The CaRCC Capabilities Model Focused Tools Committee has just released a new guide and script designed to support research computing and data (RCD) facilitators as they engage with institutions that have more modest or newly-emerging RCD programs. The guide is designed to help begin conversion about an institution’s support for research and identify key issues and opportunities for growth and strategic planning. The guide and script have already been used successfully with a number of smaller institutions, and we are pleased to share it for use by the wider RCD community.
This work was developed with support from the National Science Foundation under the RCD Nexus grant OAC-2100003.
Keep reading to learn more about how this guide was developed.
This work is an outgrowth of the CaRCC Capabilities Model, originally developed by CaRCC, Internet2, and Educause to help institutions assess their support for computationally- and data-intensive research, identify potential areas for improvement, and understand how academic communities view RCD support. As the Capabilities Model was being used by the community, we received feedback that smaller less-resourced institutions found it too complex and not always applicable to their RCD program. Based on this feedback, we held a number of focus groups, BoFs, and workshops to gather information on how to best serve these under-resourced programs. We learned that direct engagement and facilitation was often required at smaller institutions in order to level-set, identify needs of the researchers, and assess current support capabilities. The new guide and script were developed to meet this need.