2026-01-06 - ACCESS EC Meeting Agenda & Summary

Decisions made during the meeting:

Agenda

Consent Agenda - Updates for the team that should be read offline

Additional Agenda Items

2. Quarterly Meeting Update - @Shannon Bradley

   1. Hotel - Hilton Garden Inn - Chicago Central Loop -

      1. The contract is at the U of I campus for signature

      2. I asked our Hotel contact for the room block link today - she cannot give us the block link till we get the signed contract back from campus

      3. We will be eating buffet breakfast at the hotel because it is less expensive and logistically easier than catering breakfast to the Illini Center

   2. Meeting - at the Illini Center (https://illinicenter.illinois.edu/ )

      1. They have provided a formal invoice - they do not have formal contracts with signatures.

      2. We process journal vouchers for university events once per month and will process this with the rest of our February JVs on or around February 27, 2026.

   3. Catering -

      1. Because the catering is delivered and there are no kitchen facilities at the Illini Center catering All the food is delivered and set up in disposable trays for any vendor we coordinate with.

         1. Can we clean up after ourselves? or would we need a staff to stay and clean up?

      2. I will need the agenda done soon so the caterers know when the breaks and lunch will be

         1. I am aiming for 10am break, 12pm lunch, 3 pm break

      3. I will need dietary requirements again in the planning document

         1. Can you please start filling in your headcount and dietary needs? https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ufIhfLOpaOm8-xmhzITII6lhcBnRHQQ8EZxCSjW6irc/edit?gid=531229141#gid=531229141

   4. Agenda Planning

      1. Stephen did a lot of leading this - what happens now?

      2. Cindy, Amit, Misha, me - please put Cindy on the agenda for next week to start planning

      3. Team time - Tuesday afternoon - if anyone wants to participate

         1. need to reconfirm with Support if they are meeting or not

   5. EAB

      1. needs to be solidified

      2. Chuck did send around a notice to EAB members so they can save the dates

3. We need an EC representative for the RAC -

   1. It would make sense for Bruno to be the sponsor - yes - he is prepared

   2. Tom says he will help overview and provide some info for background - Laura was going to review with Bruno as well

   3. Follow up on this in January

4. EAB - Chuck Pavloski

   1. Vivian Heng Fu will be retiring from the EAB at the end of the year

      1. We need to know how to fill her position - it is in the EAB charter

         1. Debate is whether or not it is worth it at this point to fill the position

      2. https://drive.google.com/drive/u/1/folders/1JK7Yc-lK1q0hHiMx4vnVsGIU5hUfg-sE

      3. There is no defined procedure for EAB member replacement mid-term

         1. https://access-ci.atlassian.net/browse/ATT-231

   2. Still need ACO and RAC appointments with the EAB

5. Finalize Shared Priorities

   1. PY5 ACCESS Shared Priorities - these are approved

      1. Improve the user experience (e.g., better user guidance, personalization of the user experience, and better insights through usage analysis, …)

      2. Increase the value delivered to the ACCESS-Allocated Resource Providers (e.g., easier integration processes, simpler and more effective tools, …)

      3. Solidify the programmatic foundation for transitioning to successor awards (e.g., modernizing tools, updating documentation and policies, and improving cross-program operational alignment, capturing lessons learned, …)

      4. Better capture and articulate ACCESS scientific impact (e.g., through publications data, new captured metrics, new analysis of existing data captured, …)

   2. To do next

      1. Summary Priorities by Team - done below

      2. Each team review their team goals and see how they fit with the priorities

      3. The Priorities drive the team goals and those goals can have metrics and outcomes within the teams

      4. Create shared text and slides that we all use in our reviews

   3. Steps Forward

      1. Each team edits their bullet text on the 4 shared priority slides - https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1V1VOE0gNfv3w2_tnaYcAY0aCvsC-B-TZ/edit?slide=id.p1#slide=id.p1

         1. Each team can add supplemental slides containing greater detail on their contributions to the 4 shared priorities (if desired)

            1. Metrics included examples in the google doc slides

            2. Everyone should update this deck and highlight their section in red when it is done - when all are red we are ready to go

            3. Shannon send Tom the generic template for ACCESS

               1. https://access-ci.atlassian.net/browse/ATT-232

      2. John - we will need to do this for every team in January

      3. By Feb we will have an EAB meeting where we have to talk about this

      4. Shared version is the slide with the 4 priorities

6. year4 surveys out in Jan-Feb 2026 - @majumdar

   1. As you all know Dave Hart, chair of the Eval SC is not with ACCESS anymore. Given that it is the time to start preparing (which we have been doing for a while already) the three (RP, Staff and Community) Year4 surveys and send out the surveys, I had some discussion with the Eval SC members in late Dec and with their approval, I am sharing this note to you. All of this is known to you and have been discussed before by Dave and in that sense nothing is new.

      The good thing is that over the last few months we have completed the intellectual part of the planning for the RP, Staff and Community surveys for Year4. We are mostly left with the mechanical part where Cindy does her magic (and the tremendous hard work behind it) to get the surveys out, send reminders, get results back, format the results in presentable form, and share with the Eval SC members. 

      I am summarizing here the plan, and all of these are known to all of you. If you have any comments, suggestions, please let us know by Jan 14th. Our plan is to start sending out the surveys in late-Jan to early-Feb timeframe. That will be fine for getting the survey results back and do a prelim analysis and include in the annual reports if any ACCESS team wants to do that.

      Here is the summary:

      1. No change in the Staff survey from the Year3 survey; ACO will provide the list to whom the survey will be sent

      2. Pretty much no change in the RP survey from the Year3 survey (Ops will be removing some items from the RP survey in favor of interviews that they will conduct); Winona is assembling a tailored list of "guaranteed RP responders"

      3. Community survey has been brought down to 7 questions (Dave shared the update with EC on Dec 9th and EC was fine with it https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1WE-9j2dLfVjsqaEaXkkGitylTfGb8zy36wRGxJzHcvo/edit?slide=id.p1#slide=id.p1)

      Community Survey: Will be the deduplicated UNION of three sources:

      • Allocations: All persons who interacted with Allocations site in 2025.

      • Metrics: All persons who recorded some resource usage in 2025.

      • Support: All non-bouncing addresses on the Support newsletter mailing list. 

   2. Cindy sent out info this morning and is getting things started

Background Info:

1. Notes: https://access-ci.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/ACP/pages/1815052432

   1. Morning Note Synthesis: https://access-ci.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/ACP/pages/1815052432/EC+Quarterly+Meeting+Notes#Synthesis-of-the-morning-notes%3A

   2. Summary of Planned Goals/Actions - by team: https://access-ci.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/ACP/pages/1820852243

   3. Summary of Planned Goals/Actions - by PY5 ACCESS Wide Goals: https://access-ci.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/ACP/pages/1819869206

   4. PY5 Summary White Sheet: https://access-ci.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/ACP/pages/1820688409

Operations PY5 Priorities

Metrics

Support

Allocations

ACO