A smattering of updates

Over conference season there was what can only be described as a smattering of small announcements that you may have missed during your travels.  The blog seems like an ideal place to gather these together!

NGS News
The latest edition of our quarterly newsletter was released in time for conference season.  Available to download from our website, September’s edition contains articles on -

• A round up of news from Europe including the release of the first Unified Middleware Distribution
• An introduction to the new Certificate Wizard
• Championing e-Research and e-infrastructure - the Campus and Community Champions
• NGS user case study - Using the NGS to model the climate impact of aircraft emissions
• ...and more!

Tell us what you think!
Also on the website we have a new poll on the home page.  This time we are asking people how easy it is to find the information they are looking for on the NGS website.  So no matter if you are a frequent or occasional visitor to the NGS website, let us know by voting in our poll.  It can be found on the right hand side of the homepage.

 
Busy users
There is a new NGS user case study on the website.  Maria Holstensson from the Institute of Cancer Research explains how she is using the NGS to optimise cancer treatment for children suffering neuroblastoma.

Children with neuroblastoma who are being treated with targeted radionuclide therapy can have their treatment monitored with gamma camera images. These images are used to calculate the amount of drug taken up by the tumour and to estimate the radiation dose. However the image quality can be poor due to scattering and interference. Maria Holstensson from the Institute of Cancer Research is looking at tackling these problems.

Maria said "We have had absolutely fantastic help from the NGS and as a result of using the Grid we have been able to run multiple parallel simulations that we would not have been able to run otherwise".

 
How many?!
We’re pleased to announce that we now have over 1000 subscribers our fortnightly NGS news bulletin.  We have subscribers from all over the UK and much further afield with 21 countries represented amongst our subscribers. 
The news bulletin is delivered to your inbox every second Friday (with some exceptions during conference and holiday season!) and contains news from the NGS, updates from our member sites, details of forthcoming relevant conferences, calls for papers for relevant journals and much more.  You can subscribe to the mailing list from the JISCmail site.

Hot off the press…

Released the beginning of June, the new edition of the NGS quarterly newsletter is out now. The June edition features a range of articles including –

• Supporting e-Infrastructure Uptake through Community Champions for Research (SeIUCCR) - a new joint project between the NGS and the SSI
• around up of the successful and engaging Collaborations Workshop held by the SSI earlier this year
• an in-depth look at the new NGS load monitor
• Sysadmins corner tips on using Screen
• an introduction to our new member site - the University of Huddersfield

We are always looking for news items for our newsletter and fortnightly email bulletin so if you have anything you would like to contribute please get in touch! We are particularly keen to hear from our users and their application of e-research. Have you recently presented or published a paper featuring research performed on the NGS? If so then we’d love to hear from you!

Read all about it!

A new edition of the NGS Quarterly newsletter is out now on our website. Browse whilst drinking your cuppa or download and read on the train!

This edition includes a range of articles on topics such as the imminent changes to the NGS (make sure you read this before the 31st of March if you are a user!), using NX rather than GSISSH to securely access GUI's, tips and hints for using our ever popular UI/WMS and much more.

All editions of the newsletter are available from the newsletter section of the NGS website.

In addition to the newsletter, we also have a new user case study up on the NGS website. This time we have a case study on how NGS resources were used to model the climate impact of aircraft emissions. This research was carried out by Laura Wilcox at the University of Reading who ran FORTRAN code on several NGS sites to complete her models. All the details of Laura's research can be found on the case study page.

Looking for some reading material?

If you are looking for some reading material in the run up to Christmas then have a look at the latest edition of NGS News, the quarterly newsletter from the NGS.

This quarters edition contains features on -

• Using the NGS Cloud Protoype in teaching
• Running Taverna Workflows on the NGS
• Research Communities on the NGS Cloud Prototype
• Quantitative genetic analysis on the NGS
• ... and much more!

To download your copy of this quarters newsletter go to the dedicated NGS News webpage where you can download copies of all past NGS newsletters.

New on the website!

I've been updating the NGS website today with a couple of new things. Well I've actually updated it several times this week - there seems to be a lot going on! I thought I would point the new additions out on here just incase you miss them as there is so much being added at the moment.

We've got a new poll up on the website asking if you would like the NGS to provide an academic cloud service. Now we've all heard a lot about clouds over the last few months as it seems to be the buzzword of the moment but do you really want one? Yes, no , not sure? All answers are welcome and it will take less than 5 secs to record your opinion. See the home page of the NGS website to vote!

