Opening the Science Gateway: Lessons from the Materials Project Workshop

The Materials Project (MP) has served as an effec- tive dissemination platform for computational materials science data for nearly 8 years. In its capacity as a Science Gateway, it serves over 50,000 users from around the world with data on over 70,000 crystalline materials. In recent years, MP’s growing popularity has been facilitated by educational resources devel- oped by its core team and diligently maintained documentation of the methodology and provenance associated with its data. In this report, we highlight a recent effort by MP to standardize a set of educational materials for its user base in its annualMaterials Project Workshop, which was conducted in the summers of 2016 and 2017 and will be hosted again in August, 2018. More specifically, we describe our insights on how organization of material, presentation format, formative assessment, and active learning were integrated to produce an effective educational experience for our attendees. We also highlight the lessons we’ve learned, in the hopes other Science Gateway efforts may draw on our experiences in crafting their own educational and training resources.