2025-09-30 - ACCESS EC Meeting Agenda & Summary

(v) indicates a voting member

Decisions made during the meeting:

Agenda

Additional Agenda Items

2. NSF Update - (10 minutes) Sharon and Ed - they need to leave early

   1. Re: note above - ensure accounts that are created on our systems are not created for any individual associated with 4 specific prescribed lists - list from OCRIST

      1. states sponsoring terrorism was already displayed - we need to add these 4 additional lists

   2. Allocation web page should display this restriction - Stephen and his team are already working on this - they have already performed an audit

   3. If someone is on the list - we should go thru and block them as soon as possible

   4. Science Gateways - what about people using those

      1. they do not believe science gateways are an issue - it is a portal and you don’t give direct access to the hardware

   5. If there were to be a shutdown today - they will have no access to email and cannot use their laptops at all

      1. there will be an automatic response to any emails that the government is shut down

3. Revisions to the RP Forum By Laws - Jeremy

   1. 09/25/2025: by a vote of 12 for and 3 not present, the motion to make ByLaws changes making the vice-chair elect position retroactive passed. 

      Eric Adams of Purdue will be acting chair for the remainder of my term and then will officially assume the role of RP Forum Chair in January as the current chair-elect. 

      Per the ByLaws:

      ●    In the case of the Chair being unable to complete their term as specified, the Vice-Chair will assume the role and will appoint a new Vice-Chair to serve the remainder of that term; the Chair (formerly vice-chair) will continue into the new term as Chair and new Vice-Chair elections will be held in January as expected. 

      ---

      Eric will appoint a new vice-chair that meets the requirements (must not be from the same RP nor have been elected to the role of RP Forum Chair or Vice Chair in the last five years). In January, the RP Forum will conduct their regular election for the Vice-Chair role. Presumably Eric will announce his appointment either via mailing list or at the next RP Forum meeting or both.

   2. Make sure Eric is invited to this meeting - yes he is

4. Quarterly Meetings - (5 minutes)

   1. When do we want to discuss follow up items from the Quarterly Meeting?

      1. surveys are out - should get results soon

      2. place topic on Oct 14

   2. Next quarterly - will we do one in person?

      1. Shelley - volunteers Boulder

      2. Tom - maybe make it longer

      3. John - other things are going on in that timeframe - possibly do an ACCESSpaloosa - ACCESS, RP, and EAB all meet possibly - or is that too much to put in a week

         1. could RP and EAB overlap?

            1. Operations is in both - so that would be a problem

         2. Some agendas could overlap - and have RPs attend some of the ACCESS meetings (what are we working on) - might stay an extra half day

      4. Stephen - his team is planning to add on to this meeting by having their annual meeting planning at the same time

      5. Shelley - it does make sense to combine them - this could be a 4 day event if we do something like this

      6. No objections to exploring this possibility - we will do a Palooza week

         1. EAB - travel to Boulder for 1 day might be a problem

            1. used for annual review reports - so we would need to have plans done early OR if it is later we would need to work fast to get recommendations into the reports

         2. Could possibly do it in Denver

         3. There are Internet 2 offices in Denver that we could possibly use

      7. NAIRR March 9 - 13 - there is another large meeting in April - this time is very busy

      8. Date: think about it during the next week and discuss at next meeting

         1. Shelley will look at rooms that would be available

5. Researcher Advisory Committee (5 minutes) - more an FYI

   1. We held another successful meeting of the ACCESS Researcher Advisory Committee yesterday on 9/25/2025. We had as many as 43 attendees—one even participating while on a plane!—of the newly-convened group, where we did a round of introductions, received welcoming remarks from NSF, elected both a Chair and EAB rep: Ulf Schiller and William Lai, respectively. The committee agreed that having the continuity of William Lai on the EAB again would serve the Researcher Advisory Committee and ACCESS well. I provided an ACCESS overview after explaining the Code of Conduct, the committee Charter, and led the nominations; later Andrew Pasquale presented the MCP content. The committee will reconvene in Spring 2026 and requested the following topics:

      1. ACCESS Support coordination of user training

      2. ACCESS and NAIRR and next steps - not sure if we can comment on next steps?

   2. Folks who present are asked to bring a note-taker from their team to capture feedback.

   3. All information is available on the wiki: https://access-ci.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/ACP/pages/1590591489/2025-09-25+ACCESS+Researcher+Advisory+Committee+-+Fall+2025

   4. Tom felt it was a bit too one-directional - they were very quiet - not a lot of interaction

   5. Stephen wants to get a bigger head start for planning the agenda so we can avoid problems like this

      1. these meetings are virtual

      2. note that this meeting meeting would be in March - could possibly put this in with the ACCESS-palooza as well

      3. do something more like we did for the EAB this time
         
         Big shoutout to Cindy Wong for all the help!

6. User Audience - (30 Minutes Team Discussion)

   1. Tim B - Thank you giving us (me) a chance to continue to participate in this discussion, even though our whole Operations team is locked away in the RP Workshop this week. I've got some thoughts below that reflect where my thinking is on the topic. I think for part 1, I can share my thoughts on the language. For part 2, I can share my thoughts but I'm not sure how that moves forward without all of us participating in the discussion as it evolves.

   2. Shelley - comments after reviewing the last meeting minutes:
      Part 1:  I’d like to suggest this modification to the statement provided.  As a note, I don’t really think this is something we post externally.  I think it’s going to unnecessarily confuse the users.  I do think it’s worthwhile to have a statement for us internally.  I do not think this changes much in terms of what we are already doing.

