CC* Team: Great Plains Regional CyberTeam

University Of Missouri-Columbia, Columbia MO

Investigators

Abstract

Advances in science and technology fields are increasingly accomplished as part of multidisciplinary and multi-institutional collaborations that require complex cyberinfrastructure. A regional CyberTeam led by the Great Plains Network will support and advance the computational and data-intensive research across the region through the development of specific cyberinfrastructure resources, workforce training, and the development of unique, mutual, and cross-institutional support methodologies and agreements. The project advances the adoption and experience of advanced computing and data resources by developing a model built upon best and emerging practices for cross training and researcher outreach, pairing an experienced mentor at one institution with a mentee at another. The project objectives are to: 1) Improve campus awareness and adoption of advanced cyberinfrastructure. 2) Increase the number of campus research computing and data professionals at mentored institutions, especially for institutions with small IT staffs with many job duties. 3) Increase the capabilities of campus cyberinfrastructure resources. 4) Enable development, deployment, and operation of cyberinfrastructure to make science efficient, trusted, and reproducible. The CyberTeam is a cross-institutional team consisting of technical leaders in the region paired with new members of the workforce, graduate and undergraduate students interested in joining the cyberinfrastructure workforce, and the institutional research computing leadership for regional research universities. It provides a model for distributed support teams to support cyberinfrastructure and aid in the development of a cyberinfrastructure engineering and facilitation workforce. Generalized best practices for a regional team of CI mentors including specific mentorship plans, retrospectives, and reference materials are disseminated. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.