I have just returned from Oman, where I accompanied Geoverbund ABC/J’s student’s excursion. Actually, it was now planned to put the registration form for PASCAL online. However, I could not do everything necessary for it before my departure. So it’s always good to have an official deadline that you share with colleagues and an unofficial “very-very-last-it-has-definitely-to-be-done-by-this-date” one.

Our aim is to adapt both HPC training and hackathon as best as possible to the previous knowledge of our participants. That’s why we would like to know more about individual computing and modeling skills and the scientific background of the participants. To make sure that we ask the right questions additional feedback from colleagues, which take responsibility for the course programme, had to be obtained. Currently, our IT service department is setting up the final registration form.

E-mail to the graphics department (on the left-hand side) and result (on the right-hand side).

Also, the campaign poster is not final. This poster – a kind of advertising poster – is intended to draw potential participants to the HPC training, the hackathon and the accompanying program. It will be e-mailed around together with our announcement, whereby recipients will be asked to print it out and to pin it on the local notice-boards. That’s why I have written an e-mail to our graphics department just before I left to Oman, trying to describe, how the poster should look like. It’s great to have colleagues who can translate texts into illustrations! The poster is now – almost – finalized and I’m confident to put both registration form and poster online next week … which is my “very-very-last-it-has-definitely-to-be-done-by-this-date” deadline.

About Daniel Felten

Daniel Felten once was a biogeographer and soil scientist. Nine years ago, he swapped the field for a desk and has since then been involved in research management. He is heading Geoverbund ABC/J’s coordination office, located at the Agrosphere Institute at FZJ, which is organising the ABC/J excursion to Oman since 2016.