How long does it take to complete the RCD Capabilities Model?

We are often asked by community members how long it typically takes an institution to complete an assessment of their RCD support using the RCD Capabilities Model. When teams submit an assessment, we ask them about this, and so we decided to go through that data and share what we found (although we note that not all institutions provided an answer). As you might imagine, there is quite a bit of variation.

Figure 1 shows how most institutions group, with many taking less than a few person-days, but some taking quite a bit more. For the sake of presentation, we have filtered one institution that reported a team of 12 people spent 20 hours together (240 hours!).

Histogram of answers from 2020 through 2022 showing how many hours were spent completing the assessment. Contact the WG for tabular data.

Another view of this shows the individual responses in decreasing time spent (again, filtering the one outlier): 

Bar graph of all answers from 2020 through 2022 showing how many hours were spent completing the assessment. Contact the WG for tabular data.

A related question that comes up is:  “Does it take more time or less time to complete an assessment a second time?” We only have data on this from a dozen institutions, but we see two patterns that reflect stories we have heard from different participating institutions:

  1. Some teams dive in the first year, and then treat successive assessments as updates, allowing them to move through the Capabilities Model more quickly. 
  2. Other teams take a more cursory view the first time and then do a more thorough analysis when they repeat their assessment in a later year.

Figure 3 below shows the data for institutions that reported their time investment for successive assessments. Some completed assessments in all three years, and others just did two assessments. The first eight institutions generally follow the first pattern with decreasing work needed over time and the last four follow the second pattern of increased labor the second time through. Institution 1 seems to do both, increasing substantially from 2020 to 2021, and then decreasing from 2021 to 2022. 

In general, the time it will take your institution depends in part upon your organizational model: 

  • If your institution has a fairly simple or centralized organizational model, you may be able to assemble a small team and answer the questions in short order. 
  • If your institution has a distributed or federated model of service support, it may require a bit more discussion to pull together the appropriate groups, and develop a shared mental model of how those groups work together to support research. 

A second factor in the time required relates to how you are using the RCD Capabilities Model as part of your strategic planning:

  • If your goal is a simple information gathering exercise, it may be sufficient for an RCD team lead to do a relatively quick pass through the RCD Capabilities Model, and just ask a few questions of others (or just use estimates/educated guesses) for specific questions.
  • If you are using the tool as part of a broader RCD strategic planning process, you may draw together expertise from a range of groups (e.g., including HPC systems folks, Data Librarians, Information Security analysts, and others), and use the RCD Capabilities Model questions as a starting point for more in-depth discussions of service models and how teams collaborate to support research. 

Your goals may fit somewhere between these two examples. Naturally, the second approach can take quite a bit more time, but many institutions report that they got considerable value from these longer discussions, as different teams learned more about what their partners were providing and how they might better collaborate. 

In the end, you can decide how long it takes to complete an RCD Capabilities Model assessment, and in general, you will get as much out of the assessment as you put into it!

2023 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! Drop in for a few minutes or stay for the whole hour.

Office Hours for 2022 are scheduled for:

the 2nd Tuesday of each month

for 1 hour at 1pm ET, 12noon CT, 11am MT, 10am PT

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.

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”

CaRCC at PEARC22!

In lieu of July calls for most People Network tracks, make sure to check out the below events next week at PEARC22, all of which are a direct result of CaRCC-associated efforts for the RCD community. (See the full PEARC22 schedule here.)

Sunday, July 10:

  • RCD Nexus Day (colocated event), all-day parallel sessions on student/staff workforce development and on the RCD Capabilities Model ‘Essentials’ version

Tuesday, July 12:

  • Campus Research Computing Consortium (CaRCC) Town Hall (panel, organization update)
    10:30 AM-12:00 PM, White Hill Room
  • Understanding Factors that Influence Research Computing and Data Careers (Best Full Paper, Workforce Track; Phil Andrews Award)
    3:00 PM-3:30 PM, The Loft
  • Characterizing the US Research Computing and Data (RCD) Workforce (paper)
    3:30 PM-4:00 PM, The Loft
  • Words Matter! Progress in Promoting Inclusion through Language in Advanced Research Computing (panel; CaRCC represented among other organizations)
    5:00 PM-6:00 PM, The Loft

Thursday, July 14

  • Plenary and Awards (above RCD Career Arcs paper receiving Phil Andrews award!)
    10:00 AM-12:30 PM  Ballroom A

We hope to see you there!

2022 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! Drop in for a few minutes or stay for the whole hour.

Office Hours for 2022 are scheduled for:

the 2nd Tuesday of each month

for 1 hour at 1pm ET, 12noon CT, 11am MT, 10am PT

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.

RCD Capabilities Model 2021 Community Dataset Deadline Approaching

The Research Computing and Data (RCD) Capabilities Model working group has set the deadline for contributions to the 2021 Community Dataset. Institutions must complete and submit their assessments by September 30, 2021. There’s still plenty of time to request your copy of the assessment tool, complete the assessment, and submit it using the new submission form.

Continue reading “RCD Capabilities Model 2021 Community Dataset Deadline Approaching”

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.

Continue reading “August People Network & RCD Community Calls”