April 2024 CaRCC People Network and other Community Calls

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

If you’re not on our mailing lists, join the People Network and join our Slack channels.

CaRCC People Network Calls

Data-Facing Track (1st Tuesdays)

Tue 4/2, 1p ET/ 12p CT/ 11a MT/ 10a PT
ICPSR: A Partner in Social Research
As one of the world’s oldest and largest data archives for social and behavioral sciences, ICPSR strives to assist researchers throughout the lifecycle of their projects. Typically known for its catalog of almost 20,000 data collections for secondary analysis or the Summer Program in Quantitative Methods, ICPSR also provides resources for creating data management and sharing plans, tools to assist in primary research, and help in meeting federal data sharing requirements. This workshop will introduce (1) the variety of resources available, (2) the types of data in the catalog and how to access them (both public and restricted), and (3) the ways in which professional curation staff can add value in sharing and preserving your research data.   

Presenter: Lynette Hoelter:  Lynette is an archivist at ICPSR where she serves as director of Instructional Resources, the Consortium Social Sciences Archive, and the National Archive of Data on Arts and Culture (NADAC). Until recently, she also co-led the effort to support federal statistical agencies as they standardize the discovery and application processes for their restricted microdata (ResearchDataGov.org). Common across Lynette’s work is the desire to help individuals find, access, and use the data that best fit their needs and to foster quantitative literacy in students and others. Lynette has a Ph.D. in sociology from Penn State University. 

Strategy and Policy-Facing Track (1st Wednesdays)

Wed 4/3, 12pm ET/ 11am CT/ 10am MT/ 9am PT/ 7am HT
CASC AND CNI Spring Meetings Recap
We’ll hear from folks who have gone to two important spring meetings and conferences: CASC (The Coalition for Academic Scientific Computation – agenda) and CNI (The Coalition for Networked Information – agenda). We’ve invited a few speakers to do brief talks to make folks aware of the content and interesting discussions that happened at the event. Both of these meetings cover important topics for the community, and since attendance at each is somewhat limited we want to share out and discuss what folks heard.

Researcher-Facing Track (2nd Thursdays)

Thu 4/11, 1p ET/ 12p CT/ 11a MT/ 10a PT
Generative Artificial Intelligence Tools: A Panel Discussion – Currently Seeking Speakers
Many of us are grappling with how to implement generative artificial intelligence (AI) tools, services and policies within our institutions for research. For this month’s Researcher-Facing call we are planning a panel discussion to hear how some are designing services to meet research needs while mitigating institutional risk. Please join us to share your experiences with data requirements or regulations needed to safely implement AI Tools for your research communities.

Emerging Centers Track (3rd Wednesdays)

Wed 4/17, 12p ET/ 11a CT/ 10a MT/ 9a PT/ 7a HT
The National AI Research Resource (NAIRR) Pilot 
There’s considerable information out and about about NAIRR and Emerging Centers is providing a session discussing the NAIRR Pilot project: there are both compute and data resources available, the most recent allocations period had a lot of interest in getting more resources. Our call will be an open discussion of the NAIRR webinar (https://new.nsf.gov/events/nairr-pilot-webinar/2024-02-21) and NAIRR Task Force Report (https://www.ai.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/NAIRR-TF-Final-Report-2023.pdf )

Starter questions:

  • Is anyone in our community using or planning on using the NAIRR resources?
  • If so, tips and tricks for applying / approval / usage?
  • Collaboration around use / availability of resources?
  • Any one involved in the trustworthy AI component of NAIRR?

Systems-Facing Track (3rd Thursdays)

Thu 4/18, 1p ET/ 12p CT/ 11a MT/ 10a PT
Post Pandemic Supply Chain Challenges & Strategy Discussion
Beginning in early 2020 the world faced supply and demand issues for every product across the vast worldwide supply chain.  The COVID-19 pandemic brought the world to a halt on every level but by the following year in the US, most consumer products were back on shelves and we no longer had to ration toilet paper.  At this point four years later, auto manufacturers are mostly able to keep up with demand on new cars and we no longer find empty shelves at the grocery stores.  However, many of us are still facing challenges with purchasing compute and related components as well as replacement parts for failing equipment.  Some of these equipment delays are due to residual supply chain backlogs but others are due to larger demands in specific types of components like GPUs.  Join us for a discussion on these challenges, hear what other centers are doing as workarounds for these problems, and work collectively to brainstorm possible alternative solutions to what may be our new normal.

Additional Community Opportunities

Tue 4/9, 11a ET/ 8a PT (2nd Tuesdays): RCD Capabilities Model Office Hours – come and go as you please. Have questions about how to get started with the Research Computing and Data Capabilities Model?  Or are you already working with it and just want to discuss the process, or your suggestions for improvements. Zoom Session URL (Meeting ID: 381 654 7290; Passcode: carcc). Join the capsmodel-discuss@carcc.org mailing list or send questions to capsmodel-help@carcc.org.

Tue 4/9, 2p ET/ 1p CT/ 12p MT/ 11a PT (2nd Tuesdays): Join the RCD Staff and Student Workforce Development Interest Groups for a discussion discussion on training plans from early career RCD professionals and onwards (many topics may be applicable to students as well). Plan on a collaborative discussion on training plans, training resources, and identify any gaps in the resources.  We will cover training topics specific to RCD professionals and more general topics that can be leveraged by researchers, RCD professionals, and even offered as training by RCD programs.  The discussion will include techniques for in-house training such as micro-training sessions..  Zoom Session URL (Meeting ID: 867 2543 9159 passcode 165236). Join the Interest Group mailing list.

Fri 4/12, 12p ET/ 9a PT (2nd Thursdays/2nd Fridays): US Research Software Engineers monthly community call. See https://us-rse.org/calendar/ for more information.

Mondays 4p ET/ 3p CT/ 2p MT/ 1p PT (every Monday): The OSG Consortium and NSF PATh host weekly Campus Office Hours. Zoom: https://osg-htc.org/campus-office-hours-zoom. For more information, please contact Christina Koch.

Wed 4/10, 2p ET/ 11a PT (2nd Wednesdays): Regulated Research Community of Practice (RRCoP) Community Discussions. March: What You Really Need to Know About HIPAA Research. Please use this Zoom link, and contact info@regulatedresearch.org or Carolyn Ellis with any questions.

CaRCC Calls and Zoom

All calls will take place within a Zoom room communicated via email. Please help us keep these details secure (non-public), but feel free to share with a colleague.