Cultivating the Cyberinfrastructure Workforce via an Intermediate/Advanced Virtual Residency Workshop

Cyberinfrastructure (CI) Facilitation is the process of helping researchers to use research computing systems and services to advance their computing-intensive/data-intensive research goals. The growing need for CI Facilitation isn't being met by traditional academic degree and certificate programs, so informal education is required. The Virtual Residency (VR) is a program that teaches key CI Facilitation skills to CI Facilitators. Using a combination of (a) workshops, (b) biweekly conference calls, (c) a Grant Proposal Writing Apprenticeship and (d) a new Paper Writing Apprenticeship, the VR has been teaching CI Facilitation since 2015. During the summers of 2015-17, the annual VR workshop was at an introductory level, driving demand for a higher level workshop. In 2018, the VR workshop was presented at a level described as intermediate, but in practice it included a great deal of advanced content, concentrated on institutional CI leadership. The 2018 focus areas were: (1) in-depth CI expertise in areas of rapidly changing technology; (2) CI leadership; (3) funding acquisition skills; (4) outreach strategies, techniques, and skills; (5) communication skills. The 2018 VR workshop served 216 participants from 147 institutions in 42 US states and 2 US territories plus 2 other countries.