CISE IT | Edgar Huertas: And I'm going to open it up.
CISE IT | Edgar Huertas: I usually give it about a minute or 2. See, when you see that number of attendees. Look, it looks like it's steady at a certain number. Then you can start.
CISE IT | Edgar Huertas: I'm Sharma, so you can begin
CISE IT | Edgar Huertas: Gotcha.
Sharmistha Bagchi-Sen: Welcome everyone we are going to have the cyber training webinar.
Sharmistha Bagchi-Sen: Now we were waiting for all of you to sign in, and probably, you know, several more will be signing in
Sharmistha Bagchi-Sen: soon.
Sharmistha Bagchi-Sen: So the cyber training webinar is, you know, offered by the office of advanced cyber infrastructure
Sharmistha Bagchi-Sen: the 3 of us cognizant program directors that you can reach out to
Sharmistha Bagchi-Sen: when you want to know more about it, more about the solicitation.
Sharmistha Bagchi-Sen: So I am Sharmista Bhaktisan.
Sharmistha Bagchi-Sen: My co-presenters are Sheikh Gafur
Sharmistha Bagchi-Sen: and Marlon Pierce, and Jenny is also here to answer your Q. And a questions that you may have later on.
Sharmistha Bagchi-Sen: Panelists are Tom Goldbrunson and Wen Mentung.
Sharmistha Bagchi-Sen: We are going to talk about the solicitation. Nsf. 2, 3, 5, 2, 0. The deadline for the proposals will be January 16, th 2025. So throughout this webinar, I think in the end you can ask a lot of questions, and we will give you answers.
Sharmistha Bagchi-Sen: and we will get started.
Sharmistha Bagchi-Sen: No.
Sharmistha Bagchi-Sen: So our goals are to orient you about the solicitation.
Sharmistha Bagchi-Sen: and we encourage in efscore jurisdictions, schools in efscore jurisdictions to send us proposals.
Sharmistha Bagchi-Sen: We will summarize the cyber training program and its goals
Sharmistha Bagchi-Sen: and present the review criteria, and of course go through the question. Answer session.
Sharmistha Bagchi-Sen: Our office has several opportunities of funding. We fall under learning and workforce development.
Sharmistha Bagchi-Sen: You can orient yourself by going to our website and look at what we offer in terms of advanced computing.
Sharmistha Bagchi-Sen: networking and cybersecurity software and data Ci
Sharmistha Bagchi-Sen: and other kind of strategic investments. We will touch upon one today. That's nair NAIR. R.
Sharmistha Bagchi-Sen: The cyber infrastructure. The way we define is a set of resources, tools, methods and services for advanced computation.
Sharmistha Bagchi-Sen: large scale data handling and analytics.
Sharmistha Bagchi-Sen: networking and security for large-scale systems that collectively enable potentially transformative
Sharmistha Bagchi-Sen: fundamental science and engineering research and
Sharmistha Bagchi-Sen: education
Sharmistha Bagchi-Sen: communities. We serve are Ci professionals. Ci contributors, ci users.
Sharmistha Bagchi-Sen: Ci professionals are those who deploy, manage and collaboratively support the effective use of research. Ci
Sharmistha Bagchi-Sen: Ci contributors
Sharmistha Bagchi-Sen: will be the community of computational data and domain scientists and engineers who research
Sharmistha Bagchi-Sen: and develop new capabilities, approaches and methods.
Sharmistha Bagchi-Sen: Ci users will belong to the community of domain scientists and engineers who effectively exploit advanced Ci capabilities and methods for research.
Sharmistha Bagchi-Sen: So we have several Ci related programs. This is just to give you a highlight of what we have and where cyber training
Sharmistha Bagchi-Sen: is
Sharmistha Bagchi-Sen: situated. So there are, you know, 4 of them Cssi, Osc. Core Skype and cyber training.
Sharmistha Bagchi-Sen: You need to go to the solicitation to get more details on them. But Cssi focuses on developing software or data. Ci Oec core
Sharmistha Bagchi-Sen: focuses on research that will enable future Ci.
Sharmistha Bagchi-Sen: Skype focuses on fostering cip careers.
Sharmistha Bagchi-Sen: Our new solicitation.
