2022-12-13 ACCESS EC Meeting Agenda & Summary

Attendees:

  • RAMPS: Stephen Deems (v), Dave Hart

  • MATCH: Shelley Knuth (v)

  • CONECT: Tim Boerner (v), Leslie Froeschl

  • MMS: Tom Furlani (v), Joe White

  • OpenCI: John Towns (v), Shawn Strande, Ron Payne, Lavanya Podila, Lisa Kaczmarczyk, Cindy Wong

  • NSF: Tom Gulbransen (NSF)

  • Guest Speaker:

    • Alex Withers

(v) indicates a voting member

Agenda/Notes

  1. Review Privacy Policy @Leslie Froeschl (1 minute)

    1. Alex is working on getting an answer to a question about dealing with GDPR requests, so isn’t yet ready to have the policy formally approved. Alex will join an EC meeting in early January to answer questions and invite formal approval once this question is resolved.

    2. EC members are invited to review the policy in its current state and comment within the document: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1jo-Sl5P9m0Xwyd6d1Ntqf4Wtefw5nlYBBgrst9SfAXM/edit?usp=sharing

  2. EAB Nominations Review @Shawn Strande (25 minutes)

    1. Shawn gave an overview of the entire EAB nominations process

    2. EC has voted to accept the slate and move forward with notifying the selected candidates

    3. Ask from awardees - we need 1-2 sentences about future opportunities of engagement for candidates not selected.

    4. The EC has decided to send out the email to ALL the candidates on the list who are not selected

    5. Terms - 1-year/2-year terms depending on previous experience, expertise etc so that we don't select a fresh slate every year. We can also ask the candidates if they would like to volunteer for 1-year/ 2-year terms

  3. Approval of summaries from prior EC meetings @John Towns (5 mins)

    1. 29 November 2022 EC Summary (approved)

    2. 06 December 2022 EC Summary (approved)

       

  4. Informational Items (10 mins)

    1. RAMPS @Stephen Deems

      1. Allocation recommendations from the AARC (ACCESS Allocations Review Committee) are being reconciled with RPs to balance oversubscriptions on resources.

        1. Notifications regarding outcomes of proposals are expected to be sent later this week.

      2. Upcoming Allocation periods

        1. December 15 - January 15

          1. For allocations to begin/be renewed on April 1

        2. March 15 - April 15

          1. For allocations to begin/be renewed on July 1

        3. Bi-annual cadence thereafter

      3. Focus groups for Allocations web presence/content are scheduled for later this week (Thursday/Friday) with select RPs, Track 2 representatives, PIs, Graduate Students, and non-ACCESS personnel (for a lay audience perspective). This feedback will be incorporated to revised/reorganized documentation for the Allocations pages.

      4. Survey to be sent to those who have used the xRAS system since the start of ACCESS

        1. Targeting to send this out in early January and be incorporated into the annual review.

    2. MATCH @Shelley Knuth

      1.  

    3. CONECT @Tim Boerner

      1. The STEP (student training & engagement) program is now accepting applications from students. Additional info and the application are posted at https://operations.access-ci.org/step . Please invite any students who you think might be a good candidate for the program to apply!

    4. MMS @Tom Furlani

      1.  

    5. OpenCI @John Towns

      1. EAB nominations has been the focus

  5. Discussion of supplemental’s for Evaluation work for the ACCESS Program @John Towns (10 minutes)

    1. Question for the EC - should we move forward with discussions with NSF to focus on a supplement for evaluation work?

    2. Supplement request led by Lizanne, will be similar to XSEDE, continue to track trends in the community, and some aspects need to be reworked to ensure they are suitable for the ACCEES community

    3. There will be opportunity for tracks to ask all their questions

    4. Scope of the evaluation work -

      1. Dave Hart suggested distinct surveys targeting specific group might be better.

      2. John suggested we can include the RP’s, end user communities and staff etc so that it is more efficient and streamlined.

      3. Action item for the evaluation team to determine the scope of the evaluation.

    5. Timeline for the surveys -

      1. it would take about 4-6 months to get the surveys out, considering we need to submit a supplemental request to NSF, getting accepted and setting up the evaluation

    6. The EC has no objections to moving forward with the request.

    7. Several awardees have expressed interest in being involved in the process, so that they are aware of what they will be evaluated on?

  6. Misc Topics

    1. Letters of collaboration - we talked about previously, they can be sent to John and he will route them, but if folks know who to reach out to directly, that’s acceptable as well.

    2. Thoughts or plans for a marker paper, any discussion about how to get access?

      1. John suggested we should have a discussion about having a marker paper

      2. Action item for the ACO - to reproduce the paper for ACCESS similar to XSEDE.

 

 

Reference: EC Backlog

Next EC Meeting: 20 December 2022