Cyberinfrastructure Facilitation Skills Training via the Virtual Residency Program

Characterizing the US Research Computing and Data (RCD) Workforce

“…There are 131 universities with a Carnegie Classification of R1 (Doctoral universities with very high research activity) and 135 with a classification of R2 (Doctoral universities with high research activity) [8]. Nearly all R1 universities, and approximately 60% of R2 universities, have research computing resources [32]. There are a few estimates of the number of RCD professionals in specific roles at these institutions.…”

“…[2020] estimate 7 RCD professionals in facilitation roles alone at each R1 institution, and 3 RCD facilitators at each of the R2 institutions that offers RCD services [32]. In addition, approximately 75% of R1 institutions have librarians with research data roles, with an average of 3 such positions at institutions with these roles present [43].…”

“…Researchers, both within academia and outside of it, can no longer do it alone; they now rely on research computing and data (RCD) professionals who work at the intersection of cyberinfrastructure (CI), research, and data and provide skills built on years of experience. The demand for RCD professionals is projected to grow [16,32,33]. Pathways to RCD careers, however, can be "invisible" due to a lack of standardization of job titles, poorly defined job descriptions, the dispersed nature of the work across multiple units within research organizations, and inconsistent terminology to describe RCD activities [16,33].…”

“…Sholler [2019] reports findings from forty-five interviews with researchers, research support staff, and student researchers engaged in cloud vendor enabled research [42]. Neeman et al [2020] provide a deep understanding of those in RCD facilitator roles and the programs available to support their professional development [32]. Moving beyond individuals, Broude Geva et al [2020] detail the organizations active in the RCD field and the connections between them, introducing the ecosystem metaphor to characterize the current RCD environment and its interdependent and interacting components [18].…”