October Line-Up of People Network & RCD Community Calls

Greetings to all members of the Campus Research Computing Consortium (CaRCC) People Network! 

Before you mark your calendars (and usher in October), we’d like to remind everyone that today, 9/30, the RCD Workforce Survey will close. Please take this important survey if you haven’t already, and please pass along to your colleagues — a wide range of research-supporting positions are among those whom we’d like to hear from. See the RCD Workforce Survey webpage to start or for more information.

Now, mark your calendars for these upcoming People Network Calls (Zoom details at the end). For handy calendar entries, please try the CaRCC Events Calendar. We’d also like to highlight other calls from our RCD Ecosystem partners and collaborators, as these events touch many, if not all, in our community.

CaRCC People Network Calls:

Data-Facing Track (first Tuesdays)
Series on Leading Practices of Facilitation: Part 1 – An introduction to the ACI-REF Leading Practices of Facilitation, and a Data-Facing perspective, discussion with Lauren Michael (University of Wisconsin), Deb McCaffrey (University of Michigan), and others TBA, and a community discussion
Tuesday, October 5, 1p ET/ 12p CT/ 11a MT/ 10a PT

In our October monthly call, we will hold the first of three all-track sessions focused on the Leading Practices of Facilitation, a ‘handbook’ for new facilitators from the NSF-funded ACI-REF project. We will start with an introduction to the Leading Practices, look at the different approaches that Librarians and RC support teams take, and end with a track discussion to identify challenges, current practices in individual institutions, and ideas for further developing the Leading Practices of Facilitation. We encourage an interactive and lively session, as this will inform the two following sessions.

Researcher-Facing Track (second Thursdays)
Series on Leading Practices of Facilitation: Part 2 – Improving our People-Facing Skills: Revisiting the Leading Practices of Facilitation
Thurs, October 14, 1p ET/ 12p CT/ 11a MT/ 10a PT

Written in 2018 by Advanced CyberInfrastructure Research and Education Facilitators (ACI-REF), the Leading Practices of Facilitation describe different activities related to Research Computing and Data Facilitation. While some of these activities are technical in nature, many are people-centric. In this month’s researcher-facing call, we will review the people-facing activities outlined in the Leading Practices of Facilitation, how our community can improve our skills in these areas, and review what researcher-focused activities might be missing from the current Leading Practices. 

Emerging Centers Track (third Wednesdays)
Series on Leading Practices of Facilitation: Part 3 – Research Facilitation for Center Leadership –  discussion facilitated by Jane Combs, Rich Knepper
Wednesday, October 20, 2021, 12p ET/ 11a CT/ 10a MT/ 9a PT/ 7a HT

Coordinated with the other tracks, members of the Emerging Centers track are encouraged to join the Researcher-Facing track call on October 14th. Jane and Rich will present ideas from that meeting and our group will discuss from the context of the Emerging Centers Facing – what elements of facilitation are critical to establish, how do we support facilitation with limited resources (especially TIME), and how do we encourage our teams to be better facilitators?

Systems-Facing Track (third Thursdays)
Network Troubleshooting: Techniques and Approaches, discussion facilitated by Eli Dart – ESnet & Brenna Meade – EPOC
Thursday October 21, 2021, 12p ET/ 11a CT/ 10a MT/ 9a PT

Troubleshooting multi domain connectivity and performance problems can be challenging, both in terms of problem localization and diagnosis. This talk will cover the structure of the R&E networking ecosystem, techniques and approaches for problem localization and diagnosis, and resources in the community – human and machine – that can be helpful.

And please also note these additional community opportunities (in no particular order):

US Research Software Engineers Monthly Community Call. October 14th, 2pm ET (2nd Thursdays). Please see https://us-rse.org/calendar/ for more information.

CaRCC Calls and Zoom:

Please contact the event organizer for Zoom details.

CaRCC and the People Network:

Interested members of the People Network need not subscribe to a particular track to participate in calls. Additional details for track members, including notes documents and any pre-call activities, will be distributed ahead of the call via the email lists and other communication channels within each track.

The CaRCC (Campus Research Computing Consortium) People Network, aims “to foster, build and grow an inclusive community (termed the ‘People Network’) for campus CI, research computing and data professionals.” If you have received this email NOT via CaRCC’s People Network, and you would like to join the People Network, which includes Researcher-facing, Data-facing, Systems-facing, Emerging-Centers, and other tracks, please fill in our mailing list request form and join us on Slack!