Current Initiatives
Research Computing includes several initiatives to improve the campus research computing infrastructure, and work is actively taking place—primarily under the auspices of the Campus IT Strategic Plan—to implement them.
Create a “Researcher View” in the My UW Portal
Work is well underway to create more integrated access to research-oriented resources in My UW. My UW will include several modules that will help researchers conduct the business of research (e.g., grant set-up, fund management, effort reporting) and collaborate with other researchers on campus.
Build the Campus Research Community
The Research Computing initiative will sponsor periodic events to bring together campus researchers, faculty and technical staff to exchange information and ideas, form new partnerships and share resources. Partnering with the Morgridge Institute for Research, Libraries, Graduate School, Laboratory of Optical and Computational Instrumentation, and other campus partners, events will include workshops (e.g., Math-Bio Symposium), peer-to-peer brown bag sessions and possibly an annual symposium. Anyone on campus can join the “Research Computing at Madison” listserv to learn about and/or participate in these and other events and discussions.
Support High Performance and High Throughput Computing
The Research Computing initiative is working with campus researchers to identify the need for high throughput and high performance computing, grid resources, and high performance networking in support of research computing.
Evaluate and Invest in Research Productivity Tools
The initiative is assessing the current needs and future potential for expanded or new research productivity and collaboration tools (e.g., Hub Zero, Bamboo, custom laboratory work flow management software, laboratory content management systems). These tools can enhance the research process by providing visualization capabilities, research and laboratory work flow support, collaboration among research colleagues, and data management and curation.
Create and Expand “Boot Camps” for Graduate and Research Assistants
The IT strategic planning process revealed a shared need, across schools and disciplines, to create focussed training programs for graduate and research assistants. This “boot camp” model would teach many of the core skills and technologies that these assistants need to know in order to do their work. They would replace the need for researchers and their staff to re-teach the skills to each new cohort of graduate students each year. The boot camps would range from discipline/need-specific to cross-departmental sessions, and would be applicable not only for the sciences but for many humanities programs as well.
Deliver Core Research Resources
In addition to the strategies above, DoIT can help faculty and researchers set up their research programs with the help of these crucial research resources (learn more):
- High-Speed Network
- Server and Data Storage Hosting
- Collaboration Tools
- Grant Administration Tool
- Specialized Software Licensing Programs
- Collaboration with Research Colleagues
- WebSurvey@UW
- Data management and curation
- Local computer and server support
- Software development
- MINDS@UW (institutional data repository)