Building a Community around Cyberinfrastructure for NSF Major Facilities

This webinar introduced the NSF Cyberinfrastructure Center of Excellence, CI Compass, summarized the findings of the recent workshop dedicated to the cyberinfrastructure (CI) for NSF Major Facilities, and facilitated a discussion with the goal of planning a CI-focused session at the 2022 Research Infrastructure Workshop organized by the Large Facilities Office in September.  

In 2021, CI Compass has been funded to provide expertise and work together with the NSF Major Facilities to address pressing CI challenges. CI Compass supports MFs as they are enhancing and evolving their core CI. As such, CI Compass amplifies the largest of NSF’s science investments and aims to have a transformative, broad societal impact on a multitude of MF science and engineering areas and the community of scientists, engineers, and educators MFs serve.   

A key component of CI Compass is community building. In March 2022, CI Compass organized a workshop (CI4MFs) with the participation of Major Facilities and the broader CI community. The goal of the workshop was to share best practices, discuss opportunities, and brainstorm solutions to the challenges we face today and in the future as they relate to the CI for NSF Major Facilities. The main theme of this workshop was “Getting Together, Working Together,” emphasizing the need for collaboration to address both technical and social challenges faced by our community. The over 100 participants discussed topics of future CI challenges, cloud migration, FAIR data, developing organizational resilience, and workforce development. 

As part of the Research Infrastructure Workshop in September 2022, CI Compass will organize a session dedicated to CI for Major Facilities.  

This webinar described the CI Compass program and its goals.  It summarized the discussions during the CI4MFs workshop and facilitated a discussion with the webinar participants focusing on planning a morning session at the September workshop.