SSCC News

SSCC Annual Account Renewal The SSCC’s annual account renewal process is underway. The Social Science Computing Cooperative carries out an annual account exercise to keep our account list up to date.  If you received a renewal email, please follow the instructions to renew or close your account before June 1st. To renew your account, you should have received an email with a customized link that you will use to renew your account. Accounts that are part of the renewal process and are not renewed will be closed on June 1st. You Can Now Use ResearchDrive With SSCC Servers SSCC staff have created tools that allow SSCC researchers to access ResearchDrive from SSCC servers. That means you can write programs that process or analyze data on ResearchDrive and run them on Winstat, Linstat, or even the Slurm cluster. Using ResearchDrive has all the details. ResearchDrive makes 25TB of “free” data storage available to every PI at UW-Madison (i.e. it’s centrally funded, so we all pay for it whether you use it or not). Data storage has become one of the SSCC’s biggest expenses, so we encourage you to check out ResearchDrive and use it if it’s a good fit for your …

Open OnDemand Do you need the power of the SSCC’s Linux servers, but find a command line interface intimidating? Are you a veteran Linux user who still misses the convenience of a graphical user interface? Or do you just want to log into Linstat without having to install anything? Open OnDemand lets you log into the SSCC’s Linux servers using your web browser and gives you a graphical “desktop” interface similar to a Mac or Windows computer. Or you can start a terminal and use it just like you’ve used Linux for years, including submitting jobs to Slurm. Using Linux has never been so easy. To access OnDemand all you need is a browser–no need for special software like X-Win32 or XQuartz. Just get on the SSCC network using VPN (or log into Winstat), go to ondemand.ssc.wisc.edu and log in using your SSCC credentials. The SSCC Knowledge base can walk you through how to log in to OnDemand and how to carry out common tasks using the OnDemand interface but it’s pretty intuitive. We also have training classes available that introduce you to OnDemand and how researchers can take advantage of the SSCC’s computing resources. Matlab Parallel Server The SSCC …

Introducing Open OnDemand We are happy to announce a pilot of Open OnDemand, a new way to access interactive Linux servers. OnDemand lets you run all the same programs as Linstat and submit jobs to Slurm, but with a graphical “desktop” interface similar to Winstat or a regular PC or Mac. You can also start a terminal program and then use the command line just like you’re used to. To access OnDemand all you need is a browser–no need for special software like X-Win32 or XQuartz. Just get on the SSCC network using VPN (or log into Winstat), go to ondemand.ssc.wisc.edu and log in using your SSCC credentials. The SSCC Knowledge base can walk you through how to log in to OnDemand and how to carry out common tasks using the OnDemand interface. While this is a pilot, if all goes well we anticipate Open OnDemand becoming the primary way to use interactive Linux servers at the SSCC. Spring Training The SSCC’s spring training schedule is now available. The core Data Wrangling in R, Stata, or Python workshops will be taught in mid-January, between semesters, and online so you can take them even if you’re not back in Madison yet. Workshops are free, but …

Welcome to the SSCC We want to extend a warm welcome to all the new members of the Social Science Computing Cooperative, whether you’re a new faculty member, staff member, or graduate student who will use our resources for research, or an undergraduate taking a class that uses SSCC resources. What is the SSCC? The SSCC provides servers, software, training, and consulting to support researchers (and future researchers) who do statistical analysis. If you didn’t attend an orientation session, feel free to email the SSCC Help Desk, tell us about yourself, and ask what we can do for you. What is SSCC News? SSCC News is one of our main ways of getting information to our members. It comes out about once every two months. Please look over the email when you get it and then read the articles that will affect you. If you’d rather not receive SSCC News, email helpdesk@ssc.wisc.edu and they can take care of that for you. If you’re no longer interested in SSCC News because you no longer use your SSCC account, they can close it for you. October SSCC Training In October, SSCC’s training moves beyond the basics. R topics include data visualization and …

