Connecting Infrastructure, Connecting Research

UK NGS Campus Champions Programme

The Campus Champions program aims to support the individuals who act as the local source of knowledge about the NGS and other e-Research resources and opportunities. Through the Campus Champions programme the NGS is seeking to ensure that its services are better linked into the research communities that use them.
 
The Campus Champion will be:
  • A source of information regarding NGS resources and other services that will benefit research and education on their campus;
  • A source of local and national research computing and e-Infrastructure information on your campus;
  • A source of NGS user accounts on their campus, allowing researchers and educators to quickly get using their allocations of time on NGS resources; and
  • A conduit for the campus e-Infrastructure needs, requirements and challenges, with direct access to NGS staff.
Campus Champions will be the human face of the NGS within the institution and a trusted link between the NGS and local users. The institution’s users can thereby influence the future developments and services provided by the NGS.
 
The NGS will provide support for the Campus Champion through training and direct links with NGS staff. Campus Champions can make use of the wide range of training and documentation provided by the NGS, both for themselves and for their local users. The NGS also plans to provide training particularly aimed at Campus Champions in areas such as user engagement and support. In addition, they will be able to host training and outreach events to raise the profile of the institutions membership of the NGS.
 
The annual NGS Innovation Forum provides the Campus Champions with the opportunity to ensure that they are aware of the ongoing NGS programme and to be able to pass information given back to their local users.

 

Benefits to the Institution

The Campus Champions programme allows institutions to link into the NGS community and to support their local e-Infrastructure users. It both allows local researchers to be better informed and supported; and to inform the future development of the NGS. For prospective member institutions there is no commitment to provide any resources.

The NGS will support the Campus Champion through the following means:

  • Participation in a national community of Campus Champions;
  • Regular information on new resources, services, and offerings to Campus Champions;
  • Material for publicising NGS and related local activities, including research success stories;
  • Detailed training and documentation on the NGS and its processes and in more general topics of user engagement;
  • The facility to provide local users with accounts for accessing NGS resources;
  • The means to add relevant items into the NGS surgery meetings;
  • Allocations of NGS time to allow for supporting new users and novel developments; and
  • Campus visits by NGS staff.

 

What's expected of the Campus Champion?

The Campus Champion role covers a number of activities, for example:

  • Providing information on the NGS and e-Infrastructure resources to researchers at your institution;
  • Assisting new users to get started with the NGS systems and decide on the best resources for them to use;
  • Capturing information on problems and challenges which local users face in using the NGS;
  • Where appropriate provide local support to users who have submitted help requests to the helpdesk;
  • Raise awareness of the NGS within your local institution;
  • A host for NGS events in you institution, in particular an NGS Roadshow event if one has not already taken place locally.
  • Attendance at the annual Innovation Forum to keep abreast of the ongoing NGS programme and to be able to pass information given back to their local users.

 

Nominating a Campus Champion

Campus Champions should be either a member of central IT services who’s remit includes research computing, or a researcher whose work includes related resource utilization and who has a passion for engagement of colleagues in the activity.

The nomination template should be used (as available below) and returned to the NGS on institutional headed paper signed by a senior member of staff representing line management of the nominated person.  We recognize that change is envitable within institutions and so we ask that where the current member of staff is intending to move that a new staff member is identified and a new letter of support provided.

Further Documents

 

Current Members

List of current Campus Champions

Member Sites

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