Research Cyberinfrastructure

1. Establish a structure for Large-Scale Computing

Structure to Support Advanced Computing (PDF)

Create a common, professionally-supported High Performance Computing (HPC) infrastructure and governance to give researchers access to more computing power than they could otherwise afford.

Such a service structure and governance will:

• Free graduate students from system administration duties
• Clearly communicate a predicable cost
• Help with writing grants that have an HPC component
• Provide a means to experiment: try-before-you buy
• Leverage common authentication, authorization and security services
• Access common datasets more easily
• Access shared software at little to no cost
• Access resources they ordinarily cannot afford

We want to accelerate campus Cyberinfrastructure (CI) deployments. And extend the value of existing or imminent HPC deployments. This will provide economies of scale, as we:

• Coordinate/share talent
• Create/sustain Collaboration
• Reduce barriers to “have-not” users
• Site licensing of software

All of this will lead to better recruitment and retention of researchers. It also places the institution in a better position to compete for CI grants.

Finally, we will clearly communicate costs and benefits to the institution (metrics).

The provost is reviewing the proposed structure for RC on campus.

2. Enhance post-award processes and support the research lifecycle

Improve and align IT support for researchers; clarify roles and responsibilities. Enhance pre-award processes.

APR Phase III projects are addressing this (Award Setup, Award Closeout, Cost Sharing, Cost Transfer, PI Portal project).

3. Create a researcher view in the My UW portal

Create a toolkit of useful resources for research in the My UW portal.

The My UW Researcher View was created in 2011. More resources are being considered for the view.

4. Research Productivity tools

Select and deploy research productivity tools to support collaborative research and research management across multiple units within the university, as well as across multiple institutions around the globe.

5. Connect people and research resources

• Build community through research events and partnerships
• Support for high performance and high throughput computing
• Inventory people, facilities and related resources.

The campus is creating an inventory of the facilities currently dedicated to Research Cyberinfrastructure:

Center for High Throughput Computing
Grid Lab of Wisconsin (GLOW), campus-wide distributed computing environment designed to meet the scientific computing needs of University of Wisconsin-Madison.

• WID/MIR
• Botany
• CERN
• Chem and Bio Engineering
• Molecular Thermodynamics and Statistical Mechanics Group, Chemical Engineering Department
• Computer Science (CS)
• CAE
• Evolutionary Systems Biology Group
• UW Engine Research Center
• Forest Wildlife Ecology
• Wisconsin Geological and Natural History Survey UW-Extension
• Great Lakes Bio Energy Research Center (GLBRC)
• IceCube
• Med Phys Radiology
• Astronomy
• DoIT Networking
• Physics
• Statistics
• UWBC DNA Sequencing
• Research Data Services

6. Promote the Digital Humanities

Humanities research bridge

See the dighum.wisc.edu site for downloads of the Faculty Development Seminar White Paper and 2 Madison Initiative for Undergraduates proposals for Digital Studies and DesignLab, both of which promote digital literacies, including research skills.

7. Research Data Management

Effectively managing research data throughout its life is critical to meeting research objectives and grant requirements. From the first stage of the study and data conceptualization to the final stage of transforming and repurposing the data, including issues of data access, data formats, storage, analysis, operations and curation, must be planned and implemented in a way that advances the research agenda effectively and legally. Recent federal grant requirements to include a Data Management Plan in research grant proposals highlight the need to assist researchers in their data management efforts.