Sharmistha Bagchi-Sen: revised solicitation with a new deadline will be coming up for Skype
Sharmistha Bagchi-Sen: and cyber training, of course, is focused on providing training to the 3 communities that I mentioned.
Sharmistha Bagchi-Sen: So if you're not familiar with Cssi or Skype, the definition is Cssi is cyber infrastructure for sustained scientific innovation.
Sharmistha Bagchi-Sen: and Skype is strengthening the cyber infrastructure, professionals, ecosystem.
Sharmistha Bagchi-Sen: What is our motivation?
Sharmistha Bagchi-Sen: We know that advanced Ci has a transformative impact on a variety of scientific research domains
Sharmistha Bagchi-Sen: the research workforce benefits from innovative discipline, appropriate training and curriculum development.
Sharmistha Bagchi-Sen: And there is a need to foster broad adoption of Ci resources, tools and methods by diverse
Sharmistha Bagchi-Sen: research communities.
Sharmistha Bagchi-Sen: What are our goals?
Sharmistha Bagchi-Sen: No, we
Sharmistha Bagchi-Sen: in cyber training, we prepare to
Sharmistha Bagchi-Sen: prepared to nurture and grow the national Scientific research workforce for creating, utilizing and supporting advanced cyber infrastructure to enable and potentially transform
Sharmistha Bagchi-Sen: fundamental science and engineering research and contribute to the nation's overall economic competitiveness and security.
Sharmistha Bagchi-Sen: The projects should aim to contribute to the larger goal of an educational ecosystem.
Sharmistha Bagchi-Sen: enabling computational and data-driven science for all scientists and engineers.
Sharmistha Bagchi-Sen: This embraces computation as the 3rd pillar and data-driven science as the 4th pillar of the scientific discovery process.
Sharmistha Bagchi-Sen: In addition to the traditional 1st and second pillars of theory and experimentation.
Sharmistha Bagchi-Sen: Next, we'll discuss the solicitation goals, and I'll hand over to my colleague.
Sharmistha Bagchi-Sen: Dr. Shake the floor.
Sheikh Ghafoor: Thank you. So, mister, I I just want to mention one thing that this set of slides
Sheikh Ghafoor: and today's recording would be available in near future within a day or 2
Sheikh Ghafoor: onto the website. Nsf website. So coming back to this cyber training solicitation.
Sheikh Ghafoor: yeah, if we look at the specific goal of this solicitation there are 2. 1 is to
Sheikh Ghafoor: ensure broadening adoption of Ci tools. So Nsf. And other Federal agencies have invested over the time to develop different software infrastructure which we call the Ci tools, libraries, methods, and all of those things. So through this program, we want
Sheikh Ghafoor: the community to broadly adopt this tool to in so the goal of this one of the cyber training goal is to ensure that that happens, and also, the second goal is to
Sheikh Ghafoor: like in the disciplines, appropriate discipline. It can be physics, computer science, and other things change the code literacy of that discipline in terms of changing curriculum training, developing materials. So that this appropriate Ci skills goes to this future research workforce.
Sheikh Ghafoor: And and through these, like all Nsf programs. We want to broaden the Ci access access to this advanced cyber infrastructure to underrepresented groups.
Sheikh Ghafoor: And specifically, if you think about cyber training, it. It is looking for innovative and scalable
Sheikh Ghafoor: training, education, curriculum, instructional material development that's at is at the heart of cyber training proposal. So we we are looking for that. So either you provide training, developing curriculum, or combination of both. And this training is targeted for the these 3 Ci communities that
Sheikh Ghafoor: Sharmish has just mentioned the Ci user Ci professional and a Ci contributor.
Sheikh Ghafoor: And and this cyber training is is a Nsf wide
Sheikh Ghafoor: participation.
Sheikh Ghafoor: Osc. Is the lead. We manage the program. But out of size directorate. Other division, like Ccf. Cns Iis.
Sheikh Ghafoor: they participate. They co-fund things because the cyber training is for the future research workforce, and they come from all. For example, engineering is there. We see our colleague Riha from engineering is present here. Geoscience, education, math and physical science, social and behavioral divisions. They also participates because it benefits all the constituent of all the directors of
Sheikh Ghafoor: in a cif
Sheikh Ghafoor: next slide, Summista.
