2026-02-24 - ACCESS EC Meeting Agenda & Summary

If possible, please fill in this info prior to the meeting - thank you!

1. EAB Meeting Review (Chuck)

2. Standing Committee Reports

   1. Web and Communications - Dina Meek - 15 mins

      1. Dina presented a plan for the PY4 Highlights book, which will consolidate achievements under three themes: innovating for research productivity, facilitating discovery, and providing excellent support.

      2. PY4 Highlights - https://docs.google.com/document/d/1kyXTrjKrGpvXLt-U-SSgKVRJ7y75_QPyHX7oGEG1P-g/edit?tab=t.0#heading=h.kzw7l1s4vhbi

      3. We have questions around further unifying our brand (one ACCESS rather than five awards)

      4. Here’s the doc we can share to discuss

   2. Share the "Plan Year Four Highlights" document in the chat and ensure all EC members have access.

   3. The group discussed consolidating their brand presence across different websites and agreed to maintain the current logo design that includes different service names.

The team reviewed and approved a draft of the Plan Your Four Highlights book, which will consolidate achievements under three themes: innovating for greater research productivity, facilitating discovery by lowering barriers, and providing excellent support through engagement. Shelley agreed to provide data and graphs showing national reach from recent NAR pilot activities for inclusion in the highlights section. The team clarified that PY4 runs from May 1 to April 30, and Tom offered to contribute content from the scientific impact paper for the first four years. Dina shared a document about brand consolidation efforts and requested feedback on where reviewers might have perceived the program as segmented, though no specific memories of such feedback were recalled.

The team discussed feedback from NSF regarding their program's segmentation, with Tom and Shelley agreeing that the issue likely stems from presenting the program's five tracks separately rather than as a cohesive whole. Dina proposed consolidating content from the five different sites into a single "About" page on their website, which Tom approved, and the group decided to maintain the current logo lockup with different group names visible in the site header to help users navigate between different sections.

Bruno led a detailed discussion about new NSF requirements for managing international users, including verification processes and database management, with particular attention to how Resource Providers (RPs) and ACCESS will coordinate user access controls.

NSF requests that the following actions be taken within two weeks of receipt of this request: (received on Thursday 2/19/2026)

1. Provide a plan, and implementation timeline, to verify eligibility of international users on ACCESS allocated resources prior to approval of an ACCESS project. The plan must include (at the minimum):

   1. Requirement that the PIs requesting an ACCESS allocation declare if the project will include international users when requesting an ACCESS allocation of any type.

   2. If international users are declared in an ACCESS request,  

      1. A requirement that the PI submit the names/affiliations of all international users, including justification for inclusion,

      2. A requirement that the PI must attest that international users are eligible as defined by ACCESS eligibility criteria.

      3. Verification by ACCESS that the international users are eligible as defined by ACCESS eligibility criteria.

2. Provide a plan, and implementation timeline, to ensure continued oversight of international users on ACCESS projects. This plan must include (at the minimum):

   1. A process to ensure that all ACCESS project PIs with an active allocation award annually recertify the affiliation and justification of any international user on their project.  

   2. A submission to NSF every six months of the list of international users on ACCESS projects.  

3. Provide a plan, and implementation timeline, to ensure that all ACCESS IDs and affiliations on an active ACCESS project allocation reflect active user accounts created at Resource Providers (RP). The plan must include (at the minimum):

   1. An agreed upon definition between ACCESS and RPs for what an active user account at an RP means.

Thank you in advance for your prompt response to this request. Additional guidance may be forthcoming in the near future as we receive more clarity with respect to evolving research security requirements concerning international users on NSF funded advanced computing systems.

John T/ACO: the role of the ACO here is in supporting  a communication to the community indicating these changes in policy and process.

Leslie: from Derek to get his perspective since he and the cybersecurity team have been involved with parts of this. I'm sure the points he makes are already being considered, but wanted to share regardless:

 If Allocations has a documented policy for PIs that they must adhere to, it will need to be updated to reflect these rules. If they do not have one, it should be created accordingly.

