On June 9th, Research IT leadership presented on the group’s new and ongoing initiatives at a well-attended session of the One IT Summit. This year’s Summit spanned three days, and included a wide variety of presentations and professional development opportunities for Information Technology staff -- broadly defined -- throughout campus.
David Greenbaum discussed the overall strategic direction of the group, as well as the outcome of the Research & Academic Engagement (RAE) analysis of services at peer institutions, conducted jointly with Education Technology Services (ETS). Patrick Schmitz presented Berkeley Research Computing (BRC), a program whose first components launched a year and a day after the Vice Chancellor for Research received a letter from faculty lamenting the state of research computing support on campus. He also discussed the Digital Humanities program, which supports technology-inflected scholarship and pedagogy in the humanities through an extensive consulting program, community-building activities, and collaborative research and new course grants. Chris Hoffman described the recently launched Research Data Management (RDM) effort, which is developing through a partnership with the Library, as well as Berkeley’s engagement with campus museums through support of CollectionSpace collection management software.
The presentations were followed by a lively discussion that touched on factors that allow research IT groups to excel in their service offerings, including the funding constraints that public institutions face in relation to their private institution peers. The discussion was a welcome opportunity for Research IT to engage with peers throughout campus on issues and concerns shared by many IT groups. For more about upcoming One IT events, visit the Technology@Berkeley site.