Progress Update on the Development and Implementation of the Advanced Cyberinfrastructure Research &amp; Education Facilitators Virtual Residency Program

Brennan-Tonetta²,

et al. 2021

SSRN Journal

There has been an increasing interest in and growing need for high performance computing (HPC), popularly known as supercomputing, in domains such as textual analytics, business domains analytics, forecasting and natural language processing (NLP), in addition to the relatively mature supercomputing domains of quantum physics and biology. HPC has been widely used in computer science (CS) and other traditionally computation intensive disciplines, but has remained largely siloed away from the vast array of social, behavioral, business and economics disciplines. However, with ubiquitous big data, there is a compelling need to make HPC technologically and economically accessible, easy to use, and operationally democratized.Therefore, this research focuses on making two key contributions, the first is the articulation of strategies based on availability, accessibility and usability for the demystification and democratization of HPC, based on an analytical review of Caliburn, a notable supercomputer at its inception. The second contribution is a set of principles for HPC adoption based on an experiential narrative of HPC usage for textual analytics and NLP of social media data from a first time user perspective. Both, the HPC usage process and the output of the early stage analytics are summarized. This research study synthesizes expert input on HPC democratization strategies, and chronicles the challenges and opportunities from a multidisciplinary perspective, of a case of rapid adoption of supercomputing for textual analytics and NLP. Deductive logic is used to identify strategies which can lead to efficacious engagement, adoption, production and sustained usage for research, teaching, application and innovation by researchers, faculty, professionals and students across a broad range of disciplines.

Section: The Future Of Hpc Education: Modular Applied and Multidisciplinarymentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Strategies for Democratization of Supercomputing: Availability, Accessibility and Usability of High Performance Computing for Education and Practice of Big Data Analytics

Brennan-Tonetta²,

et al. 2021

SSRN Journal

Practice and Experience in Advanced Research Computing

“…An NSF-funded workshop in 2018 identified professional development as the top priority [9], and a more recent NSF-sponsored workshop in 2021 identified the need for recognition and a clear definition of the different roles in the workforce as well as the need for viable, reasonably funded career paths with location stability, and the availability of training, advancement, and upskilling [3]. Neeman et al reported on the gap in national formal education curriculum to cultivate the needed workforce [21]. Goodhue et al identified the lack of access to cyberinfrastructure workforce at small and mid-size institutions and the importance of a trained workforce that can bridge those gaps [13].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Understanding Factors that Influence Research Computing and Data Careers

Chaudhry

Pazouki

Schmitz

et al. 2022

Research Computing and Data (RCD) professionals play a crucial role in supporting and advancing research that involve data and/or computing, however, there is a critical shortage of RCD workforce, and organizations face challenges in recruiting and retaining RCD professional staff. It is not obvious to people outside of RCD how their skills and experience map to the RCD profession, and staff currently in RCD roles lack resources to create a professional development plan. To address these gaps, the CaRCC RCD Career Arcs working group has embarked upon an effort to gain a deeper understanding of the paths that RCD professionals follow across their careers. An important step in that effort is a recent survey the working group conducted of RCD professionals on key factors that influence decisions in the course of their careers. This survey gathered responses from over 200 respondents at institutions across the United States. This paper presents our initial findings and analyses of the data gathered. We describe how various genders, career stages, and types of RCD roles impact the ranking of these factors, and note that while there are differences across these groups, respondents were broadly consistent in their assessment of the importance of these factors. In some cases, the responses clearly distinguish RCD professionals from the broader workforce, and even other Information Technology professionals. CCS CONCEPTS• Social and professional topics → Computing occupations.

“…Other efforts include initiatives such as the Supercomputing in Plain English (SIPE) workshop, which is an annual workshop on supercomputing (HPC) at Oklahoma University, run by Henry Neeman, using plain English to introduce fundamental issues of supercomputing as they relate to Computational and Data-enabled Science & Engineering. Internet2 and EDU-CAUSE also have programs to help enable CI Facilitators (subsection reference:Neeman et al 2016Neeman et al , 2018.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Strategies for Democratization of Supercomputing: Availability, Accessibility and Usability of High Performance Computing for Education and Practice of Big Data Analytics

Brennan-Tonetta

et al. 2022

JBDAI

There has been an increasing interest in and growing need for high performance computing (HPC), popularly known as supercomputing, in domains such as textual analytics, business domains analytics, forecasting and natural language processing (NLP), in addition to the relatively mature supercomputing domains of quantum physics and biology. HPC has been widely used in computer science (CS) and other traditionally computation intensive disciplines, but has remained largely siloed away from the vast array of social, behavioral, business and economics disciplines. However, with ubiquitous big data, there is a compelling need to make HPC technologically and economically accessible, easy to use, and operationally democratized. Therefore, this research focuses on making two key contributions, the first is the articulation of strategies based on availability, accessibility and usability for the demystification and democratization of HPC, based on an analytical review of Caliburn, a notable supercomputer at its inception. The second contribution is a set of principles for HPC adoption based on an experiential narrative of HPC usage for textual analytics and NLP of social media data from a first-time user perspective. Both, the HPC usage process and the output of the early stage analytics are summarized. This research study synthesizes expert input on HPC democratization strategies, and chronicles the challenges and opportunities from a multidisciplinary perspective, of a case of rapid adoption of supercomputing for textual analytics and NLP. Deductive logic is used to identify strategies which can lead to efficacious engagement, adoption, production and sustained usage for research, teaching, application and innovation by researchers, faculty, professionals and students across a broad range of disciplines.