I also finished off the 11th edition (yes really...) of the NGS quarterly newsletter this week and it's now up on the website. There is a wide range of articles in the newsletter covering topics such as the EGI and the role the NGS is playing in this, how the NGS is demonstrating global interoperability, a user case study showing how researchers actually use our resources, an introduction to our University of Sheffield member site and much more. It never fails to surprise me just how much is going on at the NGS and how much we have to report back to our users through our newsletter each quarter.

I'm already planning the next edition of the newsletter which will be out in time for AHM so if you have any ideas for articles then please let me know!

Read all about it! - VO's, Condor, NGS Summer school and more!

The March 2010 edition of NGS News, the NGS quarterly newsletter, is out now. Featuring articles on the forthcoming "Communicating Science" event, virtual organisations, crystal structure prediction and Condor, Campus Champions, advance notification of the NGS Summer School, user case studies and much more.

The latest edition can be found in the Newsletter section of the NGS website along with all past issues of the newsletter.

Can you hear us?

Last Friday many of the NGS staff were up at NeSC in Edinburgh to discuss communications and the new NGS website. It reminded me that I haven't posted on here for a while about the various outreach methods we have here at the NGS so here is a small reminder!

NGS blog - obviously! This is syndicated to the front page of the new NGS website - you can see the tab in the text box in top right. It's also syndicated to the GridPP and iSGTW websites.

NGS website - which has recently been revamped. We don't see the website as a static entity and we are constantly responding to feedback and making the site even better for you to use. If you have any feedback about the new website then please let us know through the helpdesk.

NGS email lists - we have 2 of these. We have the news list through which all subscribers receive a fortnightly email bulletin full of news from the NGS and occasionally further afield. It also contains details of upcoming conferences and training events. We have over 720 subscribers to this service. All active NGS users are strongly advised to sign up to our status list which sends out notices about service levels, problems and downtime.

NGS newsletter - we produce a quarterly newsletter which features longer and more indepth articles about the NGS as well as features on new technology coming soon. It's also an opportunity to introduce users to NGS staff and NGS sites. The newsletter is distributed in hard copy at NGS events such as roadshows and conferences and is also available as a pdf from our website.

We also have a NGS Facebook group where the occasional photo of the NGS team in action pops up and also our Twitter account. If you have any more ideas on how the NGS can reach out to it's users then we would love to hear them.

Catch up with the news

The latest edition of NGS News, the quarterly newsletter from the NGS, is out now.

This Christmas edition has a European flavour as we describe the NGS activities in Europe and our participation in building the European Grid Infrastructure (EGI). There is also an excellent article from Jonathan Churchill from the NGS at RAL and Paul Wilkinson from Exeter University who give an excellent use case study of the new User interface / workload management system (UI/WMS) for pest insect gene coding. Finally we also have articles on why we need certification and the ongoing developments in this field, a user case study from Dr Narcis Fernandez-Fuentes at the University of Leeds on virtual candidate drug trials and much much more.

The newsletter can be found on the NGS website.

Brief return

The NGS staff are all back from the EGEE conference in Barcelona where NGS received a fair amount of publicity thanks to a keynote presentation from David Wallom (our technical director), the exhibition stand and several posters and presentations from NGS staff.

You may think we would have time to catch our breath but it's not so. On Wednesday we are running a NGS roadshow event at the University of Glasgow where we have over 40 people attending from 4 different universities across the central belt of Scotland. We have some great speakers lined up for this event and more details can be seen on the event page.

Talking of events, there is still time to register for the NGS Innovation Forum. Registrations keep coming in and the closing date is the 13th of October so you haven't got long left! The break out sessions are proving to be really popular and it's a great way to meet up with researchers in similar areas to discuss issues etc. The registration link can be found here.

In non-event news the latest edition of the NGS newsletter is out now featuring articles on the NGS and GridPP working closer together, NGS roadshows, a spotlight on the Manchester team and much more. If there is anything you would like to see in the next edition of the newsletter or if you have a suggestion for a story then please contact the NGS (support@grid-support.ac.uk).

What do people want from ICT? – Part 2

The second presentation at this JISC conference session was given by Prof. Rob Procter, Research Director of National Centre for e-Social Science (NCeSS).

Rob was talking about the e-Uptake project which looked at barriers and enablers to the uptake of e-infrastructure. Again interviews with 50 people from a wide variety of research areas were conducted as well as intermediary services such as ITS units at universities and national services. This resulted in over 25 hours of audio tape to be transcribed which must have been a daunting task!

