Category: capabilities model

August People Network & RCD Community Calls

Greetings to all members of the Campus Research Computing Consortium (CaRCC) People Network! Mark your calendars for these upcoming People Network Calls (Zoom details included in associated emails). 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.

Finally, we have brief information about CaRCC and the People Network. If you’re not on our mailing lists, please fill out our Join the People Network form; or join our Slack channels.

CaRCC People Network Calls:

This month we have a plenary session hosted during the normal time of the Emerging Centers Track (third Wednesdays), Systems Facing will also be holding their call in their usual time slot, the other tracks will not meet.

Plenary: Aligning Security with Research, an Information Security Panel Discussion

Wednesday, August 18th, 12p ET/ 11a CT/ 10a MT/ 9a PT/ 7a HT

This August the CaRCC People Network Tracks will join forces for a focused conversation on information security as it relates to research data management. This plenary discussion will bring together experts in security to address the critical needs of research cyberinfrastructure. We must find better approaches to partnering, supporting, and delivering cybersecurity to the research community at our institutions. It is crucial that we align our resources and policies to the research mission. Our panelists will address security controls and standards, best practices and lessons learned, which will be followed by questions from our attendees. Please join us for this important discussion.

Panelists:

  • Katrina Biscay – University Of Cincinnati, Asst Vice President Information Security , CISO
  • Tom Siu – Michigan State University, CISO
  • Von Welch – associate vice president for Information Security and executive director for Cybersecurity Innovation at Indiana University, executive director for the OmniSOC, and the director of IU’s Center for Applied Cybersecurity Research (CACR).

And later that day – many of us will be sharing all about CaRCC:

I2 Online: Supporting Data-Driven Discovery on Campus

Wednesday, August 18th, 2p ET/1p CT/ 12p MT/ 11a PT/ 9a HT

The Campus Research Computing Consortium (CaRCC) is improving Research Computing and Data (RCD) resources to accelerate data-driven discovery. Learn more about CaRCC’s tools, resources, and community-building efforts.

More details and registration here.   

Systems Facing Track: PEARC21 recap and community discussion

Wednesday, August 19th, 1p ET/ 12p CT/ 11a MT/ 10a PT/ 8a HT

We are looking forward to having community participation discussing workshops, tutorials and other topics that sparked your interest at PEARC21.  Along with discussing PEARC21, we are looking for interesting topics that you would like to see in future meetings as well as the SC21 SYSPROS, to be held in St. Louis at SC21.

And don’t forget about:

RCD Capabilities Model Office Hours: August 11, 11am ET and August 24, 2pm ET (2nd Wednesdays 11am ET and 4th Tuesdays at 2pm ET)  Have questions about how to get started Or are you already working with it and just want to discuss the process, or a particular aspect of the assessment tool? Join us to get help, ask your questions, and share your experiences!

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

Thursday, August 12, 12p ET: US Research Software Engineers Monthly Community Call. Please see the Get Involved page for more information.

August 13, 2pm ET, CI Engineering Lunch & Learn: The Video Industry and the Struggle with Standards, Phil Hippensteel / The Pennsylvania State University 

August 19, 3pm ET, Xpert Network Panel: Best practices for Computational and Data-intensive (CDI) Research. 

August 26, 1p ET / 12p CT / 11a MT / 10a PT, (4th Thursdays of even months) EDUCAUSE Research Computing and Data Community Group. For more information on the RCD group and joining this and future calls, please see the Research Computing and Data Community Group web page. 

August 30, 11am ET (4th Mondays of the month), Trusted CI webinar, SOC Type Two certification at NCSA. 

If you have something we can add to this section, please let us know! 

General Track Call Information:

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.

Join the EPSCoR CI Working Group exploring CI/RCD access for emerging and under-funded institutions!

Greetings, CaRCC members, from all of us in the newly formed EPSCoR CI Working Group (WG)!  Our work centers around recognition that increased access to cyberinfrastructure (CI) and associated best practices is the next challenge for emerging and under-resourced institutions. The National Science Foundation recently funded an effort (award #2033483) designed to boost awareness, communication, and partnerships using CaRCC-driven assessment and planning tools. Led by the University of Hawai’i, in collaboration with institutional partners from Alaska, Mississippi, Montana, and Nevada, the project advocates for broad use of the Research Computing and Data Capabilities Model (RCD CM) assessment tool across the nation’s Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR) jurisdictions and other emerging or under-resourced institutions (interested? Contact us).  Assessment data will be used by participating institutions in training efforts centered on CI strategic planning and partnership development.  Assessment and training activities will culminate in a workshop to be held in conjunction with the NSF EPSCoR National Conference in Portland, Maine, May 22–25, 2022.  An open access report, publication and related outreach activities will be made available to share findings and planning and partnership initiatives and opportunities. Check back on the working group site to keep up with our work. 

