The advanced cyberinfrastructure research and education facilitators virtual residency: Toward a national cyberinfrastructure workforce

An Advanced Cyberinfrastructure Research and Education Facilitator (ACI-REF) works directly with researchers to advance the computing- and data-intensive aspects of their research, helping them to make effective use of Cyberinfrastructure (CI). The University of Oklahoma (OU) is leading a national "virtual residency" program to prepare ACI-REFs to provide CI facilitation to the diverse populations of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) researchers that they serve. Until recently, CI Facilitators have had no education or training program; the Virtual Residency program addresses this national need by providing: (1) training, specifically (a) summer workshops and (b) third party training opportunity alerts; (2) a community of CI Facilitators, enabled by (c) a biweekly conference call and (d) a mailing list