SGCI overview delivered at Advanced Research Computing on Campuses event in conjunction with PEARC17.

1. Award Number
ACI-1547611
Nancy Wilkins-Diehr, SDSC
Michael Zentner, Purdue
Marlon Pierce, Indiana U
Maytal Dahan, TACC
Katherine Lawrence, U of Michigan
Linda Hayden, ECSU
Science Gateways
Community Institute

2. What is a science gateway?
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science gateway /sī′ əns gāt′ wā′/ n.
1. an online community space for science
and engineering research and
education.
2. a Web-based resource for
accessing data, software,
computing services, and
equipment specific to the
needs of a science or
engineering discipline.

3. 10+ year road to the birth of an institute
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Despite the technological progress of grid technology and deployment, only a
minority of the scientific, engineering, and education community use today’s
national computing infrastructure. Our WIDE strategy addresses this situation by
working directly with specific community leaders who are building discipline-specific
cyberinfrastructure capabilities and resources for their communities.
TeraGrid proposal, 2003
• “discipline-specific CI capabilities” = science gateways
• First example of community groups using
supercomputers without individual accounts

4. In 2003 we had to pay gateways to help us
develop the program
Eventually we were successful!
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All users
Gateways
XSEDE users

5. • Developers typically
• work in isolation
• must bridge to
variety of resources
• need building
blocks in order to
focus on higher-
level functionality
• struggle to secure
sustainable funding
Despite many successes, we observed challenges
Gateways often funded as 3-year research projects
Early
adopters
Publicity
Wider
adoption
Funding
ends
Scientists
disillusioned
New
project
prototype
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6. We studied the problem
And studied it some more
2009-2012
EAGER
2012-2015
Concept.
phase
2016
Software
Institute!
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• More focus groups
• Survey with 5000
responses
Focus groups

7. Science Gateways Community Institute
Designed to help the community build gateways more effectively
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Diverse expertise
on demand
Longer-term,
hands-on support
Student
opportunities &
educator resources
Sharing
experiences &
knowledge as a
community
Software & visibility
for gateways

8. Summary of offerings
• Consulting and bootcamp
• Direct help building gateways
• 25% FTE, up to 1 year
• Gateway and software catalog
• Webinars, conference, blogs, jobs, case studies
• Gateways 2017 in Ann Arbor, Oct 23-25
• Student programs
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Info on all at www.sciencegateways.org
help@sciencegateways.org

9. Special component of Community
Engagement of interest to ARCC:
Developing gateway expertise on campuses
• Is your campus seeing an increasing
number of research projects that
include web-based applications?
• Does each group hire developers
independently?
• This can be time consuming and
inefficient
• You are not alone.
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Source: Sandra Gesing, Notre Dame

10. Campus gateway groups can be more
efficient
• Centralized teams collaborating with diverse
researchers and research teams
• Each project doesn’t have to fund a full time
developer
• Synergy effects between projects
• Wider variety of expertise available
• Lower learning curves
• Researchers and PhD students can focus on
their research
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Source: Sandra Gesing, Notre Dame

11. SGCI is assembling success stories
Models differ at each campus
Many universities have successful centers/groups with
centralized services for science gateways
• Center for Research Computing at University of
Notre Dame
• Went from 7 to 45 FTEs over 10 years, 70% funded by
research projects
• HubZero Team at Purdue University
• Science Gateways Research Center at Indiana
University
• Science Gateway Group at TACC at the University of
Texas, Austin
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Source: Sandra Gesing, Notre Dame

12. But success comes in many shapes and sizes
• Now is the time to move forward
• We can work with you to develop materials to
make the case
• We can also provide supplemental expertise
where you have gaps
• And ongoing advice
• Contact us for a free consultation, webinar or on-
campus visit
• http://sciencegateways.org/campusgroups
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Source: Sandra Gesing, Notre Dame

13. Suggestion for Roadmap
• Identify existing science gateway projects on campus
and contact PIs and/or developers
• Identify evangelist who can push and is enthusiastic
about the opportunity for creating on-campus teams –
maybe YOU?
• Contact decision makers/funding providers on campus
• Use external resources for creating/maintaining science
gateways
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Source: Sandra Gesing, Notre Dame

14. Suggestion for Roadmap
• Extend centralized IT/HPC teams via computational
scientists and programmers or create new team
• Computational Scientists support
• Designing science gateways
• Visualization
• Collaborating on proposals
• …
• Programmers with diverse foci
• Backend
• Frontend
• Usability
• Workflows
• …
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Source: Sandra Gesing, Notre Dame

15. Suggestion for Roadmap
• Student internships/fellowships for
undergraduate and graduate level
• Classes at universities (e.g., Class on Science
Gateways at Indiana University)
• Webinars
• Close collaboration with on-campus faculty
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Source: Sandra Gesing, Notre Dame

16. Suggestion for Roadmap
• Keep the on-campus group sustainable and
maintain and/or grow it
=> A mixture of internal and external resources,
funding possibilities and outreach to on-campus
faculty
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Source: Sandra Gesing, Notre Dame

17. Thank you!
• SGCI follow-up
• www.sciencegateways.org
• Mailing list for news and updates:
• Request our services
• Gateways 2017 in Ann Arbor Oct 23-25
• Have a question? help@sciencegateways.org
• @sciencegateways on Twitter
• http://sciencegateways.org/linkedin
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