RCN: Advancing Research and Education Through a National Network of Campus Research Computing Infrastructures - The CaRC Consortium

Clemson University, Clemson SC

Investigators

Abstract

As the role of computing in scientific discovery continues to increase, campuses across the country are challenged with the task of providing effective facilitation for computing capabilities so that researchers can harness these capabilities in their investigations. Such facilitation requires novel organizational approaches to the way that both human and physical resources that constitute campus research computing capabilities are composed, structured, and operated. The mission of the Campus Research Computing (CaRC) Infrastructures Consortium is to provide a national forum for the exchange and dissemination of best practices, expertise and technologies, enabling the advancement of campus-based research computing activities. By bringing together a wide range of campuses and community stakeholders, the CaRC Consortium provides a novel, yet complementary, element of an evolving and expanding national cyberinfrastructure ecosystem. Governed by a council according to the consortium bylaws, the CaRC Consortium acts as unique force in advancing the impact of computing on the productivity of faculty and students. As an organization that is driven by the campus perspective of research computing, the CaRC offers several key outcomes at a national scale including the sharing of knowledge, best practices, software and hardware technologies, expertise, workforce development, and professional development. This fills a void within the national research computing fabric; as more campuses recognize the value of investments in research computing capacity and also in facilitators and like-functioning positions, many of these campuses and their individual staff members are isolated in a new field of practice without the necessary supporting infrastructure from a practitioner community.