**Community Member: David Warden

warden@geneseo.edu
SUNY Geneseo
Timezone: Eastern U.S.

Campus Champion, CIT
Senior Systems Analyst & Director of Research Technology
https://www.geneseo.edu/cit/faculty-staff

Availability:

Interviewers:
Lissie Fein
Nathan Tolbert (may only attend the 1st hour)

Via sign up form:

How should we address you?
Dave

Please describe your experience with supercomputing
I have very little experience with supercomputing

Are you familiar with the U.S. National Science Foundation's ACCESS program?
I don't use ACCESS but have heard of it

Via pre-survey:

Please describe your experience using advanced research computing?
I am the sysadmin for our campus shared, remote access Lambda workstation for HPC-lite tasks. I am an OSG user, but haven't done more than explore my login node.

If you've used ACCESS, what allocation level did you start with?
Not applicable

What have you used or hope to use the ACCESS website to do?
Request an explore allocation, document the process, evangelize ACCESS to my campus, and help my campus community use ACCESS.

Remind us what your role is, as it applies to working with ACCESS:
Educator (Campus Champion)

What is your research domain?
No answer

What courses do you teach?
No answer

What is advanced research computing is your resource particularly well suited for?
No answer

Who are your stakeholders?
No answer

What one thing do you appreciate most about the program?
I especially appreciate the support that I can direct my campus community to, as my institution is so small that my research computing support role is only half FTE.

What one thing would you change about the program?
I'm not sure yet! This is a little silly but I'm someone who struggles to update their CV, so the CV requirement for Explore allocations has been a barrier for my brain.

RECORDING: https://drive.google.com/drive/u/1/folders/1t_N8CXooEh0OEJGP0YbgEquemCfay6LK

Interview guide:

60–90 minute interview. Each task will take approximately 5-10 minutes.

• Login, introductions, set up screen share, record

We ask that you “talk aloud” as you are completing your task – telling us what you are thinking about and looking for as you complete your task.

• Task 1: Where would you go to find out what type of research is being conducted using ACCESS? Is your institution’s area of research/study/classroom activity represented on the ACCESS website?
  Interview notes here

• Went to News
  
  

• Task 2: Where can you find information specifically targeted for you?
  Interview notes here
  Easily found landing pages, wasn’t sure which landing page to go to— Identified with Researcher/Educator
  
  

• Task 3: Are you eligible to use ACCESS? Where can you find eligibility requirements?
  Interview notes here
  Noticed on landing page.
  
  

• Task 4: Find information about the cost to use ACCESS.
  Interview notes here
  Did CTR F search on, I believe, allocations page
  
  

• Task 5: What is an ACCESS resource? Where can you find the type of resources that are available through ACCESS? How would you select an ACCESS resource?
  Interview notes here

• Loved the Resources pages

• Had some trouble with filters, assumed he should click buttons to deselect ( saw orange color as reddish which had wrong association for him)

• Stony Brook is an affiliated university so he chose to look more at that RP.

• Liked software search

• Liked Recent Projects, Would be interested in example code in GitHub repositories

• [Get Started with OOKAMI] button felt unititutive for linking to “Get your First Project”
  
  

• Task 6: What is an allocation? What types of allocation projects can you apply for? How do they differ from one another?
  Interview notes here

• Credit calculator was challenging, Didn’t realize it was an input field.
  
  

• Task 7: Where would you go to find the definition of an unfamiliar term or phrase used in ACCESS?
  Interview notes here
  Q&A Bot
  
  

• Task 8: Where can you go for help to use the ACCESS system?
  Interview notes here
  Appreciates examples and keywords in the ticketing system questions.

• Task 9: If you want to get involved and volunteer with the ACCESS community where would you go?
  Interview notes here
  I believe looked in Community section on Support
  
  

• Task 10: What’s the first step to get started using ACCESS?
  Interview notes here

• Went to Allocations
  
  

• Task 11: Please review this page and suggest any additions or deletions.
  https://access-ci.org/get-started/for-programs-organizations/
  Interview notes here
  ”Are there tools available to run projects” Can be worded better
  
  

• Task 12: What type of HPC resources are your stakeholders looking for?
  Interview notes here
  
  

• Wrap up, thank you