Transcript Lessons from the Minority-Serving Institutions (MSI) Cyberinfrastructure (CI) Institute [MSI-CI2] NCSA Workshop August 7 2006 http://www.educationgrid.org The Demographic Revolution Providing a scalable equitable mechanism for developing a CI-enabled science.

Lessons from the
Minority-Serving Institutions (MSI)
Cyberinfrastructure (CI)
Institute [MSI-CI2]
NCSA Workshop August 7 2006
http://www.educationgrid.org
The Demographic Revolution
Providing a scalable equitable
mechanism for developing a CI-enabled
science and engineering workforce
Basic Ideas
• Cyberinfrastructure is critical to all involved in
Research and Education
• Cyberinfrastructure is intrinsically democratic
supporting broad participation
• MSI’s should lead MSI integration with
Cyberinfrastructure
• One should guide the projects with experts
• One should aim at scalable (systemic) approaches
• Goal is peer collaborations involving all institutions of
higher education
Some Key Participants
• Al Kuslikis: Director of STEM project development at the American Indian
Higher Education Consortium AIHEC
• Alex Ramírez: Director of information technology initiatives at the Hispanic
Association of Colleges and Universities HACU
• Selena Singleton: Chief of programs at the National Association for Equity in
Higher Education NAFEO
– Karl Barnes and Calvin Lowe also help a lot from NAFEO
• Richard Aló: Director of the Center for Computational Science (CCSDS) at
UHD University of Houston Downtown; PI MSI-CIEC Proposal
• Diane Baxter: Director of outreach and education at the San Diego
Supercomputing Center SDSC
• Geoffrey Fox: Director of the Community Grids Lab at Indiana University,
Visiting Scholar for CI Development at the Alliance for Equity In Higher
Education, and Senior Research Associate at CCSDS UHD.
• Others such as Scott Lathrop from TeraGrid and NCSA organizers of this
meeting have been essential!
Sources of Lessons and Backdrop
• Evaluation of major meetings performed by Julie
Foertsch
• Interaction with community during operation of MSICI2
• Note MSI-CI2 is one year proposal ending in 2 months;
PI Fox as visitor to Alliance
• MSI-CI2 succeeded by two year MSI-CIEC
(Cyberinfrastructure Empowerment Coalition) project
with PI Richard Alo UHD University of Houston
Downtown and co-PI’s Ramirez, Fox et al.
• MSI-CI2 directly spawned successful CITeam proposal
from Linda Hayden at HBCU Elizabeth City State
University on Cyberinfrastructure for Remote Sensing
of ice sheets with co-PI Fox
– This is part of CReSIS a Science and Technology Center led
by Kansas University
Advisory Team
• Malcolm Atkinson, NESC (UK National e-Science Center),
ICEAGE (EU Grid Education)
• Fran Berman, SDSC
• Jay Boisseau, TACC
• Charles Catlett, TeraGrid
• Kelvin Droegemeier, Oklahoma, LEAD
• Tom Dunning, NCSA
• Mark Ellisman, SDSC, BIRN
• Ian Foster, Chicago, Open Science Grid Globus etc
• Juan Meza, LBL
• Dan Reed, UNC, Renaissance Computing
• Richard Tapia, Rice
• Larry Smarr, UCSD, Cal(IT)2
Key Objectives
Mobilize the MSI faculty and student community
Minority Serving Institutions starting with a few but
eventually reaching the over 335 in AIHEC HACU and
NAFEO
Provide access to physical infrastructure needed to support
participation
Support curriculum development, research, mentoring,
and teaching teams
Exploit key Cyberinfrastructure (Grid) resources
Develop portal (mashup) supporting broad participation in CI
Improve our processes through evaluation
Proje\ct Venues
Major MSI CII Project Activities
Planning and Education (train the trainer) meetings at
SC05 and Global Grid Forum (not so successful) and
January 30-31 Planning SDSC
General Summer School (June 26-30) SDSC
Supporting your own CI (April and August) NCSA
All Access Grid enabled
Lots of planning and discussion leading to MSICIEC
MSI-CI2 Lessons I
• There are many wonderful broad-based CI activities that can
be leveraged by MSI’s
– TeraGrid itself, NSF/State centers, OSG, GGF, SCxx,
International projects (Pragma, ICEAGE)
– So move from providing fully customized activities to
modifying/using existing networks, computers (as in
TeraGrid), workshops, Summer Schools – this can SCALE!!
