drive. If you find something then please contact me ASAP as the H: drives are going away - when is not clear but ICT are keen to do this as soon as they can and have already removed them (or made them read only) for some parts of college. Best, david

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Computing in teaching support meeting 15:00 today.
by David Colling 10 Jan '23

10 Jan '23

Dear All, Sorry that there is no ideal time and thanks to those of you who have moved other meetings etc. First the coordinates. I am only expecting a handful of people so anybody in college can come to my office (Blackett 505) and I will be using the VC set up there. Otherwise the teams meeting will be at: https://teams.microsoft.com/l/meetup-join/19%3aa4aacd8a744e4aeead6f43e3da2c… Background =========== We use computers for teaching, both in dedicated computing suites and in experimental labs. Computing Teaching =================== - We have 120 machines in a dedicated suite on level 3 and these are used to teach the students how to program (mainly in python). These are quite often in a mess - machines on the floor (about 25% of them this morning), keyboards in a pile at he side of the room and sometimes/often in a poor software state such that (for example) anaconda cannot be installed for use by the students. The default solution when this happens is to tell them to "try another machine". We need to decide who is responsible for the support of these machines and how we do it. Leigh previously promised ICT support, but it doesn't appeared to be working (or happened at all). - Need plagiarism suite for code. Have been using MOSS but that is now slow and overworked. Were promised Gradescope (which has a commercialised version of MOSS inbuilt) at the beginning of the year, but this has failed to happen so far. This is needed. - Looking to next year, we would like to automate so much of at least the second year computing, by getting the students to use git and to use code checking tools directly both in their IDE and in git. This needs to be built now for next year. - Review of software installed. Computers in teaching labs =========================== - We have computers in several teaching labs with different configurations. These are mostly windows but there is some linux. The problems that with these set ups are mainly the lack of timely support and this is compounded by the lab technicians not having admin rights (would not be needed if support was fast). Last year, we were 12 hours away from cancelling an UG course because the correct software (LabView) was not installed on the machines that it was going to use despite a ticket being raised to install the software a month in advance. We have other machines were a needed package (Geant4) runs most of the time for most people but not all of the time for all of the people. Again the solution here seems to be to "try another machine". - Looking to the future, we would like to move a to a world where there are series of standard build for the different labs that work for all students. - Continued support for Linux in labs. Anything else? ================ -????? - Project support? Best, david

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Meeting regarding support for teaching computers in Physics.
by David Colling 09 Jan '23

09 Jan '23

Hi All, On my list of actions from opur discussion on Friday was to set up a meeting to try to sort out the support for computers used in teaching in Physics. These include those in the computing suite and those in the different labs. I was going to try to set up a doodle poll for this, but my next 2 weeks are extra ordinarily busy (or this become ordinary these days?). So I am going to suggest a day and time and if the key people cannot make it then I will set up a doodle. So I am going to suggest 15:30->16:30 on Wednesday (11/1/2023). This will hopefully be a mixed meeting. While everybody is welcome, I think that the key people I think include Okan, Graham from the UG labs, at least one person from either first or second year computing (ideally both but ...). It would also be good if anybody else teaching a course that is heavily computer based can make it and perhaps Luke if he is available. I have a list topic to discuss but please let me know if you have suggestions. Best, david

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Fwd: Possible Collaboration with Intel and Lenovo
by David Colling 06 Jan '23

06 Jan '23

This is the mail that I sent to the staff list. As promised I am sending to this list as well as not everybody is on the staff list. -------- Forwarded Message -------- Subject: Possible Collaboration with Intel and Lenovo Date: Fri, 6 Jan 2023 09:39:54 +0000 From: David Colling <d.colling(a)imperial.ac.uk> To: ph-staff-dl <ph-staff-dl(a)imperial.ac.uk> Dear All, Imperial has entered into a partnership with Intel and Lenovo. While this is largely over the provisioning of HPC systems at Imperial it is also meant to encourage joint research ventures. This has been given the somewhat cheesy name of ICICLE (Imperial College Intel Corporation LEnovo). Intel are making an upfront investment of $250,000 in joint projects, however in our initial meeting with them, they pointed out that when they have done this with similar organisations in the past, this figure has quickly grown to a substantial number of $M. So I think that there is potential for significant collaboration here if your research fits with Intel's interests. I have attached some slides from the initial meeting and slide 3 outlines the 6 areas in which Intel are interested in collaborating. Please read and contact me if you think that your research interests fit into any of these areas. The next meeting with Intel and Lenovo is next Wednesday (11/1/2023) morning so it would be helpful if you have ideas that you send them to me by (say) midday on Tuesday. Best, david

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Informal Computing chat tomorrow at midday
by David Colling 05 Jan '23

05 Jan '23

Hi All, As I said in my previous email I suspect that there won't be many people around tomorrow, but do want us to meet if only informally before the FRCC next Wednesday. For those around in college tomorrow I have booked Blackett 532 and for those who will be remote there is a teams meeting booked in the appropriate team and the link for this is: https://teams.microsoft.com/l/meetup-join/19%3aa4aacd8a744e4aeead6f43e3da2c… The items that I would like us to discuss are: - Update from ICT - including HPC refresh status and other items (Led by Ellen and Andy). Not to include managed devices (next item). - Managed devices - we all know about this but there was some progress before Christmas which I think will be useful (led by Ingrid). Ingrid, if there is a current version of the document tht we discussed before Christmas then if you send it to me I can upload it to the teams site. - The management of teaching computers in UG labs and computing suites. This is something that we have never really satisfactorily resolved and with Leigh having left we might be able to make some progress on this. I hope that tomorrow we can start to set out a road map as to how we build a solution in this area. - RSEs - discussed several times before, but with a planning round approaching I want us to make progress on this and get something in this year. - Possible physics involvement in collaborative projects with Intel and Lenovo. - (only if we have time) FAIR data - continuation from previous discussions. I will upload the document sent to Mary Ryan to the teams area. This is to be discussed at RC on 14th of Feb. - (probably not enough people but) how do we organise the timings of these meetings in future. - AoB Best, david

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"Blwyddyn Newydd dda a" date of next meeting
by David Colling 04 Jan '23

04 Jan '23

Dear All, I hope that you are all having a wonderful break - I am - and I apologise for sending a work email in the middle of it. As you know we tend to have a Physics Computing Meeting in the week leading up to the the FoNS Researsh Computing Meeting (FRCC). The next FRCC is on 11th Jan 2023 so I have set up a doodle poll for the week leading up to this. As you know we tend to have the Physics Computing meetings at lunch time. The doodle poll is at: https://doodle.com/meeting/participate/id/dJy4zP9b I have invited Ingrid because one of the items I want on the agenda is managed devices. Nothing has caused so much consternation amongst the user community for many years but I think that we are reaching a good conclusion. Please send me suggestions for other agenda items - I have some in mind but I am sure that there are others. One last thing, something that Andrew brought up at the end of the last meeting. We know the dates of the FRCCs for the rest of the academic year. In the past I have have put up doodle polls for the dates of our meetings only a week or two in advance of the FRCC. My thinking was that people would best know their availability at that stage. I could easily either put up doodle polls now for future meetings or even simply set the dates of the Physics meetings (say) 1 week before the FRCCs. The reason that I haven't done so in the past is that those of us in large collaborations often have meetings that cause clashes introduced at a few weeks notice, however these appear to still cause problems even with the approach that I current approach. Anyway, I would welcome people's opinions as how best to organise things in the future. Happy New Year to all! Best, david

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