Champions Program PEARC 19 Focus Group Findings Lizanne

Champions Program PEARC 19 Focus Group Findings Lizanne De. Stefano, Lorna Rivera, Julie Wernert XSEDE External Evaluation Team

Purpose • Identify priorities as they relate both to sustainability and program improvement from the perspective of Champions. The following priority areas were gathered from the 2018 Champions Climate Study and Champions Leadership Team discussions: • Sustainability/Building a Community of Practice • Funding/Financial Future of the Program • Why does the Champions program matter to you? • Where does the Champions program fit in the larger research computing ecosystem relative to other similar organizations? 2

Overview • 2 Focus Groups were held at PEARC 19 • 10 total participants • Participants represented a wide range of experience, years in the program, and institution type. 3

Focus Group Themes: • Regional Program: The Regional Program’s basis on geography is seen as artificial. Champions would rather join affinity groups based on institution types and technical interests. • Onboarding: Onboarding of new Champions varies considerably. Some would like more formal mentoring and new Champion support. • Allocations: Champions would like to expand their quarterly allocation reports beyond awards to include applications/rejections. Participants also requested improved resource matching tools for onboarding users. • Post XSEDE: A lack of clarity among the Champions regarding the relationship between XSEDE, CC program, and post XSEDE plans was identified. • Sustainability: Most believe NSF together with other agencies should continue to fund the program. Industry funding and organizational dues were generally not welcome. • Local Competition: Some centers regardless of size and research activity see XSEDE as a threat to local systems—especially if they sell their services. 4

The Regional Program’s basis on geography is seen as artificial. Champions would rather join affinity groups based on institution types and technical interests. • “The regions to me seem artificial. ” • “I bypassed the regions myself. It's going to depend on the champions themselves. I attend the monthly calls and the champions I align with that compliment my role. If I had a system admin maybe they would be interacting with the champions a lot more. I think it really has to do with the role of the person and where the school is at. ” • “I just realized what the regional program is while we were talking and I looked it up my phone/emails. ” 5

Alternatives to Regional Groupings • “Small HPC centers. I had an unofficial mentor who helped me setup/run things on our new system” • “I guess I'm not sure why we really need the affinity. I'm in region 2 and the slack chat is pretty lively. Someone asked about jupyter notebooks the other day and there were like 20 links. Another person asked does anyone want to meet up about this at PEARC” • “Divide by NSF regions. EPSCOR. Small colleges. Mentorship program/Onboarding is needed. ” 6

Allocations: Champions would like to expand their quarterly allocation reports beyond awards to include applications/rejections. Participants also requested improved resource matching tools for onboarding users. • “I would like to know if someone gets rejected. Might help them get resubmitted. ” • “There should be a guide to XSEDE for new people. ” • “PEARC on a more human scale than SC—SC more vendor centric. More research. More support staff. Perfect conference for champions. Good for meet ups. PEARC has stepped up in terms of academic quality. Perfect for research facilitation. Tutorial and workshops are great. Strong gradation in quality. Presenters might be newer at PEARC---not as experienced. Positive slope. ” 7

Sustainability: Most believe NSF together with other agencies should continue to fund the program. Industry funding and organizational dues were generally not welcome. • NSF should fund it---maybe not part of XSEDE 3. 0. XSEDE provides a lot of capacity to the organization—would be hard to do without XSEDE. Industry sponsors would create a conflict. Other federal agencies should chip in. • Part of the conversation at my institution now is why do I even need to be a champion when we didn't have one before. They wanted legal to look at it because they initially thought there were dues but it went through partly because it didn't. They wouldn't pay for with institutional funds and now it would be hard to walk back and ask them to pay. 8

Recommendations • Regional Program: Consider restructuring the Regional Program around affinity groups based on institution types and technical interests. • Onboarding: Improve onboarding of new Champions through mentorship programs matched on affinity group preferences (institution type, role, experience level, etc. ). • Allocations: Expand institutional quarterly allocation reports beyond awards to include applications/rejections. Work with other L 2 areas to improve resource matching tools for onboarding users. • Post XSEDE: Clarify and communicate the relationship between XSEDE and the Champions in terms of funding and sustainability. • Sustainability: Explore partnerships with other agencies to facilitate sustainability. 9