User support

1. User support • Some issues for your information: • Documentation review • e-learning project Kati Lassila-PeriniCMS User Support CoordinatorHelsinki Institute of Physics

2. Reminder: The CMSSW documentation suite - CMS User Support – Documentation • WorkBook- twiki - essentials for everyday work, tutorials • Essentials: what everyone should know • Advanced topics: basics of different topics needed by many. • CMS Offline Guide – twiki - full details of CMSSW and its usage, for each topic: • links to the WorkBook items (WorkBook is a subset of the Offline guide) • description of algorithms and software architecture (end-users/developers) • instructions for analysis and validation • developers’ guide, trouble shooting, FAQ lists, code optimization and other common items. • Reference Manual– doxygen - release dependent technical documentation: • class lists • brief description of content and purpose of each package • default configuration files and sequences • release notes. • No software documentation should exist outside these documents.

3. The CMSSW documentation suite - status - CMS User Support – Documentation • WorkBook: • reviewed in February – the next review planned before collisions • feedback needed from physics groups for their priorities. • CMS Offline Guide: • ongoing campaign: Documentation plan • new: navigation bar with quick links to • data formats • standard sequences • how to access • major effort needed for chasing “orphan” documentation twikis and including them in the proper place • CMS wide twiki policy defined: • https://twiki.cern.ch/twiki/bin/view/CMS/CMSTwikiPolicy • some trivial but necessary rules. • Reference Manual: • Aresh working on including python files and cross-links.

4. Documentation review • Documentation campaign for the Offline Guide has now been going on for several months • some progress, but in general not very efficient • have not had the time to follow-up progress group by group. • Opportunity: Piritta Heikkilä joins the team as a technical writer • her efforts will go to the documentation. • Plan a documentation review for the Offline Guide one group at a time: • week 0: start up meeting with KLP, Piritta, convener(s), doc contact • setting up goals (depending of the situation) • conveners should suggest internal (to the group) reviewers (credited as a service work if a significant contribution) • week 0-2: the group makes an effort to have the documentation on the agreed level • week 2-3: review by User support & reviewers • week 4: follow-up meeting to assess the results.

5. e-learning project • A good part of our documentation can be seen as e-learning material. • KLP will participate in a continuing education course on e-learning • http://www.unige.ch/formcont/TIC.html • The course includes a practical e-learning project, followed and evaluated by the experts in the University of Geneva • The PAT project taken as the use case. • Goals: • learn about the possibilities • avoid common mistakes in general • put together a well formed e-learning package for end-users. • The time-scale: October-December.