Sheikh Ghafoor: So let's get to the heart of this proposal. So we support through this proposal. We support 3 types of projects, the pilot.
Sheikh Ghafoor: the small one
Sheikh Ghafoor: small implementation and medium.
Sheikh Ghafoor: and the pilot is for 2 years period up to 300 $1,000. Small implementation can be up to 4 years. $500,000 and medium implementation is up to 4 years, 1 million dollar.
Sheikh Ghafoor: And these projects. When you write this proposal, this project should address this 6 sort of key things. So your proposal
Sheikh Ghafoor: should identify the challenge in the research workforce development that you are going to address right? So that's 1 of the key things that
Sheikh Ghafoor: and then
Sheikh Ghafoor: it should the goal. 2 goal that I have mentioned. It should address one or both, at least one that whether you are broadening the adoption of a Ci tool, or you are doing the training, curriculum and development and all of those things so, and it can do both. And in some cases these bigger proposals, like the medium one, address both.
Sheikh Ghafoor: and in terms of training we expect, or you can leverage. Use the access resources more about this within a next couple of slides.
Sheikh Ghafoor: so that have a lot of existing training material. And
Sheikh Ghafoor: what you develop as part of the project, you can also contribute to the excess mechanism. Your project should be
Sheikh Ghafoor: scalable. Your project should, when you are doing it, it may be. You are doing it at New York Institute or a couple of Institute, but it should be scale in terms of other institution, bigger participant, and should at like all other Nsf proposals, sustain itself. This training programs, or
Sheikh Ghafoor: the proposal that you are submitting.
Sheikh Ghafoor: and your proposal should address the recruitment because it is a training the targets at Ci user
Sheikh Ghafoor: Ca, professional. So how you
Sheikh Ghafoor: plan to recruit those
Sheikh Ghafoor: participants which you are targeting and how you are going to evaluate
Sheikh Ghafoor: your project when it is complete or it is ongoing. That's a key
Sheikh Ghafoor: things. And through all these activities, what we are looking for, that's kind of innovative ideas which would have a collective impact on the community.
Sheikh Ghafoor: And for the building
Sheikh Ghafoor: a larger, suitable community for Ci research, future Ci research workforce.
Sheikh Ghafoor: So all these criteria, not all proposal classes of proposal have to address those. For example, Pilot must address number one and 2 in addition, it can address some more, but one and 2 must be addressed in case of small
Sheikh Ghafoor: one through 5. Your project proposal should address, and for
Sheikh Ghafoor: implementation medium, which is the largest class of proposal in cyber training should address all 6 of them
Sheikh Ghafoor: next slide.
Sheikh Ghafoor: So I I mentioned about access. So there are
Sheikh Ghafoor: certain resources, several resources available
Sheikh Ghafoor: for your project to execute. So one of those is access.
Sheikh Ghafoor: That's that Nsf has invested in bigger cyber infrastructure. And they have a lot of training material. So you can use access as part of your project. You can use clouds for providing training and others, and you can use Cloud Bank
Sheikh Ghafoor: and that high throughput computing resources. So if you want to know more about those you can contact one of those cognizant program officer or the links are provided here that provides information. So these are the resources that are available to leverage for your project
Sheikh Ghafoor: next slides.
Sheikh Ghafoor: These are some more detail about access.
Sheikh Ghafoor: These are the big cyber infrastructure distributed over the country where it you can apply for allocation small allocation, bigger allocation to for training, purpose, or hosting your material purpose things of that sort. So there are a little more information
Sheikh Ghafoor: next one.
Sheikh Ghafoor: So so, mister, mentioned about this near.
Sheikh Ghafoor: and I will hand it over to our colleague Marlon.
Sheikh Ghafoor: to take it from here for the rest of the slides.
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): Great. Thank you. Shake
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): so
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): well.
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): National artificial intelligence, research, resource, pilot or near pilot, is
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): another resource or source of resources for you to get access to computing and potentially other things that you might need to conduct your
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): cyber training or other research.
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): So these
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): resource requests. So these are not funding requests. These are time on
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): computing resources and so forth. They have to be
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): specifically for AI research.