CaRCC Activities at PEARC21

Greetings to members of the Campus Research Computing (CaRCC) Communities!

The PEARC21 Virtual Conference (July 19-22) is almost here. Be sure to attend the many great workshops, tutorials, presentations, and panels from persons in the community. And here are some of the CaRCC-related activities you won’t want to miss:

Town Hall

Panel: Campus Research Computing Consortium (CaRCC) Town Hall
Wednesday July 21st, 9:20 AM – 10:50 AM PDT
Thomas Cheatham, University of Utah; Dana Brunson, Internet2;  Ruth Marinshaw, Stanford University; Lauren Michael, University of Wisconsin-Madison; Claire Mizumoto, UC San Diego; Patrick Schmitz, Semper Cogito; Scott Yockel, Harvard University

This panel will gather CaRCC leaders and community members to discuss recent products and significant activities that CaRCC has supported as well as new initiatives for 2021 and beyond. CaRCC is always interested to hear the concerns of our community and their ideas for what CaRCC (in partnership with other community organizations) can do to better support RCD Professionals.

RCD Capabilities Model

Workshop: Building a Strategic Plan for your Research Computing and Data Program
Monday July 19th, 8:00 am – 11:00 am (PT)
Dana Brunson, Internet2; Doug Jennewein, Arizona State University; Claire Mizumoto, UC San Diego; Patrick Schmitz, Semper Cogito; Scotty Strachan, University of Nevada, Reno

This workshop will gather Research Computing and Data (RCD) professionals to learn leading practices for developing effective strategic plans for their Research Computing and Data programs. Attendees will discuss the range of RCD strategic planning models across the community, and approaches to building a strong strategic planning practice.

Paper: Assessing the Landscape of Research Computing and Data Support
Tuesday July 20th 9:50 AM – 10:20 AM PDT
Patrick Schmitz, Semper Cogito

We describe the first Research Computing and Data Capabilities Model Community Dataset, aggregating the assessments of 41 Higher Education Institutions. This Community Dataset provides insight into the current state of support for RCD across the community and in a number of key sub-communities. The dataset shows stark differences between Public and Private institutions, between institutions with a larger and smaller share of national funding, etc. 

BoF: Assessing and communicating cyberinfrastructure readiness at EPSCoR and under-resourced institutions
Tuesday July 20th, 11:15 AM – 12:15 PM PDT
Scotty Strachan, University of Nevada, Reno; Venice Bayrd, Montana State University; Patrick Schmitz, Semper Cogito; Dana Brunson, Internet2; Pips Veazey, University of Maine; Gwen Jacobs, University of Hawai’i

This BoF, which is part of a series of EPSCoR-focused engagement events for 2020-2022, brings together RCD Capabilities Model Working Group members and research technology support personnel from NSF-EPSCoR institutions to review ongoing challenges to assess and communicate institutional cyberinfrastructure (CI) readiness, discuss current model engagement efforts, provide feedback to the Model development process, and brainstorm potential cooperative CI efforts across the EPSCoR program. 

RCD Professionalization

BoF: Quantifying the Research Computing and Data Professional Community for Attracting, Retaining, and Diversifying RCD Professionals 
Wednesday, July 21 • 11:00am – 12:00pm
Christina Maimone (Northwestern University), Scott Yockel (Harvard University), Amy Neeser (UC Berkeley), Ashley Stauffer (Penn State University), Kimberly Grasch (University of Chicago), and Timothy Middelkoop (Internet2)

Participants in the National Science Foundation Virtual Workshop on the Research Innovation Workforce for Cyberinfrastructure identified recruiting and sustaining a diverse and inclusive workforce as a key challenge for the future of the RCD field, yet no systematic data is currently available on the current composition of the RCD workforce. A breakout group from this workshop joined the CaRCC RCD Professionalization Working Group, and set out to better understand quantitatively the state of RCD staffing across the United States by designing, testing, and implementing an RCD workforce survey tool and using that to conduct a national survey. During the Birds of Feather, the working group will provide an overview of the current state of this work and solicit feedback from the audience on a number of topics.

