2017-10-09 Meeting Notes

Zoom Meeting ID: 647 898 865

 Join from PC, Mac, Linux, iOS or Android: https://zoom.us/j/647898865

Or iPhone one-tap: US: +14086380968,,647898865#  or +16468769923,,647898865#   

Or Telephone?US: +1 408 638 0968  or +1 646 876 9923  or +1 669 900 6833

Marques Bland is creating a NIP project template in JIRA that includes automated reminders 6 months and 3 months before projects expire.

Dana Brunson and Marisa Brazil joined us to discuss how NIP and Campus Champions can work together.

Notes from discussion:

• NIP + Campus Champions is a match with great synergy
  • Many Campus Champions could make good Domain Champions
    
    • Many Champions are researchers in Domains (talk to them about joining)
  • How do we organize Domain Champions?
  • Becoming a Domain Champion would be a natural way to declare their "Domain Facing (outreach)" and/or "User Facing (direct help)" status
    
    • Domain Champions can hand people off to NIP
    • Domain Champions can also chime in on CC list when they come with Domain questions
    • Michael Simeone (domain champion for digital humanities) has worked on Startup allocations with Alan Craig (NIP member) – chatting with users about ideas for setting up an XSEDE project
    • Alan has done several things at CC request: visited campus, remote talk, made a short video for their campus
    • Sudhakar is Domain champion for more traditional field (chemistry and material science), but reaches underrepresented communities
    • Eric Shook (Domain Champion for GIS): Would support domain champion call or mailing list but may want to separate out
      • Domain champions are not next to the person: Eric has referred folks to their local CCs for direct help
      • GIS often has software needs that are not available on XSEDE (commercial software)
      • Sent poll out to CCs about demand for GIS software (50 responses) that he's used in proposals and talks
      • Eric did a domain-specific talk with ESRI (Arc GIS) – advertised to domain mailing lists, Domain Champions, Campus Champions, and NIP (link: http://www.gisandbox.org/2017/05/an-overview-of-esri-cloud-and-big-data.html)
  • Campus Champions want to know how to make connections with non-traditional users
  • We can build a community that is intent on reaching non-traditional users that extends far beyond the small XSEDE NIP team
  • The job of NIP staff members could become facilitators of this larger community, greatly increasing our impact
• To begin to capitalize on this untapped potential energy we will
• Organize a call or calls, with some plans and ideas as follows:
• Talking to Champions about the Domain Champions and NIP (Phil will do this on Oct. 17 Champion Call)
  • perhaps gather Champion questions beforehand to facilitate meaningful information exchange and discussion
• Discuss strategies for engaging non-traditional groups
  • ask champions what their challenges are with respect to new communities, ask what domains are of special interest
• Bringing in non-traditional research groups and those that worked with them to tell their stories
• Have a new series of talks on Domains and the research computing challenges they face
  • Example: AI only needs consumer class GPUs
• Bring ideas that arise from these calls to XSEDE Senior Management to discuss implementation
• One idea is that we partition Domain Champions (bolstered by newly minted Domain Champions from the CC ranks) into Domains of interest and have NIP members focusing on those domains lead each domain group in forming plans of outreach to their particular communities and executing those plans

Reminder: SGCI can now be allocated through XRAS ECSS (help with User Interface side). Maybe we can have a NIP-focused discussion on SGCI

Next meeting: TBD