2025-07-15 ACCESS EC Meeting Agenda & Summary

(v) indicates a voting member

Decisions made during the meeting:

Agenda

Additional Agenda Items

2. Communications Standing Group Report - Dina Meek (10 min)

   1. Presentation - overview of PY3 and plan for PY4

   2. (link)

   3. Joe W - have a monitor to play slides at PEARC? no not this year, a few people have decks, can we get these incorporated elsewhere?

3. Introduce Misha

4. Quarterly Meeting - (5 min)

   1. ACO heard from U of I sponsored program today (7/9) and they now have guidance on how to handle the awards/supplements with the contentious language.  My understanding was that they hoped to have the supplement processed by the end of 7/9!

      So, we now have green lights across the boards to proceed with the in-person meeting and paying for licenses.

   2. Planning update:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Me875geb_a1jj8gOgJJeCW5nXgrdPMg5AGaQCEI8PAU/edit?usp=sharing

2. “Who is a Priority” and what does being a priority mean - Shelley (30 mins)

   1. Review of what was discussed last week

   2. Sharon - #1 priority is ACSS people - they are funded to be part of ACCESS

   3. Who comes next - there is a range of possibilities

   4. We have a lot of tools that could be available to the masses

   5. Should we publish a list of our priority people? hierarchy/algorithm

   6. Tim - as that would become known - people would feel “less than” if they were not at the top of the list - many already know ACSS is priority - if we announce this it might drive some people away / ignore us. Let’s not classify it by who this activity is going to most benefit - if we tie it to a group we could limit activities that can provide a lot of value - let’s think about what the 5 programs and as ACCES could undertake in 18 months that stands to deliver the most value to the existing ecosystem and those who are closest to joining us. There are things that Ops could pursue that have things that could be used by our larger userset.

   7. Tom - maybe if we classify 2 different ways of support - Active Support, and Passive Support (tools and techniques that others can leverage but we are not actively supporting)

   8. Stephen - leans toward what Tom is talking about - since it isn’t a long list of users - people might not object to a list like this

      1. ACSS Cat I/Cat II

      2. Other NSF-funded initiatives (if they see value in ACCESS services)

      3. Other initiatives (And only if no other priorities above are being worked on)

   9. Shelley - have we done everything for that group to make life worthwhile for them and us - if no or a little bit but not all the way - we should get that taken care of before anything else

   10. Tim - that is prob not a binary list - if we go to them and ask what else could we do - they would provide a list that would take the next 18 months - if we put 95% of effort on ACSS - we will fail the rest of the broader ACCESS program. We will not get any more info and do not have an official change of scope

   11. Sharon - memo mentions cost/benefit - whatever the original charge was - it talks about resources that can be primarily for national purposes - if you have a proposal that can allocate 30 GPU hours per year - if you look at the cost benefit - it would not be there for that one - can they benefit from the tools we already have - yes - but this discussion should be about “what is being integrated” There are a lot of things we can do aside from that but they do not need to be part of an allocation schema if there is not a positive CBA

   12. Tim - integration means taking any steps going toward the badging - the “integrated” above defines it differently - that as an action is not what this conversation is about - whether someone should be or should not be allocated to ACCESS - we should steer away from the word “integration” - we should find something else to more properly define

   13. Shelley - have we done all the things for the ACSS providers? Have we fully “integrated” ACSS into ACCESS - what does even this really mean?

   14. Tim - for ACCS there is metrics and utilization tools as well as just getting access - internet2 is optional - if they are not compliant our approach is to inform NSF and allow them to have the discussion to get them to adopt

   15. Tom F - our mission is to provide access for researchers to advance their research - we provide tools and software and other things they can leverage for their benefit which also benefits the rest of the ecosystem - we shouldn’t aim to serve the universe - if we get a big offer - we let NSF decide if that is a direction we should head

   16. Sharon - From ACSS: “Resource Providers supported via this solicitation will be incorporated into NSF’s ACSS 2.0 program portfolio. This program complements investments in leadership-class computing and funds a federation of nationally available advanced computing resources that are technically diverse and intended to enable discoveries at a computational scale beyond the research of individual or regional academic institutions.”
       “NSF anticipates that at least 90% of the provisioned resource will be available to the S&E community through an open peer-reviewed national allocation process and have resource users be supported by community and other support services. Such allocation and support services are expected to be coordinated through the NSF-funded Advanced Cyberinfrastructure Coordination Ecosystem: Services & Support (ACCESS) , the National AI Research Resource, or an NSF-approved alternative as may emerge.”

   17. Shelley - what are we going to do to come to a resolution on this? We have had some good discussion. What do we do now?

   18. Discuss while at PEARC in person

   19. Amit - this is an EC wide decision - and making a working group for this is not in our benefit

   20. Sharon - the memo is a memo to the PIs of the award - you as PIs are responsible to NSF and to the taxpayer for what we have been allocated. It should be part of the strategy the PIs have to set and that NSF is expecting

   21. Shelley - how do we get together to decide on this? Does include Jeremy and he wants to be involved - meet at PEARC to see if being in person helps bring this to a conclusion.

Program Milestones

https://access-ci.atlassian.net/jira/core/projects/ECMT/list?sortBy=duedate&direction=ASC&filter=status%20IN%20(%22Annually%22%2C%20%22In%20Progress%22%2C%20%22Monthly%22%2C%20%22Ongoing%22%2C%20%22Quarterly%22%2C%20%22Semi%20Annually%22%2C%20%22Upcoming%22)%20AND%20labels%20%3D%20%22EC%22

EC Meeting Task Tracking + Quarterly and Annual Meetings To Do Follow Ups

https://access-ci.atlassian.net/jira/core/projects/ATT/list?sortBy=duedate&direction=ASC&filter=%22Category%5BCategory%5D%22%20IN%20(%22EC%20Meeting%20To%20Do%22%2C%20%2224Feb-QtrlyMtg%22%2C%20%2224June-QtrlyMtg%22%2C%20%2224Dec-QtrlyMtg%22)%20AND%20status%20IN%20(%22In-Progress%22%2C%20%22To%20Do%22)

Misc Topics:

Next EC Meeting: No meeting July 22, 2025 (PEARC), next meeting July 29, 2025 (Shelley absent-Chuck chair), Aug 5 (Shelley gone - Chuck will chair)

Reference:

Risk Register: https://access-ci.atlassian.net/jira/core/projects/RR/board

Project Change Request: https://access-ci.atlassian.net/jira/core/projects/PCR/board