PEARC21 report: Building a shared RCD community resource

It’s almost PEARC conference time again and we’re looking forward to the Fifth Workshop on Strategies for Enhancing HPC Education and Training on Monday, July 11, 2022. 

That made us look back and remember some of the great things that happened at last year’s PEARC conference. In case you missed it, check out this report: Towards a National Best Practices Resource for Research Computing and Data Strategic Planning. It shares the activities and findings of a CaRCC RCD Nexus workshop that brought together Research Computing and Data (RCD) professionals to discuss leading practices for developing effective strategic plans for their Research Computing and Data programs. 

The 2021 workshop had three goals:

  1. Share the experiences of universities who are currently using the RCD Capabilities Model as part of their RCD strategic planning work, including lessons learned. 
  2. Discuss the range of RCD strategic planning models across the community and identify approaches to building a strong strategic planning practice
  3.  Work towards the development of a shared community resource to support strategic planning for RCD, identify potential elements of such a resource and a near-term roadmap for development

The report documents the workshop activity and findings, including shared observations as well as recommendations. In particular, it identifies four themes that emerged as “Desired elements of a strategic planning resource”: 

  •  A repository of templates, examples, and models of strategic planning 
  •  A collection of narratives and use-cases that describe successful programs 
  •  Examples and practices for communication strategies related to strategic planning 
  •  A program of mentoring and identifying expertise related to strategic planning 

The information and insights  in this report are being used to inform what we make available in our RCD-Nexus Resource and Career Center. Want to know more? Read the full report.