Emerging Centers (People Network)

Workshop: Refining Your Research Computing Pitch
Monday, July 19 • 12:00pm – 3:00pm
Jane Combs, University of Cincinnati; Richard Knepper, Cornell University (Emerging Centers track coordinators)

This PEARC workshop is for professionals (center leaders, facilitators, faculty champions, etc) of existing or emerging research computing organizations (even those “one-person shops”) to get feedback on and develop their communication materials. We hope through this workshop to provide a clearing-house of template materials that will make campus outreach easier for research computing professionals, which can be reviewed and improved by participants over time.

July People Network/RCD Community Calls and RCD Survey

Greetings, members of the Campus Research Computing Consortium (CaRCC) People Network and beyond! 

Before you mark your calendars, I want to make sure you saw the opportunity to participate in a study of the Research Computing and Data Workforce.  Please also share this with others on your teams and relevant communities: 

Mark your calendars for these upcoming People Network Calls. 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.

Finally, we have brief information about CaRCC and the People Network. If you’re not on our mailing lists, please fill out our Join the People Network form

CaRCC People Network Calls:

Data-Facing Track (first Tuesdays)

Digital Preservation and Access at Scale: Managing the HathiTrust Digital Library, discussion facilitated by Aaron Elkiss (HathiTrust)

Tue, July 6, 1p ET/ 12p CT/ 11a MT/ 10a PT/ 8a HT

Founded in 2008, HathiTrust is a not-for-profit collaborative of academic and research libraries preserving 17+ million digitized items comprising over 1PB of digitized images and OCR text. HathiTrust offers reading access to the fullest extent allowable by U.S. copyright law, computational access to the entire corpus for scholarly research, and other emerging services based on the combined collection. This presentation will give an overview of HathiTrust, the data we hold, and the services we provide. It will then describe our storage architecture, our workflows for managing data coming into the repository, our strategies for ensuring long-term preservation of this material, and conclude with some of the unmet challenges of data management that HathiTrust faces.

Researcher-Facing Track (second Thursdays)

Building Teams with Graduate Student Research Facilitators

Thur, July 8, 1p ET/ 12p CT/ 11a MT/ 10a PT/ 8a HT

There are many approaches to building teams to work directly with researchers in order to facilitate their data and computing needs. One approach is to hire graduate student consultants who are situated as researchers themselves in specific domains. Please join us for a presentation from Northwestern University and the University of California Berkeley, two universities who take this approach. First we will hear from an organizational perspective and then directly from grad students who are on these teams about the types of projects students work on, defining the work and setting expectations with faculty, recruitment and hiring, and securing funding.  

Presenters: 

  • Heather Amato, University of California Berkeley
  • Amy Neeser, University of California Berkeley 
  • Dan Turner, Northwestern University
  • Colby Witherup Wood, Northwestern University
Emerging Centers Track (third Wednesdays)

We will pause for the month of July for the PEARC21 Conference, July 19 – 22. 

Systems-Facing Track (third Thursdays)

We will pause for the month of July for the PEARC21 Conference, July 19 – 22. 

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

RCD Capabilities Model Office Hours:  July 14, 11am ET and July 27, 2pm ET (2nd Wednesdays 11am ET and 4th Tuesdays at 2pm ET)

July 1, 1pm ET: Internet2 Community Voices Series: Sustaining Integrated Solutions for Accelerating Science with Science Gateways with Sandra Gesing, Marlong Pierce, Mike Zentner, Kyle Chard, and Nancy Maron. 

July 8, 12pm ET: US Research Software Engineers Monthly Community Call. Please see the Get Involved page for more information.

July 15, 3pm ET, Xpert Network Panel: Best practices for Computational and Data-intensive (CDI) Research. 

July 16, 2021, 2pm ET, CI Engineering Lunch & Learn:: University of Michigan Software Interns – “Developing perfSONAR plugins with pScheduler’s Plugin Development Kit & Latency in the cloud: OWAMP & NATs”

July 19-22: PEARC21 Virtual Conference 

July 27, 2pm ET: IAM Online: CILogon: Your Researchers’ Link to Cyberinfrastructure Resources with Jim Basney, NCSA.