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): So some of the resources are things that are also available through access, but near is not just a
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): not just an Nsf initiative. It's a
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): multi-agency initiative. So there are other resources such as DOE
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): computing resources available through Nair, and then also their Mini
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): commercial sector partners who are also contributing resources to near
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): commercial cloud vendors. People like that.
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): So you should definitely
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): look at that. You don't have to have that done
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): for your proposal. But if you get funded, or if you
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): are seeing a need for this. Anyway, you can go ahead and apply.
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): And so there is also.
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): As Jen put it, Jenny put in the chat. Here there is a
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): a Dcl
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): 24 dash, 1 0, 9 that's related to this topic. Area. So that has some other opportunities for educators and people wanting to
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): build training and workforce development communities.
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): Alright. So next slide, please.
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): So I'm going to say a few words
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): in general about navigating the Nsf.
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): So you can submit your proposal. Your proposals through one of 2 mechanisms. You can go through research.gov, or you can go through grants.gov
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): so if you're unfamiliar with these processes, we highly recommend that you look at the
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): in a set of proposal and award policies and procedure guide or pappg.
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): which has information about submitting proposals and all sorts of other important information that you should know.
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): And then also there's additional application guide for those who go through grants.gov.
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): okay, next slide, please.
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): So how do I know if the program is a good fit for my project.
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): Usual advice applies. Here, read the solicitation carefully.
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): You can also look at the program page you can find at the bottom
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): a link that will show you other awards that have been made through this program in the past that can take you to abstracts.
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): And you can also always talk to Nsf program officers.
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): We'll probably you know, email is usually the best. We get a lot of inquiries about these programs. So
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): I suggest, we suggest, you prepare a 1 or 2 page, write up in advance
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): and submit that
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): you know, including key questions, contributions, activities
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): as as Shake mentioned earlier, and I'll also say in a few minutes. Here
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): there are solicitation specific as well as general review criteria. So
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): you can say this.
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): A couple of email exchanges by also explaining how you address the solicitation specific criteria.
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): So you can contact. Yeah. So you can contact us. And we can put that back up later
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): what factors are considered for funding a proposal.
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): As always, it's available funding.
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): and how responsive you are to the solicitation.
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): And we're also, if you're
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): unfamiliar with Nsf. Processes. We will peer review all the proposals on panels, and the panel
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): of your peers will make recommendations
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): about the
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): responsiveness or
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): priority of different proposals, and these will be based on intellectual merit. Broader impacts and solicitation. Specific criteria.
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): Next slide, please.
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): So all Nsf proposals are reviewed according to 2 criteria, the intellectual merit and broader impacts.
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): So you know, we highly encourage you to
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): make this information your responsiveness to these criteria clear.
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): so that reviewers
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): will not have to struggle to. To answer these questions. You should make this clear yourself.
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): So intellectual merit is the potential of the proposal to advance knowledge and understanding
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): and broader impacts are the benefits to society or desired societal outcomes.
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): And I also we also recommend that you
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): look in the Nsf website for particular pages that provide guidance on writing good, broader impacts, plans
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): the rest of these build on each other. So you want proposals that are
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): creative, original, potentially transformative.
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): But also the plan doesn't just need to be a good idea. It should look like something that's a well organized plan
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): that has a high chance of of being executed successfully
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): coupled with, that is, mechanisms to assess success
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): and perhaps adjust the program or project as needed.
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): And of course you need to be qualified to do the work. So you want to convey your qualifications.
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): And lastly, you need to convey that you have the adequate resources available to you
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): to carry out the proposed work.
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): Okay, next slide, please.
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): So as shake already said, there are 6 solicitation specific criteria.
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): So revere, you know
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): you can. If you read the proposal, you'll see. These are the sections that you should, on the solicitation. These are the proposal sections.
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): but also reviewers, will specifically be asked to comment upon upon all of these as appropriate for your
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): draft proposal.
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): So the 1st 2 apply to pilots.
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): So what's the rationale? You know? Why, what's the problem you're trying to solve? And then to shake already said.
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): fair amount about this. What are the target areas for your for your proposal?