– Work with outreach activities like EPIC, Global CyberBridges
and SACNAS
• Need to involve all parts of a MSI including administration,
faculty and students
– Borrow campus visits from successful AN-MSI project
(networks)
MSI-CI2 Lessons II
• Can support application-specific projects such as “CI for icesheet remote sensing” (CReSIS) where MSI Elizabeth City
State University leads CI-enablement
– Interesting that MSI leading traditional university
powerhouses into “next” generation (Cyberinfrastructure)
• Leverage and encourage REU and related research experience
activities
• Encourage internship and mentoring opportunities
• Can extend to Community Colleges and K-12 (pipeline)
• Collaboration, coordination, and trust-building across
institutional, cultural, and geographical barriers essential
– Good to use more CI to enable! (not trivial to be systemic)
MSI and National Cyberinfrastructure
• There are several MSI’s that can become TeraGrid (National
Cyberinfrastructure) providers but we need to consider providing needed
home institution support needing some or all of:
– Fund local infrastructure support
– Provide a “simpler” TeraGrid-lite software stack
– Provide (remote) MSI CI Operations Center to help
– Use VM technology and shared desktops to allow remote hardware
and remote support (Building proposal to explore this)
– Note ECSU had all local hardware removed from proposal and asked
to build a Science Gateway to TeraGrid
• All MSI’s need TeraGrid access but its not clear what this requires
– Local Infrastructure for local research and education
– Science Gateway “just” needs a Web browser?
• Partnerships between MSI’s and experienced TeraGrid institution
• Broadening Participation component of Campus Partnership RAT
Who was at SDSC June Meeting?
• 30 male and 3 female respondents to SDSC June workshop
survey included
• 12 representatives from Hispanic Serving Institutions (HSIs),
• 11 representatives from Historically Black Colleges &
Universities (HBCUs),
• 7 representatives from Tribal Colleges & Universities (TCUs),
• and one representative from a non-profit center working with
MSIs.
• Of those who responded, 19 were faculty members (17 regular
or 2 adjunct), 7 were members of the IT staff, 2 were members
of the research staff, one was an educational program
manager, and one was a student.
Participant Experience
Thirty of 33 total MSI-CI2 participants completed the overall
survey, for a response rate of 90.9%
Level
No.
%
I had never explored using CI in
research or teaching
I had explored using CI in teaching or
research but hadn’t implemented it yet
I had used some CI in teaching or
research but am a relative novice
I consider myself fairly experienced at
using CI in teaching or research
I am an expert at using CI in teaching or
research
12
40
5
16.7
7
23.3
5
16.7
1
3.3
Greates
interest
(4 pts)
AVG
(2 pts)
Very
interested
(3 pts)
7% (2)
17% (5)
13% (4)
63% (19)
3.33
Involving faculty and research teams in CI
3% (1)
17% (5)
30% (9)
50% (15)
3.27
Understanding how to access CI resources like
TeraGrid
0% (0)
23% (7)
27% (8)
50% (15)
3.27
Training and planning experiences like this meeting
3% (1)
13% (4)
37% (11)
47% (14)
3.27
Pursuing funding for better CI infrastructure (including
clusters) at your MSI
13% (4)
7% (2)
23% (7)
57% (17)
3.23
Pursuing funding for faculty release time to get
involved in CI
7% (2)
17% (5)
27% (8)
50% (15)
3.20
Involving undergraduates in CI
3% (1)
23% (7)
33% (10)
40% (12)
3.10
Curriculum and Education issues for CI
3% (1)
23% (7)
33% (10)
40% (12)
3.10
Institutional and infrastructural issues for CI
7% (2)
17% (5)
50% (15)
27% (8)
2.97
Extended visits of CI research experts to your MSI
13% (4)
17% (5)
33% (10)
37% (11)
2.93
Having CI experts do a site visit at your MSI
10% (3)
