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Campus Research Computing Consortium (CaRCC)

CaRCC Nexus Student Workforce 14 February, 2023

Anita Orendt and Betsy Hillery

carcc.org rcd-nexus.org

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Agenda

  • Welcome
  • Nexus Student Survey Updates
  • Student Program presented by Texas A & M
  • Quick Survey
  • Next Student Workforce call - April 12, Topic Student onboarding

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Student Program Presentation

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Approachable Research Cyberinfrastructure

Seeding Student Programs

Feb 14, 2023

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High Performance Research Computing

Our Mission:

  • Provide computing resources
  • Offer consulting, technical guidance, and training to support researchers
  • Collaborate on computational and data-enabled research

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What it looks like Today!

  • Ticketing and Helpdesk
  • Teach short courses and Primers
  • Benchmarking CI applications on the NSF ACES, NSF FASTER, and NSF Frontera machines
  • Software design – Apps, Automation and Open On Demand
  • Curriculum-developers and instructors in the Summer Computing Academy program camps for middle and high school students
  • Assisting the the NSF SWEETER CyberTeam explore computing-driven research and educational partnerships
  • Participate in our NSF BRICCs community to support research computing at smaller institutions and community colleges

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Tracing Back the Steps

Started with HelpDesk functions at Computing - 2016

  • 2 student technicians
  • EE and Comp. Sci. background
  • Performed ticketing functions on RT
  • Support staff via email, slack and phone
  • User Support on IBM LSF
  • Accounts management
  • Some software support

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Taking the Next Steps

  • Growing prowess - sudo-functions to support privileged functions
  • Launched the Summer Computing Academy Program
    • High school students
    • Website, application development, running it
    • Taught and developed materials
  • Products - poster at a NSF Workshop and authors on paper
  • Participated in SC as a student volunteer
    • Sets the stage for a student cluster team

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The Wonder Years

  • 2017 – our helpdesk grew to 4 students
  • Student learning outcomes and objectives identified
  • Develop an interviewing program with staff
  • Hired first non-STEM student into the program
  • Graduate student supported in 2018
  • Added additional functions
    • Website support and build out
    • Cloud strategy
    • Software builds

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Opportunities via Instruction

  • Short course program
    • Introductory courses taught and developed materials
  • Primers
    • Peer-mentored and peer-taught
    • Designed by students for students
  • Micro-credential programs – 21 CI courses
  • Expanded summer program
    • Counselors
    • Curricular design

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Technology in CI!

  • Apps for Teachers
  • Cloud integration
  • AI models – first on a RPI
  • Texas A&M Dashboard - Open on Demand
    • Ticketing
    • Allocations and Cluster statistics
    • Applications
  • Automation and Integration
    • Slack and Google Drive

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Supporting a Community of CI Researchers

  • YouTube channel
  • Student peer-mentoring
  • Wiki and knowledge base
  • Participants in BRICCs and SWEETER
  • Featured on the local news!

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Advanced Cyberinfrastructure Support

  • Benchmarking CI applications on the NSF ACES, NSF FASTER, and NSF Frontera machines
  • Developing GUIs and apps for research projects
  • Porting applications to HPC clusters
    • IoT and FPGA support
    • Containerized Applications
    • Code development, optimizing and analysis
    • Opportunities to engage with other disciplines
  • Dissemination
    • PEARC22 paper with Industry experts
    • SEC news story

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Acknowledgements

We gratefully acknowledge support from

  • NSF: ACES ($6M + $1M/year for 5 years)
  • NSF CC*: SWEETER ($1.43M)
  • NSF CC*: BRICCs ($250K)
  • NSA GenCyber Summer Camps ($80K, 2019, 2020, 2022 )
  • Texas Workforce Commission (TWC, $63K, 2019, 2021)
  • Texas Workforce Commission ($40.6K, 2022)
  • NSF CyberTraining: CiSE-ProS ($532K)
  • NSF CyberTraining: CMS3 ($499K)
  • THECB ($301K) & UTRGV-THECB (Subaward $100K)

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Survey

https://purdue.ca1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_6hS3GXNkZLuT6zs

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Future

  • Next Student Workforce call - April 12, Topic Student onboarding
    • What Training do you require your students do as onboarding or at all?

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Discussion