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): 3 is the potential for scalability and sustainability. So scalability, you know, we don't want to just see proposals that target one university.
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): for example. But we want to see how you're going to scale out
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): and sustainability. You know what happens after your funding ends. You know.
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): How will the outputs of your project carry on after the after the specific project ends?
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): You know, you're gonna need to recruit participants. So how how are you gonna do that?
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): And you know, you might want to say here how you're going to address issues of broadening participation.
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): targeting underrepresented groups, things like that.
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): And then a project evaluation plan. So if you're familiar with other programs like Ru this is
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): somewhat like that, and that you should have an evaluator associated with your project to help you
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): decide if you're achieving your goals or not.
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): 5, the effectiveness of the proposed collective impact. So we should be
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): connecting yourself to other entities. That help you achieve more than your project is going to achieve by itself.
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): And then, 6, th the soundness of the plans for fostering a suitable community.
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): So mediums I'm sorry. Small implementations do the 1st 5
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): and medium implementations are going to be judged by all 6
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): next slide, please.
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): What? Not to do. So.
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): you know. Read the solicitation carefully, and and follow the instructions and and guidance there
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): and then, if you have anything that's not covered there, refer to the pappg or Pap G, that I mentioned earlier.
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): Remember, of course, we're the National Science Foundation. You're
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): we want to fund things that are going to be
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): well reasoned.
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): they're going to be
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): providing citations or evidence for assertions you make and so forth. You're going to be reviewed by
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): your peers, who are faculty or scientists or other Ci professional practitioners. So
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): remember, those are the people you're going to have to convince.
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): You know. Do a good job writing your
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): writing your project narratives and so forth. So it always helps to have other people take a look at it before you submit.
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): Don't spend all of your page limit talking about what you've done in the past.
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): but rather use that as the
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): foundation for explaining what you're going to do under this particular proposed work.
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): and finally, Rwr. Is the dreaded return without review. So don't
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): look at the Rwr criteria within the solicitation the main one is dealing with pi limitations.
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): And so please read that solicit. Read the solicitation and Papbg carefully for things that could have your proposal returned without review. If you have any questions about any of those things.
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): those are things you should ask us, either now or by email later.
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): Alright, next slide.
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): Okay? So you can put your questions.
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): And in the Q&A section, I think we already have some coming.
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): And you can also email us.
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): But we have a few
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): common questions. I'll go over quickly.
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): So let's next slide
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): the question number one.
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): Do you have to talk with us before you submit? And the answer is, No, but it's strongly encouraged that you do.
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): and not just with the office of advanced cyber infrastructure, but also with cognitive cognizant program officers
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): potentially from other
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): parts of
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): Dennis F. Who might be event might be interested in your cyber training proposal.
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): Do this not at the last minute, but at least a month in advance.
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): Next slide
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): can my project primarily train or retrain for jobs in the It industry
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): know the proposal should
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): be relevant to scientific research workforce development and advanced cyber infrastructure.
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): cybersecurity proposals
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): must be relevant to the scientific research workflow.
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): And this relevance will vary from undergraduate to graduate to Ci professionals and across disciplines
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): for your target audience
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): is a search community
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): question number 3.
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): Must you already have a small size implementation before seeking a medium.
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): The answer is, no.
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): that's 1 short.
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): Okay? So that's all the common questions. So we'll now open up the floor for your Q. And A's. Thank you.
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): I'll answer one here
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): about. Can we volunteer ourselves to be reviewer
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): in case nobody's answered that already somebody may have.
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): But yeah, we encourage everybody listening to this. If you
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): are not planning to submit, you can certainly serve as a reviewer. It's a great way to learn about the program
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): but also, if you submit to one track like pilot, you can all serve as a reviewer on other tracks.
Sheikh Ghafoor: So
Sheikh Ghafoor: I will take another one. There is a question. Could you provide more details about the difference between small and medium project? Specifically, what kind of activities should be included in the
Sheikh Ghafoor: fostering a suitable community section. So
Sheikh Ghafoor: I we cannot tell you exactly directly the what kind of the. But the idea is that when you are implementing a project.
