New NSF-funded Initiative to grow Open OnDemand web portal will be co-lead by MGHPCC’s Julie Ma.
Reporting by Helen Hill for MGHPCC
The National Science Foundation (NSF) has awarded a $5 million grant to the Ohio Supercomputer Center (OSC) and its partners, including the Massachusetts Green High Performance Computing Center (MGHPCC), to enhance the Open OnDemand web portal over the next five years. This initiative, called Growing Open OnDemand: Leveraging Unified Community Knowledge (GOODLUCK), aims to develop new tools, features, and processes to make high performance computing (HPC) more accessible to researchers, educators, and students.
Open OnDemand, launched by OSC in 2017, is a widely used web portal that provides a simple web browser interface for accessing HPC resources. It supports over half a million researchers and students globally in various disciplines, from computational chemistry to digital arts. Led by principal investigator Alan Chalker at OSC, the GOODLUCK project will support ongoing platform development to meet needs of the rapidly expanding community.
Julie Ma, a co-principal investigator from MGHPCC, will oversee communications with the global Open OnDemand developer community, service providers, researchers, and vendors. Her responsibilities include identifying and responding to emerging issues and needs, developing affinity groups, offering monthly conversation hours, and hosting an annual conference. Ma’s efforts will ensure that the platform remains responsive to the community’s evolving requirements and fosters greater collaboration and innovation.
Other key contributors include Dhruva Chakravorty from Texas A&M University, who will lead the development of apps for Open OnDemand, and Karen Tomko from OSC, who will focus on integrating Open OnDemand into classroom environments. Chalker will also lead efforts to customize the platform to support multi-language dictionaries, digital accessibility features, and virtual/augmented reality technologies. Alan Sussman from the University of Maryland will pilot and deliver integrated tools, documentation, and training materials tailored to researchers’ needs.
For more information about the web portal, visit the Open OnDemand website.