The second phase of the project was of particular interest as this involved 25 “established and inspirational” HEI’s as well as small specialised research institutes. Two interviews were performed at each – one at a strategic level and the other at the direct user support level.
This was of particular interest to me as often we deal directly with the end user but it is important to have the support of everyone in the institution from the strategic level down to the “coal face”. This is particularly important to the NGS as we try to encourage more HEI’s to become members of the NGS. If people at a strategic level are not aware of the services and benefits on offer then it makes our job much harder.

The results from these interviews will eventually be available as the researchers are currently developing an online database of their findings. However some of the initial findings were presented. I’ve listed them here along with some comments on what the NGS is currently doing to tackle these problems.

1. People weight up the cost of adoption – is it worthwhile learning to use e-research?
Through user case studies and user participation in our roadshow and innovation forum agendas, we showcase how using NGS resources has helped real-life research take place. There is no better advertisement than our major users! We also showcase users research in many of our outreach mechanisms such as user case studies, the NGS newsletter, website etc. All examples to potential new users of how the NGS can help research.

2. What’s the long term sustainability?
The NGS has just received funding for another 2 years (until March 2011) and discussions are already taking place for long term security after this date.

3. Enablers are needed such as roadshows, consultancy, collaboration and the need to follow up potential leads
The NGS hosts roadshows at any interested institution and these events are organised by NGS staff ensuring as little burden as possible on local organisers. The events are free to host and attend. All you need to do is let us know that you’d like one!
The NGS has a helpdesk staffed by experienced grid users who are there to offer help in the immediate term but also longer term advice to institutions and users.

4. Lack of support infrastructure
The NGS has a helpdesk as mentioned above and also offers a great deal of support to new institutions wishing to join the NGS by providing them with a “buddy”. We also offer a wide variety of training which is free through the training team at NeSC so new users can get up and running as quickly as possible on the NGS and also training for more experienced users in order to hone their skills.

5. Awareness raising
Well this is what I do as the NGS Liaison Officer. It’s my full time job to make sure that the NGS reaches out to as many people as possible through every means available! We have a wide variety of Web 2.0 tools such as this blog, Twitter, Facebook etc. We attend a large number of research-based conferences in order to reach out directly to users as well as conferences held by organisations such as JISC. We go out to institutions with our roadshow events in order to reach a wide variety of people at an institution from PhD students to IT directors. We produce a large range of literature from user case studies to newsletters demonstrating how the NGS helps researchers and how NGS resources are used. And much much more!

Of course there is always more the NGS could be doing but with the resources that we have I’d like to think that we are tackling many of the issues that Rob raised and that our users do feel supported and informed. We are always looking for suggestions from users for things that they feel we could do more of or things they feel that are missing from the NGS. All comments are welcome!

NGS research highlighted

The latest edition of iSGTW highlighted research carried out at the Univeristy of Oxford using NGS resources. Thushka Maharaj and Blanca Rodriguez both work on the Integrative Biology project and have used the NGS to examine the effects of defibrillation on the heart. Further information can be found in the iSGTW article.

The latest edition of the quarterly NGS newsletter is also out now featuring articles on hardware upgrades at the University of Glasgow, an update on the progress of the Engage project, how astronomers and cosmologists are making the most of the NGS and much more.

If you have anything you would like to see highlighted in the next edition of the NGS newsletter which is due out at the end of May then please let us know!

Were you caught on camera?

A selection of photos from the NGS Innovation Forum '08 are now available on the NGS Flickr and NGS Facebook groups. Feel free to tag, annotate, comment etc on photos!

Most of the presentations from the event are now available from the NGS website so if you'd like to have a look to see what you missed, to grab that website address you missed on the day or to refresh your memory now is your chance. The outstanding presentations will hopefully be added soon.

The NGS fortnightly news email bulletin has recently had an overhaul and now comes to you in lovely colourful html format. The fortnightly email contains news of software updates on the NGS, updates to NGS services, job adverts, conference announcements, training events and much more. If you'd like to be kept informed then please join our mailing list.

New edition of NGS News available now!

The June edition of the NGS newsletter, NGS News, is now available in pdf format from the NGS website.

The latest edition features articles on how the NGS is helping shed light on how life on earth began, the new NGS roadshow events, a user case study on geodemograpic modelling from the MoSeS project (NCeSS funded), an update on the joint OMII-UK and NGS ENGAGE project, the new MySQL database service from th NGS, an update on EGI, an introduction to the new National Visualisation Service and many more of our regular features.

Please feel free to advertise the new edition of the newsletter wherever you think appropriate!