Science and engineering (S&E) research and education depend upon an increasingly complex and distributed ecosystem of cyberinfrastructure (CI) that comprises elements at research labs, campuses and national resources. The advent of the ACCESS program represents an evolution of the National Science Foundation’s plans for the coordinated and coherent operation of this CI and provides an opportunity to implement a fundamentally new approach to supporting this evolving and expanding ecosystem.
This evolution requires a governance model that is equally forward-looking, one that simultaneously guarantees the highly reliable systems and services that the community depends upon while having the flexibility and structures to adapt as the ecosystem and community evolve.
The National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA), in partnership with the San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC), the Center for Education Integrating Science, Mathematics and Computing (CEISMC) at the Georgia Institute of Technology comprise the ACCESS Coordination Office (ACO), which provides the structures and services to support shared governance, community input and communication, and outreach for the various ACCESS projects – Allocations, Support, Operations and Metrics.
The ACO works to foster an environment for the ACCESS program where shared governance and horizontal leadership create an inclusive and vibrant CI ecosystem in which ACCESS project PIs work with a common purpose through well-defined decision-making processes, transparency in communication and a singular focus on enabling science.
The ACO is a critical conduit for sharing information and facilitating collaboration across the ACCESS program – providing both formal and informal structures for decision making, allowing flexibility to adapt as the program evolves, promoting transparency and openness of information and decision-making, and providing the tools and support to facilitate important business processes, communicating with the range of ACCESS stakeholders.
ACO GOALS
1.
Facilitate effective communication and coordination across the ACCESS projects in support of end-user requirements and NSF goals
2.
Engage with both existing and future CI user communities in support of ACCESS activities by supplementing and amplifying outreach efforts from the ACCESS projects
3.
Support NSF in its management and oversight of the ACCESS projects