CASC 2014 highlights: Data Management, NSF's ACI program, Box & HIPAA Alignment

September 30, 2014

A funders’ view of data management, NSF’s Advanced Cyberinfrastructure program, and bringing Box.com into alignment with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act’s privacy rule were highlights of the 2014 Fall Meeting of the Coalition for Academic Scientific Computation (CASC) for Research IT’s David Greenbaum and Chris Hoffman, who attended from September 17-19.

At the meeting in Arlington, VA, Amy Friedlander of the NSF and Dr. Laura Biven of DOE’s Office of Science spoke from their funding agencies’ perspective on issues in and requirements for data management. NSF is taking a phased approach to building out guidance and requirements for that agency’s grantees, in which specificity is intended to emerge out of more general discussions. DOE has published a Statement on Digital Data Management that includes a public access plan giving high-level DOE principles with respect to open access. The statement also articulates requirements for data management that go into effect on October 1,2014 for the Office of Science directorate.

Irene Qualters, the director of NSF’s Advanced Cyberinfrastructure (ACI) program spoke about cyberinfrastructure development initiatives that could point to fruitful opportunities for integrating Berkeley’s campus initiatives in networking and High Performance Computing with national-scale projects. The ACI program vision document is available on-line.

Bill Barnett, of CASC’s HIPAA working group, described how Indiana University worked to bring its use of Box.com services into alignment with privacy requirements that apply to personal health information (PHI). Dr. Barnett’s slide deck is available as a PowerPoint presentation.

An overview of what David and Chris took away from the meeting, including these highlights, was the topic of Research IT’s biweekly Reading Group on 25 September (notes available on the Research IT wiki).