| NSF Org: |
OAC Office of Advanced Cyberinfrastructure (OAC) |
| Recipient: |
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| Initial Amendment Date: | August 15, 2018 |
| Latest Amendment Date: | August 15, 2018 |
| Award Number: | 1833846 |
| Award Instrument: | Standard Grant |
| Program Manager: |
Seung-Jong Park
OAC Office of Advanced Cyberinfrastructure (OAC) CSE Directorate for Computer and Information Science and Engineering |
| Start Date: | October 1, 2018 |
| End Date: | September 30, 2022 (Estimated) |
| Total Intended Award Amount: | $298,521.00 |
| Total Awarded Amount to Date: | $298,521.00 |
| Funds Obligated to Date: |
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| History of Investigator: |
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| Recipient Sponsored Research Office: |
550 S COLLEGE AVE NEWARK DE US 19713-1324 (302)831-2136 |
| Sponsor Congressional District: |
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| Primary Place of Performance: |
210 Hullihen Hall Newark DE US 19716-2553 |
| 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): | Software Institutes |
| 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
Today's science frontiers are being advanced, to an increasing degree, by researchers who use large amounts of computational power to simulate models of our world's processes and to analyze large volumes of observed and collected data. Doing so requires expertise not only in the involved domain sciences, such as physics, chemistry, and biology, but also in the computational tools that implement the needed simulation and data analysis methods. Many research projects have recognized the importance of pairing domain scientists with computational experts. While the domain scientists pursue their individual research objectives, there is much commonality is the supporting software and hardware methods as well as in the needed cyberinfrastructure tools and resources. This project aims to increase the productivity of the many computational support teams - referred to as Xperts - through (i) the exchange of best practices and discussion of open problems, and (ii) the provision of advanced programming support environments.
To achieve the first objective - creating synergy among Xpert teams - this award will engage computational experts from some of the large, national cyberinfrastructure projects, including XSEDE and the NSF Software Institutes, as well as from university campus efforts that have recognized the value of computational research support teams. Events for exchanging best practices and discussing open issues will be organized at special workshops, through online meetings, and at established annual symposia, such as the Supercomputing and PEARC conferences. The same gatherings will be used to bring together users and developers of programming environments, pursuing the second objective. Among these groups are those who develop automatic, and semi-automatic program optimization instruments, performance analysis environments, and data management tools. This effort will not only expose Xpert teams to today's advanced programming support environments, but also gather important feedback from key user groups - those who push today's science frontiers - to help advance the programming environments.
This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
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.
Science and engineering today - like most aspects of our lives - depend critically on computer-based tools, and this trend is only increasing. In order to succeed, we not only need to have the knowledge of what we want to do, but also need to acquire skills in using the computer-based tools that help us get there. Being expert in both is increasingly challenging, as the amount of knowledge in both areas grows continually. Assistants that help with the use of computational tools are of growing importance. This project, called the Xpert Network, was about increasing the efficiency of such computational assistants. It did so by creating a forum that brought these professionals together, organizing discussions, developing best practices, and helping to coordinate projects that involve computational assistants.
The project created new knowledge in terms of best practices that help computational assistants improve their services. In turn, these services help researchers improve their computational applications, leading to better and accelerated science. Members of many domain sciences (physics, biology, chemistry, etc.) participated in the project discussions, both contributing to and benefitting from the new knowledge. The gained insights also flowed into new courses, impacting students at the University of Delaware and the many participating institutions. The results, including the developed best practices and video recordings of the Xpert Network webinars, are documented at the project's website, https://sites.udel.edu/xpert-cdi.
Last Modified: 01/28/2023
Modified by: Rudolf Eigenmann
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