| NSF Org: |
OAC Office of Advanced Cyberinfrastructure (OAC) |
| Recipient: |
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| Initial Amendment Date: | June 28, 2017 |
| Latest Amendment Date: | September 20, 2022 |
| Award Number: | 1730137 |
| Award Instrument: | Standard Grant |
| Program Manager: |
Ashok Srinivasan
OAC Office of Advanced Cyberinfrastructure (OAC) CSE Directorate for Computer and Information Science and Engineering |
| Start Date: | November 1, 2017 |
| End Date: | September 30, 2023 (Estimated) |
| Total Intended Award Amount: | $498,330.00 |
| Total Awarded Amount to Date: | $498,330.00 |
| Funds Obligated to Date: |
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| History of Investigator: |
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| Recipient Sponsored Research Office: |
426 AUDITORIUM RD RM 2 EAST LANSING MI US 48824-2600 (517)355-5040 |
| Sponsor Congressional District: |
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| Primary Place of Performance: |
428 S. Shaw Lane East Lansing MI US 48824-4403 |
| Primary Place of
Performance Congressional District: |
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| Unique Entity Identifier (UEI): |
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| Parent UEI: |
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| NSF Program(s): | CyberTraining - Training-based |
| Primary Program Source: |
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| Program Reference Code(s): |
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| Program Element Code(s): |
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| Award Agency Code: | 4900 |
| Fund Agency Code: | 4900 |
| Assistance Listing Number(s): | 47.070 |
ABSTRACT
Scientists and engineers use advanced cyberinfrastructure (CI) to conduct research that benefits society. For instance, engineers use CI to build faster airplanes; doctors use CI to discover new medicines; and scientists use CI to develop safer materials. CI includes hardware (like supercomputers, high-speed networks, digital cameras, and cloud-based storage), as well as the software and tools used to collect, organize and analyze information. CI Professionals are experts at developing and using CI, and scientists and engineers from many disciplines ask CI Professionals to help them use cyberinfrastructure in their research. In order to work effectively with these disciplinary experts, CI Professionals need to be able to communicate across disciplines, work in diverse teams, and serve as collaborative leaders and mentors. This project develops a training program to help CI Professionals build these professional skills such as communication, teamwork and leadership so that they can work more effectively with scientists and engineers and help them use CI to improve research in many areas.
This project provides professional skills training for technically proficient CI Professionals, with the goal of developing CyberAmbassadors who are prepared to lead multidisciplinary, computationally-intensive research at their home institutions. CyberAmbassadors will also be prepared to help mentor the next generation of CI Professionals and CI Users, who will become a sustaining source of new CyberAmbassadors. The first objective is to develop curriculum that builds professional skills (communications, teamwork, leadership) within the context of large scale, multi-disciplinary computational research. The curriculum will be developed with input from an External Advisory Board of CI Professionals and CI Users from academia, industry and national laboratories. The pedagogical approach is grounded in constructivism and socioculturism, and will combine in-person training with examples from real, multi-disciplinary research. The second objective is to pilot, evaluate and revise the curriculum. Pilot trainings will be held at Michigan State University (MSU), at appropriate CI conferences, and at other institutions and laboratories. During the pilot process, approximately 75 individuals will be trained as CyberAmbassadors and the curriculum will be evaluated and refined based on these experiences. The third objective is to "train the trainers" by collaborating with external partners (XSEDE, Blue Waters, Software/Data Carpentry, Tau Beta Pi) to prepare a cohort of at least 20 facilitators who can offer the CyberAmbassadors training through regional or national events. 100-150 additional participants will complete the CyberAmbassadors program during the "train the trainers" process. The curriculum developed as part of this project will be offered on a free, open-source basis, with the longer-term goal of making the CyberAmbassadors training regularly available at academic and research institutions nationwide.
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PROJECT OUTCOMES REPORT
Disclaimer
This Project Outcomes Report for the General Public is displayed verbatim as submitted by the Principal Investigator (PI) for this award. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this Report are those of the PI and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation; NSF has not approved or endorsed its content.
Cyberinfrastructure (CI) is transforming research in science and engineering by supporting new methods for gathering, analyzing, modeling and simulating data. CI Professionals have expertise in these technical skills, and also need to be able to communicate across disciplines, work in diverse teams, and serve as collaborative leaders. The CyberAmbassadors pilot project developed more than 24 hours of curriculum and training activities to help CI professionals strengthen their Communications, Teamwork, and Leadership skills in the context of multidisciplinary, computationally-intensive research. Nearly 11,000 participant trainings were completed during the pilot, serving individuals in more than 40 US states and territories plus Canada, Europe, Africa, Asia and the Middle East.
The CyberAmbassadors pilot project also included a "train the trainers" effort to prepare volunteers to use the new curriculum materials to offer training in Communications, Teamwork and Leadership skills for their own campuses, companies, and communities. More than 120 volunteers from across the nation were trained as CyberAmbassadors program facilitators, and together they continue to offer in-person and remote trainings to the CI workforce. The "train the trainer" effort has sparked exponential growth of the CyberAmbassadors program, and making the materials freely available and easy to customize has led to them being used to train broad STEM audiences, far beyond the original focus on CI Professionals. These materials have already been adapted to provide teamwork training for a high school esports team; to provide professional skills training for participants in several workforce development efforts; and to provide for-credit and non-credit training to students and practitioners in CI and STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) disciplines.
In collaboration with Tau Beta Pi (TBP), the Engineering Honor Society, the CyberAmbassadors curriculum materials will remain free of charge and broadly available to STEM students and professionals through the TBP "Engineering Futures" professional development program. The co-PIs of the CyberAmbassadors project, Dirk Colbry and Katy Luchini-Colbry, were inducted into the 2023 American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE) Hall of Fame in recognition of the global impact of the CyberAmbassadors project in providing lifelong learning opportunities for STEM students and practitioners.
Last Modified: 12/30/2023
Modified by: Kathleen T Colbry
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