A Year of

Cyberinfrastructure

at Illinois

Opening Symposium

September 30, 2014

Outline

• A Year of Cyberinfrastructure

• A bit of how we got here and why…

• About a CI Plan for the campus

A Year of Cyberinfrastructure

• AKA “A Year of Action”

• Inspired by “Year of Data Stewardship”

• Funded by OVCR and OCIO

• http://cyberinfrastructure.illinois.edu/

Year of CI Objectives

• Develop a common understanding of which resources are part of CI

• Understand the role of CI in enhancing research and education across all disciplines

– fundamentally, increasing capability and productivity

• Develop a plan for additional campus CI resources, guided by the campus strategic plan, the campus IT strategic plan, and additional faculty input.

– a Cyberinfrastructure Master Plan

CI Discussion Triggers

• “A Research Cyberinfrastructure

Strategy for the CIC: Advice to the

Provosts from the Chief Information

Officers”

• Released in May 2010

• Progress report issued in April 2012

CI Discussion Triggers

• NSF ACCI task force reports issued in April 2011:

– Campus Bridging

– Cyberlearning and Workforce Development

– Data and Visualization

– Grand Challenges

– High Performance Computing

– Software for Science and Engineering

http://www.nsf.gov/cise/aci/taskforces/

CIF21: Cyberinfrastructure Framework for 21st Century

Science and Engineering

Innovation,

Discovery

Grand

Challenge

Communities Learning &

Workforce

Development

Campus Bridging,

Cybersecurity

Advanced

Computational

Infrastructure

Data

Scientific

Instruments

Software

http://www.nsf.gov/cif21

CI Discussions History

• September 23, 2008

– Discussion of a “campus CI assessment”

• AY2010-2011

– Council of CIOs discusses CI Master Plan

• AY2011-2012

– CI Master Planning Group meetings

• Spring 2012, Spring 2013, Spring 2014

– 5 page Campus CI Plan for NSF proposal

CI Discussions History

• February 8, 2013

– Campus Research IT Governance creates

subcommittee to draft a CI Master Plan

• February 14, 2014

– Campus Research IT Governance

discusses CI Master Plan again

A Year of CI is Born

• Recognized a few things

– developing a CI Master Plan requires broad engagement across campus

– no commonly accepted definition of CI

– need to raise awareness of role of CI in increasing research capability and productivity

• Many things are happening in this space with only informal coordination

Progress on Campus Services

• Illinois Campus Cluster Program (ICCP)

• Blue Waters (Illinois researcher allocations)

• Campus Advanced Research Network

Environment (CARNE)

• Data Center Shared Services (DCSS)

• Campus Research Data Service (RDS)

• Scholarly Commons

CI Master Plan

• “If you tried to fund electricity on the grant

cycle, you'd get pretty fed up with electricity.

... Plea to all funders ... stop thinking that

you're going to create infrastructure as a by-

product of a more interesting project.”

– Geoffrey Bilder, Director of Strategic Initiatives at CrossRef

during NIH ADDS Data Science meeting on Sept. 3, 2014

Strategy

• Campus Strategic Plan

• Campus IT Strategic Plan

– AY2014-16 Plan

– Committee Source Documents

– Yearly Priorities

Need for a CI Master Plan

• CI co-evolves with research programs

– Scientists encounter a problem, invent a

tool to solve it, and add that tool to the

ecosystem.

• The tool finds other users

– often in other fields, producing

unanticipated changes of direction in

research

CI Master Plan

• What CI we have is closely entwined with the success of individual researchers. – we do not have a budget for CI

– most of what we spend on CI comes from research awards

• We have no coherent means of considering the campus CI needs – even if we had such a wish list, that does not

indicate those are the things we would pursue

• What CI is developed and deployed currently is highly dependent on how well our researchers’ proposals are reviewed.

Characteristics of Master

Plans • Guidelines: how multiple goals will be

balanced

• Constraints: acknowledgement of planning boundaries, e.g.

• Opportunities: things we’d like to do just in case funding can be found

• Processes: project approvals, fund-raising rules, etc.

• Temporality: usually kept up-to-date at all times

How Campuses Develop

Master Plans • Description of the physical campus,

including boundaries

• Assessment of current facilities against

peers, against needs, etc.

– requires active engagement broadly across

campus

• Exploration of desired future states

• Development of planning guidelines

Year of CI Strategy:

Symposia • Raise awareness of CI in support of research

• Solicit input from the campus community on needs and priorities

– current and anticipated

• Discussion of relevant issues for the campus

– identify the resources and services needed

• We are open to suggestions on topics:

– data infrastructure needs, role of clouds in supporting research, support services, …

Year of CI Strategy:

Seminars

• Raise awareness of CI in support of research

• Understand how others have addressed these issues

– or struggle with them!

• Understand how our local campus CI fits into the national/international ecosystem

• Approximately bi-monthly during AY 2104-2015

Year of CI Strategy:

Surveys, Interviews, Focus Groups

• Deeper discussions on relevant issues

• Engage research community on

campus in deeper discussion and

identification of needs

• Focused activity during fall 2014

Year of CI Strategy:

CI Master Plan Development

• Working group to develop document (winter 2014-2015)

– core writing team

– larger representative set of faculty across disciplines to provide input, guidance, comment

• Plan vetting and editing (spring 2015)

– open comment and feedback

• Finalization of first version (May 2015)

– approvals from campus leadership and governance

Questions?