2025 Compute Ontario Summer School FAQ

All are courses are recorded. The recordings are posted on the course web page typically within a couple of days. To access the recordings, you need to be registered for the course. If the course you are interested in is full, you can contact us after the summer school (help@sharcnet.ca), we will be able to register you to the course, so that you can watch the recordings and access other course materials.

No. Any Canadian researcher can register for our summer school courses. This applies to Canadian grad students, some undergrads (involved in research), postdocs, staff researchers, faculty etc. You can be in a Canadian university, college, national lab etc. 

The vast majority of our courses do not have such a requirement. The courses which do require this list this as a formal course prerequisite. For the rest of the courses you can create a Compute Ontario Training account, then use it to register for the courses you want.

You don't need to do anything special - the system will record your attendance automatically.

No. The school's material is designed for researchers, and will not be helpful for high schoolers. 

The following steps should resolve the issue (if not, send us an email to help@sharcnet.ca):

1. Go to https://training.computeontario.ca/createcotacct.php
2. Type in your email and click submit.
3. Check your inbox for an email from the web site.
   • Only bother with the last email received.
4. Instead of clicking the link in that email, right-click your mouse on it and copy the link.
   • If your default browser is not the same browser as you used with step 2 then clicking will not work.
5. Paste the link in the web browser you used in step 2 within 10 minutes of doing step 2.
6. Now you can complete filling in the details for your account and finalize account creation.

We can help - just send an email to support@tech.alliancecan.ca with the subject "Compute Ontario Summer School".

It typically takes a couple of days for the recordings to be posted. Once ready the recordings will be posted on the course webpage (section "Live Session Recordings" at the bottom of the page) and a message will be posted for all the participants. 

One common mistake is forgetting to prepend the username you provided when creating the Compute Ontario Training account with "cot-". For example, if you provided the username john.smith, use the following to login to the summer school site: cot-john.smith .

• First you go the top page for the summer school. For example for the 2025 summer school it is https://training.computeontario.ca/coss2025.php (just change the year number at the end for other years.)
• Next you click on the course you are trying to attend (this assumes you already registered for it.)
• On the next page, log in to the summer school site using your Compute Ontario Training account.
• Then you will find yourself on the course web page. The video links (separate for each session - morning and afternoon) will be located near the top of the page - the link Live Course Video Links.

Send us an email to support@tech.alliancecan.ca with the subject "Compute Ontario Summer School", We'll be happy to help. 

Normally you should complete such quizzes (and any other completion assignments) before the end of the summer school - unless instructed otherwise by the teacher.

Our summer school courses do not have waitlists. Also, once the course is full, we cannot add people manually. What you can do is to wait till the summer school is over, then send us an email (help@sharcnet.ca) asking for an access to the course contents including the recordings from the live sessions.

BigBlueButton's (BBB's) browser and software requirements are:

• https://support.bigbluebutton.org/hc/en-us/articles/1500005215921-What-are-the-minimum-requirements-for-BigBlueButton

NOTE: BBB is used exclusively through a web browser. If you're having an issue, ensure everything is up-to-date and perhaps switch to use a different web browser, e.g., Chrome or Firefox.

Zoom's browser and software requirements are here:

• https://support.zoom.com/hc/en/article?id=zm_kb&sysparm_article=KB0060748

NOTE: Zoom can be used through a web browser or via its application that can be downloaded and installed. If you are having issues, ensure everything is up-to-date. If using a web browser, consider using a different web browser, e.g., Chrome or Firefox.

We do not currently impose such deadlines. You can register any time - before, during or after the summer school - as long as the course is not full. (We do impose registration caps with some of our courses.) Registering after the course is over can still be useful as it will allow you access the course materials including live session recordings. You will not be able to qualify for an Attendance certificate though. 

Gathering all the data for certificates generation is fairly time-expensive, so expect some delays with getting your certificates. This could be late summer or early autumn. 

All our courses will generate Attendance certificates for people who attended at least 50% of live sessions. Some courses will also issue Completion certificates - based on Completion quizzes and/or home assignments. 

Yes, you can still access the course materials after the school is over.