Researchers should have ready access to the information technology hardware, software, specialized equipment they need, as well as the “human capital” to support their use of these items. Researchers spend valuable research time trying to locate University resources and a centrally coordinated effort—even one that featured distributed elements—would end much of the frustrations and inefficiencies that result when it comes to IT-enablement for research.
Action Item 6.01
The University should continue to establish and grow an array of high performance computing resources for researcher use, and should seek to maintain a top 100 status for its high performance computing capabilities.
Not only do LSU researchers need access to excellent high performance computing resources in order to conduct their research and support the public good, maintaining top 100 status will ensure that LSU remains competitive as a recruiter of top faculty and graduate students. The University should leverage its resources and implement innovative ways to increase the number of cycles available for large computing projects.
In order to create an abundant environment and provide the cycles needed by researchers, LSU should look to new technologies in order to create additional clusters outside of traditional HPC centers. The need for computing cycles is not going to dissipate; if anything it will grow exponentially over the next decade. In order to grow IT in economically constrained times, innovative tools like CONDOR clustering should be explored to maximize use of computing resources during down times.
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Action Item 6.02
ITS and CCT should lead efforts to develop partnerships with campus researchers to build capacities and support research endeavors, focusing on ways to best leverage investments in these key resources.
Joint projects to enhance computing resources on campus will have greater benefits, are more likely to receive funding, and will mitigate non-productive competitions for scarce resources.
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Action Item 6.03
There should be a reasonable and transparent mechanism in place regarding the allocation and assignment of available computation cycles.
In light of current cycle scarcity and in order to ease frustrations, researchers need assurances that free cycles are not being wasted nor are they arbitrarily awarded. A dashboard type tool to monitor cycle usage could in part provide a solution.
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Action Item 6.04
Recognizing that the national cyberinfrastructure offers a broad and expansive array of high performance computing resources via its national centers, ITS and CCT should work to expand communication with the campus research community to facilitate its use of these external resources and national centers.
A central clearinghouse on available external supercomputing sites should be available through either CCT or the Office of Research. The University should encourage and facilitate relationships with other institutes in order to create abundance. New relationships mean increased exposure of LSU researchers to national and international colleagues.
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Action Item 6.05
The University should encourage use of high performance computing beyond traditional user groups and do so by establishing and growing support for use of this technology for social sciences, arts, and humanities.
There are innumerable uses for high performance computing in the social sciences, arts, and humanities, including the generation of visual models and the running of complex statistical applications. Many researchers in these fields are unaware of the possibilities or are hindered by their lack of knowledge and experience in generating useful codes. By building the user community, advances in these fields could be fostered, gaining international recognition for LSU. Furthermore, if LSU researchers are not experimenting with applications in an HPC environment, they will fall behind other researchers in their respective fields who are.
ITS, working with the CCT, the Office of the VC of Research, and Deans, should seek ways to expand the availability of HPC resources so that the resource is available for non-traditional users, establish support mechanisms that encourage and support fledgling adoptions of this technology in these new areas, and provide incentives to researchers in these areas to explore the use of these technologies in their disciplines.
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Action Item 6.06
Specialized centers to support the use of specific information technologies (e.g., visualization, GIS, mathematical and statistical computing, etc) by researchers should be established in a coordinated fashion within the University. ITS should look for ways to establish several of these as part of a leveraged support model, providing deeper support for the more common of these specialized information technologies.
While CCT has begun to establish research centers for specialized research, basic support and introductory-level needs in these areas must be addressed without taking away from productive and ongoing research projects. Currently, researchers spend a good deal of time trying to figure out complex tools and applications instead of doing their research. Such inefficiencies hurt research productivity and hinder steady progress. Having deeper pockets of talented and dedicated support to pervasive, if not pedestrian, information technologies would certainly increase the ability of those information technologies to have impact upon the advancement of research at LSU.
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Action Item 6.07
Advanced research software and applications should be made available to researchers, taking advantage of all means of licensing and forms of distribution and access.
Securing licensed research applications and software, currently involves either expensive individual purchases or negotiations with other departments to purchase one of their group licenses. ITS should provide a centralized site from which licensed and freeware research software and applications (e.g., Fortran compiler, SAS, SPSS, Envivo) may be provided on centrally hosted systems, made available across distributed systems on campus, or downloaded for desktop use (via the TigerWare facility). Usage could be monitored to identify popular downloads in order to justify greater cost savings. 24x7 download availability will provide greater efficiencies and enable research productivity.
Action Item 6.08
The University should provide robust communication and document sharing tools to facilitate local and international research collaboration.
Researchers currently share documents via e-mail and are hampered by size limitations. Whether it is joint publication of a journal article or a grant proposal, multiple versions, edits, and complex graphics must be shared easily. Tools that may be accessed remotely and used by collaborators 24x7 must be in place. Collaborative authoring systems should be encouraged as a way to distribute content and encourage sharing. With the abundance of highly-intelligent, task-oriented professionals on the LSU campus, opportunities, and complementary incentives, for collaborative authoring should be in place to encourage a team-oriented mindset and sharing of technologies.
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Action Item 6.09
Online tools and training opportunities on common research IT tools should be available and coordinated centrally by ITS.
There are a number of common user needs in terms of available tools and applications that should be addressed not only through rich, online tutorials, but also through regularly scheduled in-house training sessions. These tools would run the gamut from lower end products like Webpage design to Fortran codes for high performance computing.
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Action Item 6.10
IT workshops and seminars should be offered on emerging technologies and their use in research.
Specialist research and professional-level needs should be addressed. The University should invest in the development of highly technical curricula as well as bring in national experts through collaboration with CCT and the academic departments to share knowledge of new developments in IT. It is important that as a flagship institution, LSU is on the cutting edge of technologies and their research applications.
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Action Item 6.11
There should be coordination of multiple IT “islands” that result from multiple grants and discipline specific IT needs.
Opportunities often arise for departments and programs to fund specialized IT resources and labs. These opportunities are often taken advantage of without regard to collaboration with other units or for the support and upgrade needs of the resources once in place and after the initial funding ends. Departmental faculty or the PIs on the initial grants become caretakers of these resources, taking them away from their research. Practical policies must be in place for the future caretaking of such resources, including the possible integration of these resources into central ITS.
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