The National Science Foundation (NSF) has awarded $5 million to the Ohio Supercomputer Center (OSC) and partners over the next five years to develop new tools, features and processes that will allow more researchers, educators and students to easily adopt and use the web portal Open OnDemand to advance their high performance computing (HPC) research.
Launched in 2017, OSC’s Open OnDemand is now deployed at thousands of sites in dozens of countries across the globe, including at public and private academic institutions, government agencies, nonprofit organizations and private industries. The portal features a simple web browser interface that gives users access to HPC center resources from any device at any time. OSC estimates that Open OnDemand actively supports at least half a million researchers and students who use HPC for discovery and innovation in a variety of disciplines, from computational chemistry to digital arts.
“As more institutions have adopted Open OnDemand, they have requested additional features and capabilities that could help foster more scientific collaborations and advancements, as well as student engagement,” said Alan Chalker, OSC director of strategic programs and principal investigator on the NSF grant. “OSC’s new initiative, Growing Open OnDemand: Leveraging Unified Community Knowledge (GOODLUCK), is designed to meet the needs of the current Open OnDemand community while making the platform even more accessible to new users.”
GOODLUCK will support several collaborative efforts over the next five years. In addition to a $3.29 million award to OSC and the Massachusetts Green High Performance Computing Center (MGHPCC), the NSF has funded companion awards of $875,000 to Texas A&M University and $834,000 to the University of Maryland, two partners on the project.
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Co-principal investigator Dhruva Chakravorty of Texas A&M University will lead an initiative to help researchers conceptualize, create, modify, share and publicize apps for use on Open OnDemand that will facilitate research innovation.
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Co-principal investigator Karen Tomko of OSC will spearhead efforts to help more instructors deploy Open OnDemand in classroom environments by facilitating special configurations, options and practices that will help college students utilize HPC.
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Chalker will lead a project focused on customizing Open OnDemand to support multi-language dictionaries for non-English speakers, digital accessibility features and emerging virtual/augmented reality technologies.
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Co-principal investigator Julie Ma of the MGHPCC will oversee communications with the global Open OnDemand developer community, service providers, researchers and vendors to identify and respond to new issues and needs as they emerge. Community engagement tactics will include developing affinity groups, offering additional monthly conversation hours and hosting an annual conference.
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Co-principal investigator Alan Sussman of the University of Maryland will lead an effort to pilot and deliver integrated sets of tools, documentation and training materials, which researchers can select from to create an environment tailored to their research.
“GOODLUCK aims to support the growing number of large, multidisciplinary scientific teams that are collaborating across the nation and globe on major research initiatives,” Ma said. “The project also intends to increase the adoption of HPC resources in academic disciplines and at higher education institutions that traditionally may have not used HPC in research or teaching. In addition, GOODLUCK will train more students to use HPC in their future careers.”
For more information about the web portal, visit the Open OnDemand website.
The Ohio Supercomputer Center (OSC) addresses the rising computational demands of academic and industrial research communities by providing a robust shared infrastructure and proven expertise in advanced modeling, simulation and analysis. OSC empowers scientists with the services essential to making extraordinary discoveries and innovations, partners with businesses and industry to leverage computational science as a competitive force in the global knowledge economy and leads efforts to equip the workforce with the key technology skills required for 21st century jobs.
