One of the biggest challenges we face as an organization supporting the research computing and data (RCD) profession is defining what it means to be an RCD professional. Although it’s clear our profession is growing and very much in-demand, the lines between RCD and other types of jobs are often blurred, and our professional titles rarely reflect the breadth of what we do. Supporting the needs of researchers is distinct and often very different from providing enterprise technology services to a general user population (even though many of us do both and overlap certainly exists). The Campus Research Computing Consortium (CaRCC) focuses on the challenges and opportunities unique to providing computational, data, and other related services to researchers.
Am I an RCD professional?
Most of us would agree that the people who manage university supercomputers are RCD professionals, but am I an RCD professional if I help researchers navigate data and my title is Librarian or Data Scientist? Am I an RCD professional if I’m a programmer who develops software that supports a research project? Am I an RCD professional if I’m not involved in hands-on technical work but do outreach and education to help researchers find and use technology and data resources?
If you are supporting researchers in any way through systems, software, data, security, networking, data center operations, or education and consulting, yes –you are an RCD professional!
Continue reading “Understanding the CaRCC Facings”