Sheikh Ghafoor: you have to engage
Sheikh Ghafoor: and build a community. So let me give you some example. This may may not be applicable to your product. You are developing training materials, and you are implementing into your classroom, and maybe in another university with your collaborator, right? So you want to foster a community on that. So you want to maybe go try to influence in some say.
Sheikh Ghafoor: if it is a computer science, acm, curriculum, and others, you go participate into Acm's curriculum revision forum. Present, those things have a website or have a faculty development workshop in relevant
Sheikh Ghafoor: conferences where those type of faculties are coming, you are proposing those that means other will know, and they will start communicating, giving you ideas. These are some of the things that you do for fostering and building community.
Sheikh Ghafoor: and and and there can be many other way of doing it, and you have to come up with those that those are required. Not only you are developing and doing a training in a prototype fashion, so that's that would be the in a larger proposal would like to see those more and more
Sheikh Ghafoor: right. You can propose small tutorial training in, for example, in Education Conference, like computer Science and 60 conference or in engineering, has this?
Sheikh Ghafoor: what is the engineering conferences they have? There are training and and tutorial there. So that means you're building community. So those are some examples, not necessarily. You have to follow that, but appropriate to your proposal. You come up with these ideas, and you can come up with innovative ideas that we have not thought about right. There are other ways to foster in community. So that is required for larger proposals.
Sheikh Ghafoor: And Marlon or Reha. Anybody wants to add. I see Lincoln.
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): Do we have a new question, so we can move on.
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): So
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): yeah, I'll go ahead and read it. Although I think it's going to be answered in piping. So what audiences should the training address? What institutions, age groups so forth.
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): so I'll I'll take a a 1st stab at this one and let my colleagues
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): jump in. But so there's a range of of audiences that you can target. So if you remember, back in the specific review criteria number 2.
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): There are 2 types. One is addressing graduate and undergraduate curriculum development. And then the
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): that that was actually B, and then A for that is
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): addressing the Ci research community, or people who are using Ci
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): cyber infrastructure.
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): So you could think of the yeah, here we go.
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): And so there's more detail in the in the solicitation.
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): right? But so these are your target. These are your target communities. Typically so also, Sharmista in the beginning outlined 3 different communities
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): Ci users, Ci developers.
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): Yeah. So basically, you know, those. So.
Sheikh Ghafoor: User, Ca, professional and Ca, contributor.
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): So you can, you can target cyber training proposal around, you can build it around one or more of these groups.
Tom Gulbransen: If I might add.
Tom Gulbransen: the recruiting
Tom Gulbransen: aspect of how some proposals will be reviewed
Tom Gulbransen: is another part of how the proposals will be reviewed, and of course recruiting reflects where you think there's a need to pull trainees from or to, you know, in.
Tom Gulbransen: Bring more people into this skill base. So to some degree.
Tom Gulbransen: it's up to the proposers to decide where might there be a need to
Tom Gulbransen: achieve better representation, better, better engagement in communities that might not have that
Tom Gulbransen: thus far.
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): For misty. You were going to answer that one, and I I think we stole your thunder. Do you want? Do you have anything else to say.
Sharmistha Bagchi-Sen: Oh, no, that's why I showed the slides, and no, no, you you did, you know very well, thank you.
Tom Gulbransen: Could. Could we revisit one of the questions that was raised and answered? I'm not sure if the answers went out publicly, it had to do with the evaluation plan, and where an evaluation plan might be appropriate to address or not. And
Tom Gulbransen: the solicitation specific criteria. Note that it
Tom Gulbransen: does it not?
Tom Gulbransen: I'm required to be part of the pilot.
Tom Gulbransen: so could we.
Tom Gulbransen: Could we anticipate
Tom Gulbransen: the effective evaluation plan was included, even if the the pilot didn't have to do that. Would that be
Tom Gulbransen: an issue, or.
Sheikh Ghafoor: So.
Sheikh Ghafoor: it is not required. According to the solicitation, however, having an evaluation plan, sometimes makes the proposal better.
Sheikh Ghafoor: So in my previous life. I was part of one of the pilot project, and we did have an evaluation plan. But this is not a because pilot is your implementing or experimenting in your own own institution, so you may want to do some evaluation. It may write about that, but evaluation plan is not
Sheikh Ghafoor: required, and if you, it doesn't also have to be as rigorous in my interpretation is as it is required for small
Sheikh Ghafoor: and medium. As for the small and medium, it is required.
