ARCHIVED: What is the XSEDE Campus Champions program, and how can my campus participate?

• About the program
• How to participate
• Choosing a Campus Champion
• Support from XSEDE

About the program

The Campus Champions program helps spread familiarity with Extreme Science and Engineering Discovery Environment (XSEDE) services and opportunities by identifying representatives at various educational institutions to serve as liaisons between researchers and XSEDE administrators and support staff.

By distributing knowledge about XSEDE computing services and opportunities, Campus Champions empower their researchers, educators, and students to use XSEDE resources to advance their scientific discovery.

How to participate

To join the Campus Champions program, contact the XSEDE Campus Champions program coordinator at champion-info@xsede.org. The coordinator will contact you to discuss your campus's interests, and help begin the enrollment process. There is no membership fee to participate, but your campus must sign a memorandum of understanding to ensure a mutual understanding of roles and responsibilities.

Choosing a Campus Champion

The program coordinator can also help you determine who on your campus might become the Campus Champion representative. Your campus may elect to identify more than one representative to expand the support of researchers and educators.

Campus Champion representatives are included on all XSEDE correspondence, including regular updates of activities, new opportunities, and new services, and are charged with disseminating that information to their campus researchers and students. In addition, Campus Champions are expected to:

• Assist campus users to quickly obtain start-up allocations on XSEDE systems
• Be an advocate for researchers, capturing and sharing information about problems and challenges that XSEDE administrators needs to address
• Host sessions for campus personnel to boost awareness about XSEDE resources and services
• Host workshops to train people on the use of XSEDE resources and services
• Provide campus users with XSEDE contacts for quick problem resolution
• Participate in XSEDE information sharing sessions and attend the annual XSEDE conference

Support from XSEDE

Your campus will benefit by having direct access to XSEDE resources, with allocations for using those resources, and assistance from XSEDE staff. XSEDE support staff and administrators will support Campus Champion representatives by:

• Regularly corresponding about new resources, services, and offerings
• Including them in the weekly User Services Working Group teleconference
• Providing forums for sharing information among other Campus Champions and XSEDE personnel
• Making personal visits to participating campuses
• Waiving the registration fee for the annual XSEDE conference
• Providing training via the XSEDE conference, meetings of the representatives, and online forums
• Allocating SUs to allow representatives to get local users started quickly on XSEDE resources

For more, see the XSEDE Campus Champions overview and list of current Campus Champions.