SSCC Training The SSCC’s fall training schedule is now available. We’d like to particularly draw the attention of new graduate students to the “Introduction to…” and “Data Wrangling in…” workshops in Stata, R, and Python, as these workshops are designed for you! You should take an “Introduction to…” workshop if you: Will be taking a quantitative methods class that uses statistical software you haven’t used before Don’t feel like you really understand the statistical software you use Plan to take an SSCC “Data Wrangling in…” workshop (unless you’re very confident you don’t need it) You should take a “Data Wrangling in…” workshop if you plan to do quantitative research and you have never taken a class that spent a significant amount of time on preparing real-world data for analysis. For example, you should be able to do the following quickly and easily using reproducible code: Given a categorical “education” variable with a large number of very specific categories, combine them into a small number of broader categories Given a data set of individuals grouped into households, calculate the household incomes and create an indicator variable for “this household has children” Given a data set of individuals and a data set …

Summer Training Schedule The SSCC’s summer training schedule is still available and the fall training schedule will be posted soon. As always it will include data wrangling classes in R, Stata, and Python and our regular workshop on regression diagnostics. Summer is a great time to fill in any gaps in your skillset, and data wrangling and regression diagnostics are two topics our statistical consultants see a lot. It’s also a great time to learn to use the Slurm cluster! Monthly Downtimes for Various SSCC Services Starting in June, our shared NVivo project server and our remote desktop gateway (for remotely connecting to your office computer without VPN) will be rebooted monthly during the usual SSCC downtime, which is 6-8 am on the Wednesday after the 3rd Tuesday of the month.  All of the services impacted by the monthly downtime are: Winstat Linstat WinSilo LinSilo NVivo project server Remote desktop gateway Slurm nodes are exempt from this list and are taken down for maintenance when not in use. SSCC Account Renewal The Social Science Computing Cooperative carries out an annual account exercise to keep our account list up to date.  To renew your account, you should have received an email with …

Slurm Update Usage of the SSCC Slurm cluster is growing rapidly: Slurm did more computing in February than Linstat ever has in a single month. But there’s still plenty of room for SSCC researchers to think bigger. Slurm users should not hesitate to put unused capacity to work. If your job will run faster with 128 cores, use 128 cores. If your job can use 20 servers, use 20 servers. If you aren’t using Slurm yet, think about how more computing power could enhance your research. Whether that means running models faster, converting tasks that run sequentially into tasks that all run at the same time, using bigger data sets, running bigger simulations, or something else entirely, we’ll be happy to help you see what Slurm can do for you. Just sign up for a workshop on running big jobs in general or Slurm in particular, set up an appointment with one of the SSCC’s statistical consultants, or read the new Guide to Research Computing at the SSCC. To make submitting jobs to Slurm even easier, we’ve created a Slurm Assistant to help. Just fill out a simple web form describing your job, and it will craft the ssubmit (Slurm …

Major Expansion of SSCC’s Computing Resources We are thrilled to announce that the SSCC will soon be able to more than triple the amount of computing power available to SSCC researchers, thanks to a Research Core Revitalization Program grant from the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research and Graduate Education and additional funding from the Department of Economics and the Wisconsin School of Business. We’ll also be adding powerful GPU servers. The new servers will be made available in the SSCC’s Slurm cluster, where they can be used most efficiently, and may be available as soon as this year’s holiday season (barring supply chain issues). We encourage all SSCC researchers to ask themselves “What new things can I do because of this new computing power?” We are committed to making large-scale computing as accessible and easy to use as possible. That includes installing easy to use tools like RStudio Server and JupyterLab, teaching multiple workshops on how to use the SSCC’s computing resources, and creating a new Guide to Research Computing at the SSCC. The SSCC’s Statistical Consultants will be happy to answer questions and help you navigate using the new servers. Please don’t let the idea of using Linux servers …

Summer and Early Fall Training The SSCC’s summer training is well underway, but we still have upcoming classes in Python, web scraping, regression and regression diagnostics taught in both Stata and R, and running big research computing jobs. Visit the training page for details and to register. Then in late August, just before the fall semester begins, we will teach another round of Stata, R, and Python classes. All are welcome, but these are especially valuable to new graduate students. If you are in touch with incoming graduate students, please make sure they know about these classes before it’s too late for them to arrange their schedules so that they can attend! Account Renewal Deadline Accounts that were not renewed during the renewal period will be disabled shortly. However, if you’re still at UW-Madison it is not too late to renew your account. SSCC Members should fill out the account renewal form. Drop-in users should email the Help Desk. You’ll know you need to renew your account if you suddenly can’t log in.  New Data Storage Hardware The SSCC recently purchased new data storage hardware, as our old storage was both out of space and reaching the end of its expected life. …