20% (6)
40% (12)
30% (9)
2.90
Providing Research Experiences in CI for
Undergradutes
13% (4)
20% (6)
33% (10)
33% (10)
2.87
Extended visits of CI experts to your MSI
13% (4)
23% (7)
33% (10)
30% (9)
2.80
Pursuing funding for graduate students in CI areas
23% (7)
20% (6)
27% (8)
30% (9)
2.63
Involving graduate students in CI
23% (7)
23% (7)
20% (6)
33% (10)
2.63
Becoming a provider of TeraGrid
23% (7)
40% (12)
27% (8)
10% (3)
2.23
Not
Interested
(1 pt)
Somewhat
Interested
Internships for MSI faculty or students at places
with major CI activities
Potential CI related interests
Answers to Questionnaire
To what extent was your primary
goal met? Average = 3.30
0%
0 1 = Not at all
13.3% 4 2 = Met to a limited extent
43.3% 13 3 = Met to a large extent
43.3% 13 4 = My goal was fully met
How valuable was attending this
institute? Average = 3.37
0%
0 1 = Not at all valuable
13.3% 4 2 = Somewhat valuable
36.7% 11 3 = Quite valuable
50% 15 4 = Highly valuable
How effective were the combination of sessions you
attended in addressing the issues, challenges, and
questions that are likely to arise in your and your
institution's use of CI? Average = 2.97
0%
0
1 = Not at all effective
20% 6
63.3% 19
16.7% 5
2 = Somewhat effective
3 = Quite effective
4 = Highly effective
Interested in attending future CI trainings and
workshops for MSI faculty?
0%
0
No
33.3% 10
Perhaps
66.7% 20
Yes
Organization hard due to diversity in role (Executive, IT czar,
Faculty, Student and in discipline interest
MSI Cyberinfrastructure
Empowerment Coalition MSI-CIEC
• MSI institution centered with coordinated brokering and support
• MSI capabilities are built around CI delivery to MSI’s
• Program support capabilities such as portal help enable MSI
Capabilities (Portal not funded)
• There are important administrative and outreach capabilities
under “Internal and Operational”
• Initial major focus on integrating CI at an MSI with linkage of
multiple programs at a given institution
– Modest CI installation at site: local capability and access to International
CI (MSI CI Operations Center)
– Institutional activities: executive presentations and campus visits to plan
CI
– Funding of faculty release time and students
– Linkage of MSI and National CI research projects
– Curriculum enhancement
– Education and Training of faculty, students and CI support staff
• MSI-CIEC can lead or support/advise projects such as advising
TeraGrid RAT on Campus partnerships
MSI-CIEC: MSI Cyberinfrastructure Empowerment Coalition
MSI-CIEC: MSI Cyberinfrastructure
Empowerment Coalition Leadership team
 Capability Leaders
 PIs of Projects
MSI-Centered Capabilities
 Links to 3 MSI areas and the Alliance
 CI Linkage
 Capabilities for specific domains such
as Biology for Earth Science
 MSI faculty staff student mentoring
and advancement
 MSI Institutional evaluation, planning,
development
 MSI Physical resources such as
clusters and TeraGrid access
Operational and Internal
Capabilities
• External Relations
• Government, Other MSI
Projects, Relevant connections
such as TeraGrid, NCSA,
SDSC, TACC, SCxx
• Outreach and Meetings
• Evaluation and Internal
Research
• Administration & Operations
Program Support Capabilities
 Portal, Access Grid, Collaboration tools,
Portal content (Support databases)
 MSI CI Operations Center
 Research programs and opportunities
 REU, Fellowships etc. supporting other
capabilities including MSI faculty staff student
mentoring and advancement
 Education and Training
 Specific Programs and Identification of
opportunities
 Social and Behavioral research
MSI-CIEC: MSI Cyberinfrastructure Empowerment
Coalition Projects with Multiple PI's:
These use a selection of capabilities and include cases where
MSI-CIEC has a lead or support role
MSI-CI2 is first MSI-CIEC project