A free and open online course about Computational Materials Physics is now available from Ghent University. You can take this course in sync with our weekly feedback webinars (Sep 25 - Dec 11), or you can take it self-paced at any time of the year.

The target audience is people with no prior knowledge about DFT, who want to have a hands-on introduction. At the end of the course, students will be able to read papers that report about DFT results, and they will be able to make basic calculations with an open source DFT code. A general science education is sufficient as background knowledge. The approach is conceptual and hands-on, not mathematical.

The course follows a weekly pace, with the following structure:

• Watching a set of prerecorded lecture videos about the topic of the week
• Solving tasks related to these videos – in most cases, there is immediate automated or peer feedback after submitting the task
• Questions about the lectures and tasks can be submitted at any time, and students can answer the questions of others
• Unresolved issues will be dealt with in a weekly feedback webinar that is livestreamed (Sep-Dec). A video of the webinars remains available for those who cannot watch them live.

As an optional part, students can work in teams on a project. During the final webinar, the teams present their work.

The course website is at http://www.compmatphys.org. Note that there is still material being added: right now the material for the first 5 weeks is fairly complete, and students will find the other chapters being ready once the local edition of the course gets there in a few weeks.

Students from Flemish universities can take this course as a regular course in their program, for 6 ECTS points. For students not affiliated to a Flemish university, taking part in this course happens on an voluntary basis – unless your university agrees to give you credit for it (feel free to contact me if I can help about that). In any case, an inofficial honour’s certificate can be provided after completion.

Please pass on this information to students for whom this course can be relevant (those students will often not yet be subscribing the psi-k mailing list...)

Experienced DFT users/teachers are welcome to audit the course. We’re open to suggestions and corrections, as well as to collaboration. 

Stefaan Cottenier