Lessons from the Minority-Serving Institutions (MSI)

Cyberinfrastructure (CI) Institute [MSI-CI2]

NCSA Workshop August 7 2006http://www.educationgrid.org

The Demographic RevolutionProviding 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 MSI-CI2 • 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 ActivitiesPlanning 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 MSI-CIEC

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 ice-

sheet 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

Level No. %

I had never explored using CI in research or teaching

12 40

I had explored using CI in teaching or research but hadn’t implemented it yet

5 16.7

I had used some CI in teaching or research but am a relative novice

7 23.3

I consider myself fairly experienced at using CI in teaching or research

5 16.7

I am an expert at using CI in teaching or research

1 3.3

Thirty of 33 total MSI-CI2 participants completed the overall survey, for a response rate of 90.9%

Potential CI related interests NotInterested(1 pt)

SomewhatInterested(2 pts)

Veryinterested(3 pts)

Greatesinterest(4 pts)

AVG

Internships for MSI faculty or students at places with major CI activities

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 getinvolved 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

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

Answers to Questionnaire

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 2 = Somewhat effective

63.3% 19 3 = Quite effective

16.7% 5 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-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

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

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

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

MSI-CIEC: MSI Cyberinfrastructure Empowerment Coalition Leadership team

Capability Leaders PIs of Projects