SGX3 - A Center of Excellence to Extend Access, Expand the Community, and Exemplify Good Practices for CI Through Science Gateways
Gesing, Sandra; Dahan, Maytal; Hayden, Linda; Stirm, Claire; Cleveland, Sean; Baker, Janae
- Publisher
- Zenodo
- Language
- en
Abstract
The Science Gateways Center of Excellence (SGX3) serves as a critical partner in advancing cyberinfrastructure sustainability by scaling science gateways through comprehensive consulting support, community development, workforce competitiveness initiatives, and strategic planning for the future of cyberinfrastructure. Funded by NSF, SGX3 addresses the growing need for reliable, sustainable online science platforms that enable researchers to overcome barriers in accessing and utilizing high-performance computing resources.SGX3 provides community services including technical advice, user experience design, graphical design, faculty and student training, technology leadership, and cyberinfrastructure sustainability planning. One example of SGX3's impact is demonstrated through our collaboration with COSMIC2, a cryo-electron microscopy gateway. The gateway addresses critical needs in structural biology research, where users face obstacles in managing unprecedented amounts of data and submitting jobs to HPC resources. Through technical advice, proposal development, and sustainability advice, SGX3 helped the team scope the future of the COSMIC2 gateway. Our consulting model has proven highly effective for other gateways, including ELSIhub. Our usability team provided an assessment for the ELSIhub team, which was used to enhance the gateway functionalities around their search and resource discovery on their gateway. The consulting team also offered sustainability consulting and proposal development. The ELSIhub team is continuing to collaborate with SGX3 through an embedded developer support engagement, with usability consultations planned as outlined in their proposal. By combining technical expertise with user-centered design principles, we enable science gateways to achieve broad impact through reliable, sustainable online platforms that advance scientific discovery across research domains. SGX3's broader impact extends beyond individual projects through strategic initiatives like supporting the NAIRR Pilot Portal. Through a supplement, we led multi-method approaches to assess the future NAIRR Portal based on community feedback. This community thought piece was developed from a community survey, focus groups, and design thinking workshops to inform the future direction of the NAIRR Portal. This work exemplifies our commitment to understanding community needs and translating research and education around AI into actionable recommendations for a national cyberinfrastructure for the AI community.SGX3 remains committed to exemplifying good practices in cyberinfrastructure development while extending and expanding the science gateway community nationwide.
Full text
SGX3 scales science gateways through consulting support, community development, workforce competitiveness,! and planning the future of cyberinfrastructure" Achieving broad impact is about making science online reliable and sustainable. Request our services:" Software Development" User Experience Design" Graphical Design" Faculty & Student Training" Technology Leadership" CI Sustainability Planning The Science Gateways Center of Excellence:! A Partner for Cyberinfrastructure Sustainability “We knew that the need was there for a cryo-EM gateway, and having the experts at SGX3/SGCI available made the gateway development process much more efficient since they have the starting technologies to work with, and they know how to solve the unique problems facing gateway developers. Having experienced gateway developers provides a significant advantage.” - Michael Cianfrocco, COSMIC2 “I really liked all the different ways that the usability team evaluated our science gateway. Previously, we conducted interviews and task analysis, which they also covered, but they also provided a deep dive into analytics and heuristics, along with a competitive analysis and a full UI review. Appreciate all these additional layers and the recommendations.” - Emily Van Poetsch, ELSIhub Hear from our past consulting clients: Visit sciencegateways.org and partner with us! Funding provided by NSF award 2231406 COSMIC2 MORE INFORMATION CRYOGENIC ELECTRON MICROSCOPY (CRYO-EM) HAS UNDERGONE REVOLUTIONARY ADVANCEMENTS that allow researchers to determine biomolecular structures at near-atomic resolution. The method advances structural biology research significantly. So much so, that the Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2017 was awarded to three scientists for their work with cryo-EM. But users face many obstacles, as they are collecting and analyzing unprecedented amounts of data along with managing and submitting jobs to HPC resources. By providing an easy, webbased platform, the Cryo-EM Open Source Multiplatform Infrastructure for Cloud Computing (COSMIC2) science gateway aims to reduce barriers. HOW WE HELPED PI Michael Cianfrocco knew that there was no simple turnkey solution to developing COSMIC2. SGCI provided him with comprehensive assistance in developing the gateway, rather than piecemeal services. Technical consultants helped him build a gateway that could handle large data transfers, asynchronous transfers, multiple file uploads, and more. Now that it’s up and running, the gateway gains around 140 users every month. “We knew that the need was there for a cryo-EM gateway, and having the experts at SGCI available made the gateway development process much more efficient since they have the starting technologies to work with and they know how to solve the unique problems facing gateway developers. Having experienced gateway developers provides a significant advantage.” — Michael Cianfrocco Website cosmic-cryoem.org Funding Sources NSF Team Members Michael Cianfrocco SGCI SERVICES USED Gateway Support: Embedded Technical Support, Cybersecurity, & Sustainability Consulting Networking & Community: Gateways Conference SGCI Client COSMIC2 and Its Use of Globus https://qrgo.page.link/KGUDt SGCI Client Update: COSMIC2 Receives Funding to Grow Gateway https://qrgo.page.link/ogQ7r Photo credit: W.F. Ochoa, UC San Diego; Source: San Diego Supercomputer Center CI CoE: SGX3 - A Center of Excellence to Extend Access, Expand the Community, and Exemplify Good Practices for CI Through Science Gateways PI: Sandra Gesing1,2, Co-PIs: Maytal Dahan3,4, Linda Hayden5, Claire Stirm1,2, Senior Personnel: Sean Cleveland6, Janae Baker1,2" 1San Diego Supercomputer Center, 2University of California, San Diego, 3Texas Advanced Computing Center, 4University of Texas, Austin, 5Elizabeth City State University, 6University of Hawai'i System! Keywords: science gateways, collaboration, usability, sustainability Supporting the NAIRR Pilot Portal: The NAIRR Pilot serves as a proof-of-concept for a national research infrastructure that supports innovative, AI-enabled research and education. Through a supplement, SGX3 has supported the NAIRR Pilot Portal and led multi-method approaches to understand the direction of the future NAIRR Portal.!A comprehensive survey, focus groups, and a two-day design thinking workshop informed the recommended approach for the future portal, as outlined in a report to the community. Read the report at https://zenodo.org/records/15792892. How we help:
