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.

June Line-Up of CaRCC’s People Network & other RCD Community Calls

Greetings to all members of the CaRCC People Network! 

Mark your calendars for these upcoming People Network calls (Zoom details at the end). For handy calendar entries, try the CaRCC Events Calendar. We also highlight other calls from our RCD Ecosystem partners and collaborators, as these events touch many, if not all, in our community.

If you’re not on our mailing lists, please fill out our Join the People Network form and join our Slack channels.

Continue reading “June Line-Up of CaRCC’s People Network & other RCD Community Calls”

May CaRCC People Network & RCD Community Calls

Mark your calendars for these upcoming People Network calls (Zoom details at the end). For handy calendar entries, try the CaRCC Events Calendar. We also highlight other calls from our RCD Ecosystem partners and collaborators, as these events touch many, if not all, in our community.

This month, we’d like to bring to your attention a joint set of calls between the US Research Software Engineer Association (US-RSE) and CaRCC. Hosted by each group, the calls give you, the community, an opportunity to discuss topics related to RSEs in the workforce. We hope to see you then and there.

If you’re not on our mailing lists, please fill out our Join the People Network form and join our Slack channels.

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Recording Available: Annual CaRCC Parade of Activities

Video recording of the 2022 CaRCC Parade is now available on the CaRCC YouTube channel. This annual presentation at the beginning of each calendar year provides an update on CaRCC’s activities and accomplishments over the past year, and plans for the future, including opportunities for community members to get more involved.

The2022 CaRCC Parade video can be found here: https://youtu.be/28DVe1YpHB0

CaRCC YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMU1PEMM7V4X_KtPDcfB6HA

People Network Calls to Ring in the New Year!

Mark your calendars for the below People Network Calls in January (Zoom details at the end). 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.

Additionally, note that we are repeating the CaRCC Parade this year, an opportunity to learn about CaRCC and to hear directly from group coordinators on updates and advances over the past year. 

Continue reading “People Network Calls to Ring in the New Year!”

CaRCC/People Network End-of-Year Party

A reminder to join us for the CaRCC End-of-Year Party on Thursday, December 9, from 1-2:30pm ET, in lieu of People Network track calls this month. You’ll have the opportunity to participate in two breakout room sessions (switching half-way through the call) with activities organized around the following:

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November Line-Up of 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. 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.

Continue reading “November Line-Up of People Network & RCD Community Calls”

October Line-Up of People Network & RCD Community Calls

Greetings to all members of the Campus Research Computing Consortium (CaRCC) People Network! 

Before you mark your calendars (and usher in October), we’d like to remind everyone that today, 9/30, the RCD Workforce Survey will close. Please take this important survey if you haven’t already, and please pass along to your colleagues — a wide range of research-supporting positions are among those whom we’d like to hear from. See the RCD Workforce Survey webpage to start or for more information.

Now, mark your calendars for these upcoming People Network Calls (Zoom details at the end). 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.

Continue reading “October Line-Up of People Network & RCD Community Calls”

September People Network & RCD Community Calls

Greetings to all members of the Campus Research Computing Consortium (CaRCC) People Network! We hope you and yours are safe and well during these stormy days! Please mark your calendars for these upcoming People Network Calls (Zoom details at the end). 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 and join our Slack channels.

Continue reading “September People Network & RCD Community Calls”