General Track Call Information:

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.

All calls will take place within the same Zoom room distributed via email. Please join the People Network (link just above) or contact help@carcc.org for details.

New NSF award for Research Computing and Data Resource and Career Center

We’re delighted to announce NSF funding for a pilot CoE to build upon the work of several CaRCC working groups and advance support for RCD Professionals.

The new Research Computing and Data Resource and Career Center will create tools, practices, and professional development resources to support individuals and institutions. The main areas of emphasis include:

The RCD Resource and Career Center portal will gather these and related tools and resources together to support the community. We will place strong emphasis on helping to bridge the gap for smaller institutions that are struggling to get RCD programs started to support their researchers.

We are also excited to continue the work together with the various organizations that currently support RCD professionals and coordinate our respective work to provide a clear voice advocating for the profession. 

 Read the full announcement on the Internet2 website.

Announcing the V1.1 Release of the RCD Capabilities Model

Internet2, CaRCC, and EDUCAUSE are pleased to announce that there is a new version of the Research Computing and Data Capabilities Model (RCD CM) just in time for you to complete your Institutional assessment and contribute to the 2021 RCD CM Community Dataset!

The Research Computing and Data Capabilities Model allows institutions to assess their support for computationally- and data-intensive research, to identify potential areas for improvement, and to understand how the broader community views Research Computing and Data support.

What’s new in the v1.1 release?

In response to community feedback, we have simplified a few things to make it easier to access and complete your institutional assessment:

  • A simpler Access Request form requires less information to complete. We’re now using the 2018 Carnegie Classification data to get your institution type (R1, R2, etc.), minority serving status, etc. 
  • A number of users felt the Local Weight/Relevance column was confusing, so we removed it, and incorporated a simpler variant on this elsewhere.
  • Many users felt that the Multi-Institutional Collaboration answers weighed too heavily in the computed coverage. We updated the calculations to reduce the impact of this question, and to give a boost (extra credit!!) to institutions that were sustaining or leading collaborations for a given topic.

The bulk of the Model and the questions remain essentially the same as in v1.0, so if you’ve attended one of our workshops or webinars, it will still look very familiar, and you can happily discuss your experience with everyone who completed an assessment in 2020!

Why should we contribute our RCD CM Assessment to the 2021 Community Dataset?

We’re so glad you asked! Contributing institutions help build the Community Dataset, and enrich the resulting picture we have of our community. You will also get an individualized Benchmarking report that compares your assessment to the community, and segments of the community (R1s, R2s, Public or Private institutions, etc.). Finally, you get access to the anonymized, aggregated dataset, if you really like digging into data. 

Sounds good – how do we get our copy and complete the assessment?

First, go to the new Access Request Form and fill it out. That will create an individualized copy of the v1.1 RCD CM Assessment tool for your institution. Then, read the Introduction and Guide to Use, and gather your team to complete the assessment. You can get help from the RCD CM working group by emailing capsmodel-help@carcc.org, or subscribe to the capsmodel-discuss@carcc.org discussion list (click here to join) to hear how other institutions are completing their assessment, and using it as part of strategic planning. You can also get help by joining our RCD CM Office Hours.

Here’s a timeline suggested by folks who worked on assessments last year:

In May: Get your copy and review the Guide. Think about who should be on the team that will complete the assessment (including, e.g., partners in central IT and/or the library). Your team can be just a few people (at smaller and emerging programs) or you could build a team with specialists for each facing.

In June: Your teams should meet to discuss the assessment, fill out most of it. Identify specific questions that may need additional input, and who can help with them.

In July: Review your assessment, discuss with your advisory board, and mark priorities for attention. We’re also holding a Workshop at PEARC21 on Strategic Planning using the Model. Watch the website for details!

In August: Submit your assessment to the 2021 Community Dataset (details to follow this summer).

In Fall/Winter 2021: Receive your Individualized Benchmarking report, the Contributors’ detailed Community Dataset report, and the full dataset if you’d like to dig deeper. 

What if we’ve already started with the original version of the Assessment?

Not a problem! It is largely the same, so just get a copy of the new one (as described above), and fill it out. With a little care you can even copy your answers over from the old spreadsheet (See our Notes on copying from a v1.0 RCD CM Assessment to a V1.1 Assessment).