      "Our user audience includes researchers and educators who rely on ACSS-supported resources and other NSF approved programs where resource providers are funded to deploy and support national-scale resources, with active support prioritized for those directly using these resources. At the same time, ACCESS passively supports prospective users and broader communities who may benefit from our services, training materials, documentation, and outreach. To meet diverse needs, we tailor support and materials to users at novice, intermediate, and advanced levels of experience."

      I’d like to see if we can come to a decision on this.  Tim/Operations - if you can provide any comments about this asynchronously that would be great.  

      1. From Tim B: For Part 1:
         Here is how I would tweak the language if I were given (or if I stole!) a red sharpie and had a few minutes:
         "Our primary user audience includes researchers and educators who consume ACCESS-allocated resources, with active support prioritized for those directly using these resources. At the same time, ACCESS passively supports prospective users and broader communities who may benefit from our services, training materials, documentation, and outreach. To meet varying user needs, we tailor support and materials to users at all experience levels."

         Key points:

         • Shifted language to refer to users of ACCESS-allocated resources, which simplifies the language but more importantly it accounts for the entire process of deciding which resources can become ACCESS-allocated (i.e., "fully integrated").

         • Use of "primary" to describe that ACCESS-allocated user community.

         • For me, I don't so much like breaking down users by classifying their competence/experience levels. I would rather something more general there and have suggested something that maybe gets closer but I'm also not too happy with.

      2. Most people are liking Tim’s verbiage - not sure about “passively” in there - if we took that out it should be ok since we define it in the text

      3. John - possibly secondarily support?

      4. Revised approved Text: Our primary user audience includes researchers and educators who consume ACCESS-allocated resources, with active support prioritized for those directly using these resources. At the same time, ACCESS secondarily supports prospective users and broader communities who may benefit from our services, training materials, documentation, and outreach. To meet varying user needs, we tailor support and materials to users at all experience levels.

      5. Shelley will share with Eric and Tim/Leslie - then we will share with NSF

   3. Part 2: about coordination: (2) creating a way to surface projects across ACCESS teams that may impact user support, with a check/coordination point built in

      1. CHARGE: Charge from NSF:
         Discussion is needed among the five awards and agreement needed on
         who the ACCESS user audience is, and how the needs of diMerent
         segments of users will be addressed. For example – novice advanced
         computing user, intermediate advanced computing user, advanced
         computing power user. This segmentation should be reflected in
         targeted and consistent messaging, outreach, communications,
         services provided, etc. by the five awards

      2. I believe this is a hard problem to solve, and as I’ve said I myself don’t exactly know the answer given the current structure of ACCESS.  We do have some places where we track what we are doing, but that’s not exactly the issue that I see at least (although I don’t want to speak for NSF).  The issue I see is that the decisions we make on what to do is not made with the users at the front and center of that decision.  To me this is not about surfacing processes and awareness; it’s about changing fundamentals on how we work.  

      3. From Tim B: For Part 2
         I agree with Shelley that this is a harder problem to solve. From my perspective, I would like for us to talk about how we can change our planning approach to address the problems here more generally to account for all stakeholder groups, not just decisions made that impact users. This could, for example, end up looking like some form of cross-track/co-planning exercise that incorporates a review/assessment from the perspective of each stakeholder group. I think our process for addressing the challenges here (when we get that point in the discussion) should focus on using the EC as the cross-track team that is informed of and responds to topics that impact our stakeholders. And, yes, writing all that out has me wondering where we'd find the time to establish that kind of process.

      4. Tom - We have taken steps to alleviate this issue - recommender tool and chat were the reason why NSF recommended this

      5. Shelley - this is more process oriented - but not one big change can fix the changes

      6. John - annual planning is done in isolation - we share but this feel more pro-forma - needs to be more sharing during the initial planning stage

      7. Stephen - we have not had a disagreement yet on what priorities are - but given that we have such a short time on the project - should we commit to communicating more

      8. Tom - benefit to starting separately and then reviewing together - and how Stephen’s team did last year was more along this vein

      9. Shelley - NSF has said there needs to be better coordination across teams to better support users - make sure we have conversations about this

      10. Stephen - we do have our own individual reporting - but if this team said “This is what we need to do” we could all make that shift

      11. Tom - likes the idea that when we propose something new - ask how this is advancing our user audience - and then we all should align

      12. John - concern is when does it come to the EC for that question to be discussed - as long as it is not at the time - need the input very early in the process - that means that teams need to communicate things at the early planning stage and get feedback from the EC at that starting point (this is ideal world-Shelley)

      13. Shelley - we are not structured that way tho - when people are at the point of doing things we need to make sure we bring it to this team to discuss - but the team would make the approvals for any suggestions anyway

      14. John - suggests - regularly reminding EC if you have something coming up - bring it in … next as each team embarks on year 5 planning - id clear priorities and bring them to an EC discussion to align - then take back and do planning - this is a December quarterly meeting discussion

          1. Shannon - remember our lesson learned about December quarterly meeting

          2. Tom suggests a day long meeting on Zoom with this team to do this

      15. Finalize this statement - next meeting

      16. Next week - how to surface plans from our teams for the comoing year - and factor in discussion of user impacts (15 mins)

LINKS

Program Milestones

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

Misc Topics:

Next EC Meeting: Sept 23 is CASC meeting - next meeting Oct 7, 2025

Reference:

Risk Register:

Project Change Request: