Author: Daphne McCanse

Join us for RCD Nexus Day at PEARC23!

Registration is now open for the second annual RCD Nexus Day, a one-day workshop and networking event just for research computing and data (RCD) professionals on Sunday July 23, 9am-7pm preceding the PEARC23 Conference in Portland, OR. It’s an official PEARC co-located event, and there’s no additional cost to attend. Connect with your peers as we explore the topics that matter to you and your RCD career, including:

  • Student and staff workforce development topics and practices 
  • Understanding the RCD Capabilities Model assessment tools, and how best to use them at your institution (details below)

The event will be held at the main conference venue, the Oregon Convention Center. Space is limited and last year the event reached capacity, so don’t wait to register! Travel support is available for those who need it. Just indicate your need when you register and we’ll send further information. 

Check back here for a detailed agenda — coming soon!

Continue reading “Join us for RCD Nexus Day at PEARC23!”

Student Workforce Development & Internship Survey — Please participate!

The CaRCC Student Workforce Development Interest Group invites the research computing and data (RCD) community to participate in a short survey designed to gather information about existing RCD student workforce and internship programs. Survey results will be shared via the CaRCC website to provide a centralized resource for computing facilities looking to start their own student program or working to augment or improve an existing program.

Should you consent to participate, you will find the survey has two sections: A required short section that should take approximately 10 minutes, and a second optional section that requests more details about your program.

Your participation will help create a valuable resource for the entire RCD community!

Register now! Free Virtual Residency Workshop on Research Computing

Do you want to learn how to better help researchers at your institution use research technologies? Would you like to make professional connections and meet others working in the field of research computing facilitation?

The Virtual Residency Summer Introductory Workshop on Research Computing Facilitation is designed to sharpen your skills and connect you with colleagues. Registration is now open for the free workshop that will take place on Zoom June 26 – 30.

Continue reading “Register now! Free Virtual Residency Workshop on Research Computing”

CaRCC/RCD Nexus 2022 Retrospective

Greetings, research computing and data (RCD) professionals! As we usher in the New Year, CaRCC and RCD Nexus would like to take a moment to look back on and celebrate some of our community’s exciting accomplishments in 2022: 

To formalize and ensure community input and evaluation, CaRCC formed a new Advisory Committee and held its first annual meeting in January, 2022. The group consists of 12 members selected for their leadership and expertise within the broader RCD and cyberinfrastructure landscape. The group is instrumental in long-term planning as CaRCC continues a period of rapid growth. 

We ramped up the work of our RCD Nexus NSF Cyberinfrastructure Center of Excellence (CI CoE) pilot grant, and began to provide more resources than ever before to both the CaRCC and broader RCD community. The RCD Nexus website currently serves as the CaRCC Career and Resource Center. 

In May, 2022, CaRCC activity leaders, advisory committee members, and peers from across the RCD community met in Denver and joined remotely for a Strategic Planning Meeting. The meeting included discussion around CaRCC’s role in defining a framework for an RCD-CI professional society.

CaRCC has helped to facilitate the RCD Community Builders Group, a collaborative effort among nine RCD-CI organizations working together to support the community at-large. The group has been meeting monthly since March 2022. Additionally, CaRCC has formalized a partnership and collaboration with the CASC organization and had two meetings and presentations during which the groups discussed opportunities for collaboration. 

Continue reading “CaRCC/RCD Nexus 2022 Retrospective”

Make the list! Submit your RCD Capabilities Model Assessment by December 15

The 2022 Research Computing and Data (RCD) Capabilities Model Community Dataset participation window will close on December 15, 2022. Please be sure to contribute your assessment using this form before you leave for winter break!

We are grateful to the following institutions who participated in 2020/21 and would love to see your institution’s name join this year’s list:

  • Arizona State University
  • Boston University
  • Chaminade University of Honolulu
  • Cornell University
  • George Mason University
  • Kennesaw State University
  • Michigan State University
  • North Carolina State University
  • Northwestern University
  • Purdue University
  • Rochester Institute of Technology
  • Rutgers University
  • Southern Methodist University
  • Tennessee Tech University
  • The Ohio State University
  • University of Alberta
  • University of British Columbia
  • University of California Berkeley
  • University of California Los Angeles
  • University of California Merced
  • University of California San Diego
  • University of California Santa Barbara
  • University of Cincinnati
  • University of Florida
  • University of Guam
  • University of Hawaii at Hilo
  • University of Hawaii System
  • University of Hawaii West Oahu
  • University of Kentucky
  • University of Maryland, College Park
  • University of Massachusetts Boston
  • University of Rhode Island
  • University of South Carolina
  • University of South Dakota
  • University of Utah
  • University of Washington
Continue reading “Make the list! Submit your RCD Capabilities Model Assessment by December 15”

Help spread the word: 2022 Capabilities Model Assessment — Due December 15

2022 Research Computing and Data (RCD) Capabilities Model Community Dataset participation window will close on December 15, 2022. Please be sure to contribute your assessment using this form before you leave for winter break. 

Know of other institutions that might be interested in participating? Please help us reach them by passing this information along!

Continue reading “Help spread the word: 2022 Capabilities Model Assessment — Due December 15”

Certified Cyberinfrastructure Facilitator Training and Development (CCIFTD) BoF at PEARC22

Attending PEARC22? Don’t miss this birds of a feather (BoF) session organized by Henry Neeman (University of Oklahoma), Dana Brunson (Internet2), and Dirk Colbry (Michigan State University).

Thursday, July 14 from 9-10am in the Berkeley/Clarendon rooms

Overview: The Certified Cyberinfrastructure Facilitator
Training and Development (CCIFTD) program is a first-of-its- kind, non matriculated certification of professional development for CI Facilitators. CCIFTD’s role is to attest to proficiency in core skills needed for facilitating computing/data-intensive research, across all Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) disciplines. The emphasis is on crucial professional/interpersonal skills, and complementary CI technical topics. CCIFTD focuses on establishing both (a) the set of skills and (b) a means for determining whether a CI Facilitator has these skills.

Motivation: The CI workforce suffers from a critical deficit of CI Facilitators, the CI professionals who work directly with researchers to advance computing/data-intensive aspects of their research. a vital role at many research institutions. Currently, there is a clear sense of the nature and value of the CI Facilitator role, but no well-defined set of skills agreed upon by the CI Facilitator community at large.

Methodology: 1. Determine the skills that are most valuable
for CI Facilitation, by surveying (i) experienced
CI Facilitators, (ii) CI organization leaders such as
supercomputing center directors, and (iii) STEM researchers
who use CI. 2. For each such skill, develop a badge,
specifically a training mechanism, an examination instrument,
and its scoring rubric, via pilot testing at workshops and
online. 3. Construct certification pathways, subsets of badges
that collectively merit certification. 4. Test badging methods.
5. Evaluate the CCIFTD program, both formatively during this
pilot project and summatively at the end, to improve CCIFTD
as it progresses and to determine how successful it has been.

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.