ACCESS PY2 Comms Plan
This plan is also available on our program Google Drive
Background Information
PROJECT DESCRIPTION | The National Science Foundation’s ACCESS (Advanced Cyberinfrastructure Coordination Ecosystem: Services & Support) program builds upon and will transition from the high-performance computing successes of the XSEDE program while also expanding the ecosystem with capabilities for new modes of research and further democratizing participation. Its service tracks and awardees are:
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CAMPAIGN TIMELINE | May 1, 2023 - April 30, 2024 |
ORGANIZATIONAL | Research CI plays a critical role in ensuring U.S. leadership in science and engineering, economic competitiveness and national security, consistent with the National Science Foundation’s mission. The NSF, through the Office of Advanced Cyberinfrastructure (OAC), has published a vision that calls for the broad availability and innovative use of an agile, integrated, robust, trustworthy and sustainable CI ecosystem that can drive new thinking and transformative discoveries in all areas of S&E research and education. ACCESS, with its innovative structure of awards focused on specific goals, will help advance the OAC’s vision of further democratizing access to a national infrastructure of HPC resources. The ACO is a critical conduit for sharing information and facilitating collaboration across the ACCESS program – providing both formal and informal structures for decision-making, allowing flexibility to adapt as the program evolves, promoting transparency and openness of information and decision-making, and providing the tools and support to facilitate important business processes and communicate with the range of ACCESS stakeholders. |
PROJECT / TEAM | The ACCESS Communications team, led by ACO personnel, represents all program service areas and works to collectively seek opportunities to communicate news and information, opportunities and successes in broadening the participation of individuals, institutions and communities that have been underserved by the resources, support and services of the national CI ecosystem. Innovations in technology, research and scholarship will be shared with the broader community that seeks to understand and perhaps participate in the role of CI in advancing society. And the private sector will be made aware of new opportunities for collaboration, and through these, help improve the competitiveness of US companies in areas critical for the economy and the workforce. |
COMMUNICATION | Overall
PY2-Specific
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KEY AUDIENCES |
**such as Campus Champions, CSSN Network and volunteers supporting ACCESS functions |
METRICSWhat does success look like? |
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Contacts and Resources
STAKEHOLDER CONTACT | John Towns ACO PI, jtowns@ncsa.illinois.edu Shawn Strande, ACO Co-PI, sstrande@ucsd.edu Lizanne DeStefano, ACO Co-PI, ldestefano6@gatech.edu TBD, ACO Program Manager
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POTENTIAL COMMS PARTNERS(include campus partners and industry partners) | Service Team 1 - Stephen Deems Service Team 2 - Alana Romanella Service Team 3 - Leslie Froeschl Service Team 4 - Bob DeLeon NSF - Tom Gulbransen Comms leads from Resource Providers (TBD) |
COMMUNICATIONS
| Dina Meek, dinameek@illinois.edu Cynthia Dillon, cdillon@ucsd.edu Andrew Helregel, ahelreg2@uillinois.edu Megan Janeski, mjaneski@illinois.edu Cindy Wong, cwong@sdsc.edu Megan Johnson, mmjohns2@illinois.edu Newsletter Editor TBD |
ADDITIONAL LINKS |
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SITUATION SUMMARY
In its first year, ACCESS Service Teams worked hard to get their areas and functions defined and running smoothly. Additionally, the program as a whole focused on inter-team coordination. There is still work to be done in these areas, but with most of the mechanics of the program in place, year two will focus on refining operations and implementing opportunities for improvement.
Communications have generally been successful; in year two we will consider how to further reach research communities that may be underserved by the national cyberinfrastructure.
SWOT ANALYSIS - Communications and Program-wide
STRENGTHS — Internal | WEAKNESS — Internal |
OPPORTUNITIES — External | THREATS — External |
KEY MESSAGES BY AUDIENCE
What do you want each of your key audiences to know, feel, and do?
