February 2022 Newsletter

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 week is Love Data Week. As you may know, the BEAR team offer the Research Data Store to hold your research data safely on campus, we want to make sure your precious resource is well looked after! But did you also know that we can help and advise on your Research Data Management queries? The UK Data Service has a wealth of information on managing your data, including a YouTube channel of their previous events. Worth checking out! #LoveDataWeek

In this newsletter we cover:

Adding Software to PURE
Coding Club Update
Software Carpentry Training
Working Offline on the RDS
Recruiting for New Posts in Advanced Research Computing
UCL Careers in HPC Day for Undergraduates
Virtual BEAR Drop-in Sessions

Adding Software to PURE

UoB uses the PURE Research Information System to register and link together its research outputs, including software. This data can then be searched for via any web browser. To do this a record is created in PURE for all data sets deposited in the UoB eData Repository and external repositories irrespective of whether they are closed or open. You can find out how to add software to your PURE record here.

Coding Club Update

It was great to see so many of you attending our first two Coding Club sessions in January and February. Our next session will be in early April focussing on R, as this is a popular topic with our attendees. Date to be announced soon! If you are interested in presenting a case study on how you use R in your research, please get in touch with us via bearinfo@contacts.bham.ac.uk. Our Canvas course has the video recordings and slides from the January & February sessions.

Software Carpentry Training

We have scheduled an additional Python training course on 15^th & 16^th March. There are also a few places available on the Git (1^st March) and R (21^st/22^nd March) courses. For more information and a booking link see our training website.

Working Offline on the RDS

To prevent problems with data syncing, please ensure that you do not set your RDS to be available offline. If you require any assistance with turning this setting off then please log a ticket with www.itservicedesk.bham.ac.uk Please note that if you have worked on these files, then you must ensure you can make a backup of this before making any changes. For further information please review our blog post https://blog.bham.ac.uk/bear/2020/06/10/syncing-issues-with-working-offline-on-the-research-data-store

Recruiting for New Posts in Advanced Research Computing

We’re expanding the Advanced Research Computing team and are currently recruiting for two new posts – the closing date for both is the 28^th February. We are advertising for a new Research Applications Specialist to install and support HPC software running on our BEAR and Baskerville supercomputers – this is a Grade 7, fixed-term role which could suit a recent graduate with relevant work experience. The second role is for a Senior Engineer to join our Architecture, Infrastructure and Systems Group – this is a Grade 8, permanent role. Both roles offer flexible, hybrid working in a welcoming, supportive team – please spread the word!

UCL Careers in HPC Day for Undergraduates

UCL are holding an online Careers day on Friday 18^th February for students interested in a career in HPC. As the Careers Showcase is online it has been opened up to all interested students, speakers include recent BEAR Alumnus Simon Thompson and our current Research Software Group Leader Andrew (Ed) Edmondson. Further details and booking available here - please forward on to any undergraduate students who may be interested.

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 where to store your research data.

Current dates are listed here and below:

Friday 18^th February 10:00 - 11:00
Monday 28^th February 13:30 – 14:30
Tuesday 15^th March 10:00 – 11:00

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 January's newsletter here.