Jisc Support for Asset Sharing - Kit-Catalogue National User Group November 2014

Jisc Support for Asset SharingKit-Catalogue National User Group, November 2014

Photo credit: The Lighting Simulator, UCL Institute for Environmental Design and Engineering

Martin Hamilton [email protected]

Futurist @martin_hamilton

1. About Jisc2. Why Asset Sharing?3. Kit-Catalogue Pilot4. Introductions5. Objective Setting








:: About Jisc :: What we do

» Registered charity championing the use of digital technologies in

research and education

» Range of shared services for UK Universities and Colleges, e.g.

- Janet, world leading research network

- eduroam global wireless roaming

- Groundbreaking content deals with publishers

- Cloud brokerage with Amazon, Google, Microsoft

» Aiming to complement RCUK and Innovate UK / Catapults

- Open Educational Resources, Open Access and Open Data

- Just launched asset sharing initiative

:: About Jisc :: Value proposition

Generating £260m savings per annum

e.g. KnowledgeBase+ - £4.5m

:: About Jisc :: Value proposition

Generating £260m savings per annum

e.g. DigiMap - £40m





:: Why Asset Sharing? :: What are we doing?

» Leveraging public investment in the Janet network

– Connecting industry: http://www.ja.net/janet-reach

– Where next - e.g. 10Gbit/s links to Science Parks?

– Testbeds for new technologies, e.g. UHD streaming from Tokyo

Olympics, Surrey 5G testbed, Catapult centres

» Where else can we add value?

– Exploit our cost sharing group (256 institutions, 93% of HEIs)

– Research clusters, e.g. Jisc shared data centre with Sanger, Crick, UCL,

King’s College, QMUL, LSE etc: http://www.ja.net/data-centre

– Anticipating Austerity 2.0 efficiency savings

See http://www.jisc.ac.uk/research/projects/equipment-sharing

:: Why Asset Sharing? :: HPC use case

Image credit: CC BY-NC-ND HPC Midlands

» Brokering access to £60m public investment in HPC

:: Why Asset Sharing? :: What’s next

» Reducing sharing friction between institutions & with industry

– Sample use case: model 1,000 5G antenna designs via HPC

– Then build first physical prototype and wind tunnel test

– Relies on combination of facilities and expertise

» How can we do this?

– Standardized terms and conditions

– Trialling this approach right now with HPC brokerage

– Equipment sharing database “as a service” to aid matchmaking.

» What would a one stop shop for asset sharing look like?

:: Why Asset Sharing? :: Advocacy





:: Kit-Catalogue Pilot :: Project team

» Prof Rachel Thomson

Kit-Catalogue Academic Lead

Dean of the School of Aeronautical, Automotive, Chemical and Materials Engineering

Loughborough University

» Martin Hamilton

Kit-Catalogue Pilot Sponsor

Futurist, Jisc

Centre for Engineering &

Design Education:

» Melanie King

Head of CEDE

» Paul Newman

Lead Developer

» Matt Mould

Junior Developer

» Kate Everest

Project support

:: Kit-Catalogue Pilot :: Our commitment» Technical:

› Set up a hosted Kit-Catalogue installation for each institution (latest version) where required

› Support each pilot in localization e.g. terminology, logo, API config

› Support your upload of local data(e.g. via CSV)

› Help you set up Shibboleth authentication (local usernames and passwords)

› Back up your data

› Apply code patches and upgrades

› Manage the cloud based server

» Support:

› Host an annual subscriber group meeting at LU to discuss the roadmap and usage

› Updates to software project website, online manuals and documentation

› Provide support to the community via the Kit-Catalogue mailing list

» Development:

› Undertake 40 days of developmentper year

» Advocacy:

› Help to gather use cases and case studies for the community and Jisc

› Help to promote the use ofKit-Catalogue

:: Kit-Catalogue Pilot :: Pilot sites

» Members of the pilot will be:

› Committing resource to ensure significant proportion ofhigh value equipment recorded in Kit-Catalogue– e.g. items costing £25K or above

› Making all (or a meaningful subset) of catalogue records available as publicly available information– For harvesting by the national http://equipment.data.ac.uk portal

› Contributing material towards a case study of their use ofKit-Catalogue

http://equipment.data.ac.uk

:: Kit-Catalogue Pilot :: Benefits

» Members of the pilot will be able to:

› Influence product development through the Kit-Catalogueuser group

› Provide feedback on their experiences of Kit-Catalogue– To help inform a future decision about whether Jisc should offer

Kit-Catalogue as a national service

› Contribute to a wider strategic discussion around facilitating equipment sharing between institutions and with industry

:: Kit-Catalogue Pilot :: Schedule

» Nov 2014– User group meeting and Jisc

pilot kick off meeting

» Nov 2014 – Jan 2015– Begin setting up new hosted

KC’s and liaising with local IT

» Jan 2015 – Jul 2015– KC development

» Aug 2015– Release of Kit-Catalogue

v3.0 to all pilots

» ~Nov 2015– User group meeting and

roadmap prioritisation

» Nov 2015 – May 2016– KC development

» ~Jun 2016– Release of Kit-Catalogue

v3.5 to all pilots

» ~Sept 2016– End of pilot meeting





:: Introductions :: Delegate survey





:: Introductions :: Blockers part 1

» “Time”

» “The sense the equipment is 'owned' by a research group is still present. This is reducing with new equipment, but current/old equipment is still seen as 'mine’”

» “No transparent system to see the availability/capacity of equipment”

» “Researchers (understandably) choose the easiest option - so

they use the equipment which is closest to them, as opposed to most appropriate for their experiment”

» “A lack of staff willing to support initiatives like Kit-Catalogue & overall staffing levels”

» “No central resource committed towards facilitating this initiative”

:: Introductions :: Blockers part 2

» “Equipment sharing is still viewed with certain amountof cynicism”

» “Hard to evidence thebenefits”

» “Staff unwilling to travel or sometimes walk to other instruments that may be available”

» “Nature of the applications used”

» “Lack of time available tohelp help with this”

» “Historical attitudes”

:: Introductions :: Enablers part 1

» “Senior management werevery supportive of Kit Cat”

» “We pushed this along for a number of reasons; location of researchers/building scattered between four locations, equipment asset register, sharing of equipment/resources, PAT test register”

» “Communication andawareness raising is always a challenge in an institutionwith large research staff turnover. However we have a good comms strategy”

» “We are also working hard to align requirements for data capture to existing admin processes so there is no additional burden on staff”

:: Introductions :: Enablers part 2

» “There are a number of key academics who are bought into equipment sharing”

» “With greater staff resourceI'm sure we could move the project more quickly”

» “In general, there is buy-in, but the practicalities of making it work are very complex and need full-time attention, which we aren't currently resourced for”

» “Integrated programme of justify, purchase, operate/maintain, upgrade/replace”

» “School budgets are limited for this so a proposal to increase sharing/partnerships and consultancy would enable the programme to become reality”

:: Introductions :: Let’s hear from you





»10mins to discuss each + 5mins to summarise:› Evidencing the benefits– How do we best demonstrate the benefits of equipment

sharing to institutions and individual researchers?

› Community of practice– What would this look like for equipment sharing?

› Sticks and carrots– What should institutions and funders do to promote

equipment sharing?

:: Objective Setting :: 3 Big Questions

Technology

Jisc Support for Asset Sharing - Kit-Catalogue National User Group November 2014