Primary Audience:
Active ACCESS-enabled researchers (high-level information)
including students in computer sciences and research fields which employ supercomputing
Potential future ACCESS-enabled researchers
WHAT DO YOU WANT YOUR AUDIENCE TO KNOW?
Researchers and educators can gain access to advanced computing, storage, visualization, and other data/cloud resources to accomplish their research or classroom objectives
ACCESS serves all domains and is interested in reaching researchers beyond R1 institutions
Helping the next generation of researchers is a key component of the ACCESS project
There are many Support services for researchers to satisfy individual needs
Affinity Groups are a great way to get involved, learn more about ACCESS and interface with like-minded community members
The security of the ACCESS cyberinfrastructure (CI) ensures that it is a safe, secure, and trustworthy shared CI ecosystem
Open XDMoD allows academic, and industrial data centers to monitor usage and performance of their local CI and provides custom role-based reports to their various stakeholders to ensure resource use is maximized
Current ACCESS users are overwhelmingly satisfied with the Allocations process
Graduate students are eligible to be PIs with a letter of collaboration from their graduate advisor
ACCESS is structured to accommodate all research, regardless of project size
ACCESS provides
DEI is important to the program and evolving in how it’s applied
WHY IS THIS INFORMATION RELEVANT OR IMPORTANT TO THE AUDIENCE? (WHAT’S THE WIIFM – “WHAT’S IN IT FOR ME”?)
Researchers don’t need to have supercomputers on their own campuses to have easy access to cutting-edge technology
Newer researchers may need assistance and communities enabled by ACCESS to find their way
Researchers need to know their data is secure
Researchers want to maximize their supercomputer use to get more from their allocations
It’s free which saves cost and opens access
Secondary Audience:
ACCESS staff
Resource Providers
Affiliated groups
such as Campus Champions, CSSN Network and volunteers supporting ACCESS functions
WHAT ELSE DO YOU WANT YOUR AUDIENCE TO KNOW?
Resource providers are at the center of the ACCESS Allocations Marketplace, making research possible for the diverse community that ACCESS serves.
Reviewers provide a valuable service to ACCESS, the NSF, and the national research community by participating in merit reviews of the largest allocation requests.
Affinity Groups provide opportunities for communities to form around common interests.
ACCESS leadership and working groups reach across awards to coordinate various aspects of the program.
Travel rewards (to any conference of choosing) are available through the CCEP.
DEI is important to the program and evolving in how it’s applied
WHY IS THIS INFORMATION RELEVANT OR IMPORTANT TO THE AUDIENCE? (WHAT’S THE WIIFM – “WHAT’S IN IT FOR ME”?)
Staff want to know that ACCESS is being well managed.
Resource Providers want to know they are highly valued and well-supported members of the ACCESS program.
While some support services have changed with the ACCESS program, affiliated groups can find support facilitated through ACCESS.
Tertiary Audience 3:
NSF
General Public
Press
WHAT ELSE DO YOU WANT YOUR AUDIENCE TO KNOW?
ACCESS is fulfilling the vision set out by the NSF to democratize access to CI for science, engineering, and non-traditional domains of research
Funding is being well-spent
The science enabled by ACCESS has a meaningful and positive impact on the lives of everyday citizens
ACCESS is advancing the boundaries of CI and contributing to the economic and social well-being of society
ACCESS is essential to enabling breakthroughs in science and engineering
ACCESS is contributing to NSF’s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) objectives.
WHY IS THIS INFORMATION RELEVANT OR IMPORTANT TO THE AUDIENCE? (WHAT’S THE WIIFM – “WHAT’S IN IT FOR ME”?)
NSF wants to know the funding it has provided is supporting its vision for ACCESS, including those for DEI and STEM.
The general public wants to understand that programs supported by taxes are impacting the world in ways they care about.
