ACCESS can help support U.S.-based educators in teaching students how to use computational tools and HPC techniques. If you already have an ACCESS account welcome back.
It’s easy to get started.
1
Create an account
To use ACCESS resources and manage your project, create an account.
2
See what resources are available
ACCESS Resource Providers from across the United States provide you access to NSF-funded advanced computing systems and services at no cost to you.
3
Prepare and request an allocation
With your ACCESS ID, apply for an allocation and receive credits to use a resource. A DISCOVER ACCESS allocation project type is a good place to start and is designed for small-scale classroom research activities.
Quick links:
- Eligibility
- Find the best resource for your project
- Find software
- Explore current projects
- Add users to your project
- Find events & trainings
- Systems status news
- Open a help ticket
How can I use ACCESS in the classroom?
Science Gateways provide user-friendly online interfaces to cyberinfrastructure, and support a community-specific set of tools, applications and data collections. Explore the Science Gateways Catalog to see if a gateway provides the tools you need for your class. These gateways can be used without requesting your own ACCESS allocation and may provide easy access for your students.
Or, request an ACCESS Allocation. Most classroom needs can likely be met with a DISCOVER ACCESS allocation project type, which is designed to cater to small-scale research activities. You’ll need to provide a one-page description of the classroom activity to request an allocation.
In your proposal specify when and how long your class will meet, how many students you’d like to accommodate, and the amount of data you expect to need, if you know. ACCESS staff will let you know if your needs are likely to require more resources than the DISCOVER allocation can provide. Additional Information about how to prepare the request is available.
Which ACCESS resources would be appropriate for my class?
You can explore available resources through the Resource Catalog, which provides descriptions of available resources and relevant information such as availability of GPUs.
The ACCESS Resource Advisor (ARA) provides another method to find suitable resources by asking questions about your research domain, software needed, hardware requirements and other information to make recommendations.
If you’re looking for particular software, say Jupyter Notebooks or Open OnDemand, you might find the Software Documentation Service (SDS) useful to explore which resources provide the software you need.
Where can I find training and documentation?
Visit the Events & Trainings page. If you join an Affinity Group you’ll get notified of trainings recommended by your Resource Provider or your community group.
The ACCESS Documentation pages contain articles, training materials, user guides, and various other sources of information to assist researchers in effectively utilizing ACCESS resources and services.
The ACCESS Knowledge Base includes training material and documentation contributed by the community on a variety of topics of interest.
What support is available to instructors to aid student work?
Ask.CI is the Q&A forum for the research computing community. Ask a question, answer a question, or add to the discussion.
Campus Champions provide information on ACCESS and cyberinfrastructure resources to researchers and educators on their campuses and they assist users to quickly get start-up allocations of computing time. Find a Champion on your campus!
CCMNet facilitates cyberinfrastructure (CI) mentorship connections and knowledge exchange with other mentor-centric programs, reaching out to under-served groups and providing best practices and guidance on mentorship to benefit the entire CI community. Review currently available mentorships or request a new mentorship engagement to assist with your needs.
ACCESS MATCH services connects researchers with a consultant, student or mentor to help solve your research problems.
Still need help? Open a help ticket and ACCESS or appropriate Resource Provider staff will be happy to answer your questions.
How do I track my project’s performance quality?
Reports are available through XDMoD with job performance information. Instructors and students may be able to use this data to understand what went wrong in their work. There’s a delay in reporting, so data may not be available immediately.
Log in and click on the Job Viewer tab. Enter your job number and resource in the search box to see how efficiently your job is running.
Log in to ACCESS XDMoD
How do I manage my project and add students?
You’ll need to have the role of PI, co-PI, or Allocation Manager to request/manage your project and add users.
All students must have their own ACCESS IDs. Student accounts can be added to an allocation by the allocation PI or others designated as resource manager using those ACCESS IDs. Add them to the appropriate resources under the Activity section of your project’s management page.
Once student accounts are added through the Allocations portal, it may take some time for those accounts to be added on the allocated resource. The time required to add students to an allocation may vary by resource provider, but the general recommendation would be to allow at least one week for new students to be added to the allocation.
How can I get involved in the ACCESS community?
There are many ways for educators and their students to get involved in ACCESS – as a reviewer, moderator, beta tester, mentor, and more.
I’m an educator
Hands-on usage of state-of-the-art computing facilities, such as those provided by ACCESS, provides a unique learning experience for our students – setting them up to make an immediate impact in their chosen field.”
VIJAY VARMA
Assistant Professor of Mathematics, University of Massachusetts Dartmouth
-
ACCESS Introduces a New Project Search Tool
ACCESS developer Rebecca Eveland created the new feature as a labor of love for the community.