• If there are appropriate updates that need to be made to the ACCESS Acceptable Use Policy, I can work with Allocations to update wording on that.

• I foresee difficulty in enforcing these rules for Science Gateways, as they can be open to public use and submit jobs on behalf of their gateway users via a common RP science gateway account. If the gateways cannot track and report exactly who is using their gateway, and map job submissions to specific gateway users, we may have to shut these down, else require the science gateways to have every user register for an ACCESS account and run their jobs under the user's credentials - which arguably defeats the purpose of such gateways...

• Bruno: Send specific questions to Leslie, Tim, and Derek regarding operations-related aspects of international user verification and eligibility.

• Eric/Virginia: Collect definitions of active/inactive user/account statuses from RPs by Thursday.

• Bruno: Compile all definitions of active/inactive user/account statuses from RPs and operations, and converge on a consistent definition for ACCESS and RPs.

• Bruno: Meet with Sharon (NSF) to clarify requirements and discuss implementation options for international user verification and reporting.

• Bruno: Draft a plan and implementation timeline for international user verification and reporting, circulate to EC by next week's EC meeting for review before sending to NSF.

• Bruno: Send update via email to EC after meeting with NSF to communicate new information/clarifications.

• Allocations/Operations: Systematically review and update user records to ensure users with non-matching email/institutional affiliations are properly vetted or removed, especially focusing on banned institutions.

• Leslie: Continue vetting the proposed date (week of September 21st) for the fall RP workshop with the RP Forum and confirm location details.

• Eric: Ask RPs in the RP Forum to complete the RP survey (as requested by Amitava).

• Bruno: Attend the RP Forum meeting on Thursday to discuss and hear RP perspectives on user definitions and related requirements.

• Dina/Tom: Add the shared document to the agenda so all (including those not present) can access it.

Bruno presented a draft document outlining seven action items related to international user allocations for the National Science Foundation. The key requirements include PIs declaring international users, providing user details and eligibility confirmation, and implementing annual recertification processes. Bruno will meet with Sharon to seek clarification on implementation options and aims to share a first draft by Thursday, with a final plan ready for the next EC meeting. The team needs to align on definitions of active user accounts across allocations, operations, and RPs databases, with Eric and Virginia collecting local definitions by Thursday.

The group discussed the upcoming RP Forum on Thursday, where Dan will speak about TAC's definitions. Eric raised concerns about RPs potentially viewing this as an access problem, emphasizing that local RPs need their own procedures and policies in place. Bruno clarified that RPs only need to know about the final topic of defining an active user, and agreed not to share other details to avoid confusion. Amitava highlighted the need for close collaboration between RPs and ACCESS, noting that RPs will conduct their own checks after ACCESS attests a user as eligible. They also discussed the science gateways being out of scope for now, as they don't have direct access to machines.

The team discussed responding to Bob Chaddock and emphasized that RPs should not assume access clearance for users coming from ACCESS, as they need to conduct their own vetting. Bruno and Amitava agreed on the importance of communicating this to RPs, while Bruno clarified that the current focus should be on finalizing the ACCESS process for international users. Joseph raised concerns about the services provided by ACCESS, such as running code on Pegasus and accessing analytics frameworks, but Bruno confirmed that these services are not a significant worry as users cannot SSH into HPC systems.

The group discussed the need for a unified database of institutions to ensure consistency in user verification across resource providers and ACCESS. Bruno explained the current verification process, which includes manual checks against the CSL list, and emphasized the importance of retroactive application of these checks. Tom suggested that NSF should certify the list of allowed institutions, while Eric highlighted the need for a collaborative process to vet future changes to the list. Nathan raised concerns about the accuracy of matching institution names across different lists, and the group agreed that further clarification with NSF is needed.

Program Milestones

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

Risk Register:

Project Change Request: