UCLA has experienced phenomenal success over the past decade such that it is now considered the top ranking public university in the United States. A culture shift, however, is underway that requires immediate action if UCLA hopes to sustain this level of success and retain its place of prominence among R1 institutions. Academia is rapidly moving away from the model of siloed research institutions as popularized in the early 19th century and toward a modern culture of digital scholarship, interdisciplinarity, collaboration, open science, and open data. UCLA is not prepared to support its faculty in participating in this new era, nor in meeting the institutional responsibility to comply with sponsor data-sharing requirements.
The Research Data Working Group was convened in early 2021 to develop a high-level roadmap for research data services and infrastructure at UCLA. The institutional motivation for this effort is fivefold: 1) to better support faculty, innovative research, scholarship, and teaching; 2) to provide open access to knowledge when possible; 3) to meet funder mandates for preservation of and access to research data; 4) to preserve the research of our campus community; and 5) to address increasing cybersecurity compliance and risk as digital technologies become the default for conducting and disseminating research.
Roger Wakimoto, Vice Chancellor for Research & Creative Activities
Ginny Steel, Norman and Armena Powell University Librarian
Lucy Avetisyan, Associate Vice Chancellor and CIO
Jim Davis, Vice Provost IT and Chief Academic Technology Officer
Ellen Pollack, CIO, UCLA Health Sciences; Chief Nursing Informatics Officer
The charge for the Research Data Working Group (RDWG) is to develop a high-level view of research and research data needs at UCLA, and establish an institutional support model for researchers built around the necessary technical, physical, and human infrastructure that streamlines and incentivizes data best practices, encourages collaboration and data sharing, and ensures compliance, security, and accountability related to funder requirements. Put simply, the working group was asked to acknowledge and address how the campus will identify, store, preserve, and disseminate UCLA’s digital research output.
Taken overall, the resultant RDWG draft roadmap (see Discussion Draft below) describes a shift in our approach to research infrastructure and data services at UCLA. This vision is centered on full lifecycle support for open science, data, and scholarship that will position UCLA faculty to continue to be competitive for larger, multi-institutional proposals built on the principles of sharing, collaboration, training, and best practices. Implementing this roadmap will establish:
| 1. | A Blended Support Model. Research support that combines discipline-specific resources at the local level with central baseline offerings and services. |
| 2. |
Guidance for Researchers. Coherent and cohesive information about available research data services and resources, and policy requirements and practices. |
| 3. | Baseline Infrastructure. Baseline research data storage, management, computation, and access through infrastructure available at no cost to all faculty and researchers. |
| 4. | Streamlined Access. Clear pathways to resources and services for faculty with appointments both on campus and in the Health Sciences. |
| 5. | Accountability. Clear administrative responsibility for research infrastructure and data services aligned with faculty governance. |
| 6. | Data Protections. Security, privacy and accessibility integrated with research needs and focused on protecting UC’s most valuable data assets and IP. |
Steering Committee
Lisa M. Snyder, Director, Campus Research Initiatives/Advanced Research Computing Research Technology Group, Office of Advanced Research Computing (co-chair)
Todd Grappone, Associate University Librarian for Digital Initiatives and Information Technology, the UCLA Library (co-chair)
Albert Duntugan, Chief Data Officer, UCLA Health Sciences
Alex Bui, Professor, Radiological Sciences, Bioengineering, and Bioinformatics; and Director of the UCLA Medical & Imaging Informatics (MII) group; and chair of the Academic Senate Committee on Data, Information Technology and Privacy
Bill Holloway, Chief Academic Information Officer, UCLA Health Sciences
Deanna Needell, Professor, Mathematics, and Executive Director of the Institute for Digital Research and Education
George Morris, Research Infrastructure Consultant to the Office of Advanced Research Computing
Howard Miller, CIO, Anderson School of Management
Jackson Jeng, Senior Director, Office for Research Information Systems, Office of Research Administration
Jacob Foster, Associate Professor, Sociology, and co-lead of the DataX Initiative
Marcia Smith, Associate Vice Chancellor UCLA Research Administration
Mary Okino, Deputy Director, Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research and Creative Activities
Michael Van Norman, Chief Technology Officer, IT Services
Nico Wibowo, IT Director, SEASnet, Samueli School of Engineering
Sarah Klein, Pre-Award Coordinator, Semel Institute
Tim Dennis, Director, Data Science Center, the UCLA Library
Technical Infrastructure Subcommittee
Charged with defining the technical elements that need to be in place for research data support (i.e., identifying the ‘should be’ research environment for UCLA).
Michael Van Norman (chair)
Brian Pape, Manager, Hoffman2 Systems Research Technology Group, Office of Advanced Research Computing
Edson Smith, Data Management Strategist, UCLA Library
George Morris
Lisa M. Snyder
Mike Shane, Senior Director, Platform Services, UCLA Health Sciences
Nico Wibowo, Director, SEASnet, Samueli School of Engineering
Tito Deveyra, Director, Information Technology, Theater, Film and Television (retired)
TV Singh, Chief Computational Scientist, Office of Advanced Research ComputingData Services Subcommittee
Charged with defining the necessary suite of services and software needed to support the research/data lifecycle campuswide.
Tim Dennis (chair)
Clifford Kravit, Program Manager, Research Enablement, Health Sciences
Eleanor Koehl, Research Facilitation Coordinator, Office of Advanced Research Computing
Ibraheem Ali, User Engagement Division, UCLA Library
Keith Chen, Professor, Anderson School of Management)
Rose Rocchio, Director, Mobile and Web Strategy, Office of Advanced Research Computing
Todd Grappone
Yoh Kawano, GIS and Visualization Manager, Office of Advanced Research Computing
Cloud Vendors and Services Subcommittee
Focused on UCLA’s current and future use of cloud services and recommendations for on-premises and cloud options that should be available to researchers.
Bill Holloway (co-chair)George Morris (co-chair)
Andrew Browning, Manager, Research Web and Data Platforms, Office of Advanced Research Computing
Clifford Kravit
Hector Felix, Director, Enterprise Technology, IT Services
Lisa M. Snyder
Mike Shane
Mike Van Norman
Shao-Ching Huang, Manager, Computational Science Research Technology Group, Office of Advanced Research Computing
Shehzad Sheikh, Director, Enterprise Data and Analytics Platform, UCLA Health Sciences
Research Proposal Process and Data Subcommittee
Charged with reviewing existing campus practices for research proposals and identifying process points that intersect with planned research data support services.
Sarah Klein, Pre-Award Coordinator, Semel Institute (chair)
Jackson Jeng, Senior Director, Office for Research Information Systems, Office of Research Administration
Lisa M. Snyder
Marcia Smith
Mary Okino
Todd Grappone
In December of 2022, the RDWG released a draft roadmap intended as a starting point for conversations with the campus about the research data services and infrastructure needed to ensure UCLA’s future success.The RDWG is embarking on a series of meetings to ensure that the roadmap recommendations are aligned with faculty needs and priorities, and, if not, gather the information required to revise the document as necessary. Simultaneously, the RDWG is working to build consensus at the administrative level on the desirability of centralized research data services and infrastructure in support of distributed data-intensive research and partnerships.
The draft roadmap currently being circulated is intended as a focal point for conversations with faculty and campus leadership about the resources and services needed to ensure UCLA’s future success. Feedback is actively being sought to help plan the next steps for the effort. If you are willing to share your thoughts, please click the ‘Provide Feedback’ tab to log in and access a comment form with a handful of prompt questions.
The RDWG has two broad goals for discussions with faculty and campus leadership. The first goal is to ensure that our recommendations are truly aligned with faculty needs and priorities, and, if not, gather the information required to revise and reshape the document as necessary. The second goal is to build consensus on the desirability of a robust hub for research data services and resources in support of distributed data-intensive research and partnerships. In our famously decentralized environment, we believe that meeting UCLA’s research data needs in the long term is going to require a foundation of centralized services, coordination, and orchestration that preserves the best of our distributed research environments while enhancing the faculty experience and fostering multidisciplinary and multi-institutional collaborations and innovative open research. The current document is not yet a funding request, and our conversations with the campus are going to be critical to finding the right balance between central and local research support to inform how we move forward.
Two draft documents are available. The discussion draft is the equivalent of a lengthy tome; the presentation draft is its companion graphic novel.
The RDWG wants to hear from you! Your feedback will ensure that the roadmap is truly aligned with faculty/campus needs and priorities. If you are willing to share your thoughts, please log in to access a comment form. The prompt questions included in the form were developed to frame feedback; there is no expectation that everyone will complete each question.
RDWG Roadmap Feedback Form
A Vision for Research Data Services and Infrastructure at UCLA
You are invited to attend one of four upcoming faculty forums that will help the campus move forward with long-term planning efforts to meet funder data management and sharing requirements and respond to the changing and increasingly data-driven nature of scholarship. Feedback from faculty is critical to ensuring that research needs and priorities are being addressed.
Co-sponsored by UCLA’s DataX initiative, these forums will use as a starting point for conversation the draft roadmap developed by a Research Data Working Group. This group was convened by Vice Chancellor of Research & Creative Activities Roger Wakimoto, University Librarian Ginny Steel, Vice Provost IT Jim Davis, Associate Vice Chancellor and CIO Lucy Avetisyan, and UCLA Health Sciences CIO Ellen Pollack to develop a high-level view of research and research data needs at UCLA.
The sessions will all take place from noon to 1:00 p.m. and will be identical in content and form. Zoom details will be provided following registration.
Check back. RDWG announcements will be posted following their campus distribution.
Questions or comments can be directed to Lisa M. Snyder (lms@ucla.edu) or Todd Grappone (grappone@library.ucla.edu).