Sheikh Ghafoor: You have to have an evaluation plan for your project.
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): I could.
Sheikh Ghafoor: Any other comment from my colleagues.
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): I I could add an opinion there, I think pilots are.
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): you know.
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): maybe a precursor to going after a larger implementation
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): award. If if that's what you think you would like to do, then, you know, you do have a limited budget, but having some evaluation, can really help
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): help you make that next step to an implementation level
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): award. So we have a good question.
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): Actually, I think somebody else already answered it.
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): A good question. We'll chat about.
Sharmistha Bagchi-Sen: Yeah, my yeah, Marlon, you can go ahead and answer that. I give a short answer, but you can feel free to address that the one about the
Sharmistha Bagchi-Sen: contacting a directorate.
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): Yeah.
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): yeah, we we do. So you you are encouraged to submit proposals that are relevant. Not just the office of advanced cyber infrastructure, but other
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): parts of the Unsf other divisions. So we have a couple of our fellow program officers
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): from other divisions here. We welcome those types of submissions. We'd recommend. Probably you contact us at once together.
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): and so if you're going to do that, if you're going to do a cmmi plus oac proposal, for example.
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): then you need to have somebody who's a cyber infrastructure specialist, and then somebody who's a
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): on your team. Who's the engineering? The cmmi domain expert?
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): For that proposal? So
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): you mentioned specifically in the question. Geo, yeah. So you'd want to have a Geo expert as well.
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): you would say the
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): for co-funding.
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): It's
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): I'll I'll just say it's
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): it's encouraged. But maybe, Cssi, we're a little bit more rigorous about the co-funding requirement.
Sharmistha Bagchi-Sen: And also I answered a question on international collaborators and travel all those budget information. Please check with Pubg, and if you have, your University has a Sro. They are going to help you. If you can't find answers through your university, then please let us know about
Sharmistha Bagchi-Sen: very specific budget items, and we will be able to give you
Sharmistha Bagchi-Sen: an answer.
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): Another question
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): is there any specific information on how many total awards will be given in each category?
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): There's some
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): information in in the solicitation about how many expected awards. But that's
Marlon Pierce (NSF CISE/OAC): That's our our guidance.
Sharmistha Bagchi-Sen: Okay. I am not seeing any more questions.
Sheikh Ghafoor: And just to add, if you have questions in future, and you know the cognizant program officer names are in the program page. You can write to us. So it may. While you are just writing the program
Sheikh Ghafoor: pro proposal, you may come up with questions.
Wen-Wen Tung (NSF): There's a new question for pilot grants. Do we need preliminary experiments
Wen-Wen Tung (NSF): which panelists would like to reply.
Sheikh Ghafoor: So I can take that. No, you don't need preliminary experiments.
Sheikh Ghafoor: So it it's not a required. If you have some preliminary experience experiments. That's okay. But it's for any class of proposal. It's not a requirement.
Sheikh Ghafoor: You have to have a convincing story, right? Well, reasons
Sheikh Ghafoor: that that the reviewer that responds to the solicitation criteria.
Sheikh Ghafoor: and that convinces the reviewers that it is a good proposal. It will achieve the program goal.
Sharmistha Bagchi-Sen: No, we have time. So if you have questions, please post
Sharmistha Bagchi-Sen: or we will. We look forward to hearing from you
Sharmistha Bagchi-Sen: and receiving your proposals. And please, definitely, if you're interested in serving as reviewers for us, please let us know. You can just email one of us. Our emails are on the solicitation page.
Sharmistha Bagchi-Sen: We have one more question.
Sharmistha Bagchi-Sen: Thank you. Thank you very much for attending
Sharmistha Bagchi-Sen: alright. So I think. Thank you, Edgar, for
Sharmistha Bagchi-Sen: helping us. I think we are done.
Sharmistha Bagchi-Sen: What do you think? Everyone who should be.
Sheikh Ghafoor: Yeah, I think everything is done.
Sheikh Ghafoor: Yes.
Sharmistha Bagchi-Sen: Thank you.