Sept. 4 — Funding agencies like the National Science Foundation (NSF) have made significant investments in the national computational infrastructure to help campus-level researchers answer challenging scientific questions. A diverse set of organizations has emerged to support access to this infrastructure. Nonetheless, gaps remain. NSF has funded a team, including XSEDE leader John Towns, to develop community-supported recommendations for filling the gaps and for more effectively coordinating education and training on the use of advanced cyberinfrastructure from campus to state to regional to national levels.
The process for developing these recommendations will be:
- Solicit white papers from interested parties and organizations.
- Select among the papers and send conference invitations to the selected group of authors.
- Hold the meeting in October in Kansas City, MO.
- Develop a final report and a set of recommendations to funding agencies and the community at large.
We would like to encourage the broadest audience possible to consider submitting white papers. In particular, the committee wants to hear from:
- State and regional networking and research facilitation organizations
- Other organizations that are interested in data and/or computation
- Minority-serving institutions
- Researchers
- Campus research support staff
- Organizations interested in workforce development in support of access to computational infrastructure
The committee would like to hear about (a) strategies for engaging researchers to use shared computational infrastructure (e.g., XSEDE, OSG), including shared campus infrastructure, (b) needs that are not currently being met, and (c) successful local and regional models that could be replicated or applied on a broader scale. The committee would also like white papers to address a subset of the following strategic questions:
- What should be the role of regional organizations in providing broader support to computational researchers?
- How can these organizations expand researcher engagement to underrepresented communities?
- How can these organizations sustain timely and relevant education and outreach efforts to computational researchers over the long term?
- How can efforts across these organizations be effectively coordinated?
- What is an effective collaboration environment and structure?
- How can these organizations promote and coordinate sharing of hardware, software and expertise across campus, state, and regional boundaries?
White paper submissions are due by Sept. 10, 2015, and can be uploaded at https://kstatedce.wufoo.com/forms/improving-access-to-computational-infrastructure/.
Each paper should be 1.5 to 2 pages in length and single-spaced. Please include the author name and affiliation. These papers will be published at the conference website.
Conference Organizing Committee
- Stan Ahalt RENCI
- Joni Blake GWLA
- Jim Bottum Clemson/ACI-REF
- Gary Crane SURA
- Wendy Huntoon KINBER
- Tim Lance NYSERNet
- Jen Leasure The Quilt
- Rick McMullen Internet2
- Greg Monaco GPN/Kansas State University
- Henry Neeman XSEDE Campus Champions/University of Oklahoma
- Paul Schopis OARnet
- David Swanson OSG/University of Nebraska-Lincoln
- John Towns XSEDE/University of Illinois
- Taieb Znati, University of Pittsburgh
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Source: XSEDE