It’s February! Mark your calendars for the below People Network track gatherings and other community events. For handy calendar entries, try the CaRCC Events Calendar.
If you’re not on our mailing lists, please fill out our Join the People Network form and join our Slack channels!
Tue Feb 6, 1p ET/ 12p CT/ 11a MT/ 10a PT
Lifecycle Support and Compliance for Open Research Practices
Registration is now closed 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, 8am-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:
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 at U.S. institutions who request it by June 28. Just indicate your need when you register and we’ll send further information.
See below for a detailed agenda and track descriptions.
Continue reading “RCD Nexus Day at PEARC23”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!
During the Nexus Day event, held July 10, 2022 in conjunction with the PEARC22 conference, we held an all-day workshop to address student workforce programs and staff onboarding and workforce development practices. Although we intended to spend much of the time addressing both the staff and student workforce issues together, we quickly determined that breakout sessions specific to staff or student development efforts would be more effective and provide an excellent forum to discuss common themes and exchange ideas.
There was a general recognition that common problems and challenges span the two efforts, and there is a desire to address them collectively through shared tools and methodologies and by developing a common framework. Specifically, there was an aspiration to develop a set of learning paths, starting as early as undergraduate RCD staff and continuing through senior-level RCD professionals, to identify existing gaps in training and development. However, it was also recognized that specifics would differ between staff and student development – even though many of the tools, documentation, and basic framework may be the same. Interesting outcomes included a shared desire to develop basic materials, such as a five-minute video on “What is a Research Computing and Data Professional?”, as well as a collective agreement on the need for and value of project management skills and training for those working in research computing and data (RCD).
Read more below about how each of these efforts is evolving:
Continue reading “Nexus Day Staff and Student Workforce Development Update”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”Career Arcs WG members presented our paper “Understanding Factors that Influence Research Computing and Data Careers” at the PEARC22 conference in Boston. The paper was awarded Best Full Paper, Workforce Development, Training, Diversity, and Education, as well as the Phil Andrews award, granted to a manuscript deemed to be the most impactful in practice of research computing. See also the University of Central Florida post and the CI Compass post.
The primary objective of this research was to identify factors that attract professionals into the field of research computing and data, factors that influence their career advancements or changes within the RCD field, and factors that cause them to leave and pursue other fields.
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.)
We hope to see you there!
The Campus Research Computing Consortium is an organization of research computing and data (RCD) and related professionals serving to:
* Research computing & data involves people, scholarship, and resources… (more…)
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.