Key Messaging
Audience (target) | Key messages | Emotion to evoke | Desired action |
Primary
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Secondary
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Tertiary
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Tools
Branding | To build a strong, cohesive, and consistent brand presence, the ACO Comms team led development of a visual identity system, approved by the EC, and subsequently used throughout the ACCESS program content. The visual identity system:
Branded assets including PowerPoints, logos, etc. are available on the Comms Team Wiki.
Additionally, the ACO Comms team has developed a style guide for written communications and is working on written conventions and a brand voice document. The Branding and Web Presence Working Group has developed style guides and resources for designers and developers available on GitHub. |
http://access-ci.org | The centerpiece of all ACCESS communications efforts is a web presence that provides access to newsletters, news and feature articles, information on the services provided by the Service Teams, and other user and public-facing communications.
Content for the site will come from Service Areas providing updates to the Comms Team for story crafting as well as Allocations sharing project information with the Comms Team on science running on machines. |
Newsletters | The ACO Comms team is producing two digital newsletters:
Additionally, individual Service Areas also use ACCESS to send out information such as Support’s biweekly ACCESS Support Digest, with news of events and trainings sent to 13k+ subscribers. |
Email Communications
| While the website and newsletters will be the primary vehicles of communication, emails can be employed in the case of:
The ACO Comms team has developed templates with ACCESS branding and leverages the Constant Contact platform to distribute emails. Additionally, Service Areas have access to the email platform along with templates designed for their service areas in order to communicate as needed with audience lists they develop. |
Events Participation | The ACO Comms team provides:
ACCESS staff can arrange to order and have shipped materials via the Comms Team wiki. |
Social Media | The ACO Comms team maintains social media accounts including:
The team will develop a social media strategy to include amplification of:
Due to Twitter’s evolving rules and community, the ACCESS Comms Team reserved an ACCESSforCI username on Mastodon, a social networking site many in the research community have moved to as an alternative to Twitter. The social media landscape is always shifting and the team is monitoring this ongoing situation to best determine where to share news. |
Reports | The ACO Comms team will assist with quarterly and annual reporting with direction from ACO leadership. |
Milestones
Date Milestone
May
June
Quarterly Program Meeting
(Track 6) Solicitation Opens
Maximize Allocations Period opens, June 15
July
PEARC, July 23-27
Unite 2023 UNCF Summit for Black Education, July 17-20
Quarterly Reports
Maximize Allocations Period closes, July 15
August
September
Quarterly Program Meeting
Tapia Conference - Sept 13-26
Campus Cyberinfrastructure* PI Workshop Sept 25-27
(Track 6) Solicitation Closes
October
Grace Hopper Sept 26-29
HBCU Conference on Climate Change (Oct 11-15)
SACNAS (Oct 26-28)
Quarterly Reports
Meeting of NSF’s AI Institute PIs
November
SC23
December
Quarterly Program Meeting
Maximize Allocations Period opens, December 15
January
Quarterly Reports
Maximize Allocations Period close, January 31
February
March
Quarterly Program Meeting
April
Quarterly Reports
Annual Panel Reviews
Communications Plan
Schedule | Milestone/Messaging | Channel (website, newsletters, email, social media, event) | Owner | Metrics |
May 2023 |
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June 2023 |
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July 2023 |
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August 2023 |
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September 2023 |
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October 2023 |
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November 2023 |
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December 2023 |
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January 2024 |
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February 2024 |
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March 2024 |
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Allocations
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April 2024 |
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BOILERPLATE:
The Advanced Cyberinfrastructure Coordination Ecosystem: Services & Support (ACCESS) program represents a five-year, $52 million investment by the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) to improve the accessibility of the NSF-funded national research computing and data ecosystem and increase integration with systems and research communities on campuses across the nation. The ACCESS teams incorporate 90 partner organizations across the country working to improve the agility and usability of an evolving portfolio of research resources and environments through a coordinated suite of allocations, support, operations and monitoring services.