Feel free to contact us if you want help with this to ensure your data is transferred correctly.

2021 RCD Capabilities Model Office Hours

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 a particular aspect of the assessment tool? Join working group members and your colleagues in the community at one of our upcoming Office Hours to get help, ask your questions, and share your experiences!

Office Hours for 2021 are scheduled for the:

2nd Wednesdays of each month for 1 hour at 11am ET (new)

4th Tuesday of each month for 1 hour, at 2 pm ET.

Those dates are:

  • April 27
  • May 25
  • June 22
  • July 14 and 27
  • August 11 and 24
  • September 8 and 28
  • October 13 and 26
  • November 10 and 23

For details on how to join, email the RCD CM working group at capsmodel-help@carcc.org, or subscribe to the capsmodel-discuss@carcc.org discussion list.

2020 RCD CM Community Dataset report available

Scatter Plot showing the capabilities coverage for all 41 institutions

The report describes the first Research Computing and Data Capabilities Model Community Dataset, aggregating the assessments of 41 Higher Education Institutions. These assessments were completed using the 1.0 version of the Research Computing and Data Capabilities Model (RCD CM), over a period of several months in the Spring and Summer of 2020. This Community Dataset provides insight into the current state of support for RCD across the community and in a number of key sub-communities. Download it now! (zenodo.org/record/4344057).

The Research Computing and Data Capabilities Model allows institutions to assess their support for computationally- and data-intensive research, to identify potential areas for improvement, and to understand how the broader community views Research Computing and Data support. The Model was developed by a diverse group of institutions with a range of support models, in a collaboration among Internet2, CaRCC, and EDUCAUSE. This Assessment Tool is designed for use by a range of roles at each institution, from front-line support through campus leadership, and is intended to be inclusive across small and large, and public and private institutions. 

We encourage you to check out the Capabilities Model, and begin to use it at your institution. Start with the Capabilities Model Introduction and Guide to Use, which includes background as well as tips for using the model, and a link to the access request form that will create a personalized copy of the Assessment Tool for your institution.  You can also watch the recording of the EDUCAUSE webinar. Keep an eye on the RCD CM working group page for more information and updates.

Capabilities Model Data Submission Deadline Extended to Sept 27, 2020!

Thanks to all the attendees and participants in the Capabilities Model activities at PEARC this year!

Following the CaRCC Town Hall, the Caps Model paper presentation, and the full-day Capabilities Model workshop, we had an overwhelming number of new downloads for the tool. Because of this and the feedback from those institutions already working through the Model, we are extending the data submission deadline to September 27, 2020. We hope the extra time will allow everyone to complete the Model and meet the 2020 community data submission deadline.

To learn more about the Capabilities Model: RCD CM webpage
Start here document: Capabilities Model Introduction and Guide to Use
To request your institution’s copy of the Model: Access Request Form

Upcoming Office Hours:
Tuesday, Aug 25th 11am-1pm ET / 10am-12pm CT / 9-11am MT / 8-10am PT
Thursday, Sept 17th 2-4pm ET / 1-3pm CT / 12-2pm MT / 11am-1pm PT
Tuesday, Sept 22nd 11am-1pm ET / 10am-12pm CT / 9-11am MT / 8-10am PT

For help: capsmodel-help@carcc.org

Original blog post: Announcing the RCD CM 2020 Community Data participation window

Announcing the RCD CM 2020 Community Data participation window

Version 1.0 of the Research Computing and Data Capabilities Model (RCDCM) was released in Spring of 2020. We will aggregate contributed assessment data from the community, and make this available in the Fall. If you complete an institutional assessment and contribute your results to the 2020 Community Data collection by August 30 (deadline extended to September 27) you will get access to the detailed version of the data, allowing you to benchmark your institution’s program relative to peer institutions.

We know there is broad interest in having a community dataset. 88% of the institutions who have requested to use the Assessment tool listed “Benchmarking of current service offerings” as an intended use of the model. Users of the model are fairly diverse: as of early summer, there are over 70 institutions representing 32 states, both public and private, and a mix of R1s, R2s, and institutions with emerging research programs. As more institutions participate, the more useful the Community Cata collection becomes!

Continue reading “Announcing the RCD CM 2020 Community Data participation window”