What do researchers do with
IT?What do they want from ITS?
Heidi Fraser-Krauss
University of York
Context
• Central ITS had traditionally done nothing to
support research
• York, as part of the N8, had acquired access to
the joint HPC facility
– But wasn’t using its share
– Compsci were the gateway to the N8 and the
gateway was hidden !
• I saw an opportunity 
What we did
• With the support of the Dean of Science we
formed a working group of researchers
chaired by an academic from Physics
• I freed up a member of staff to focus on
technical research support
• Initial focus of the WG was HPC but:
– Group felt that the issue was wider
– And instigated a questionnaire to investigate
training and software needs
Software and training needs questionnaire
• Biographical data
– Department
– Research Group
•
•
•
•
Software use and importance to research
Software needs
Training needs and preferences
Level of expertise in use of software
Software and training needs questionnaire
• 328 responses in total
• 27/28 Academic departments
responded.
• The sciences (59%) and social sciences
(30%) were the biggest participants.
• Over 260 different applications are
actively used in York.
Top 20 pieces of software
Applica on name
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Number of responses
Most wanted pieces of software
Note the overlap!
30
25
20
15
10
5
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Exper se level of applica ons used at UOY
Not Stated
19%
Beginner
19%
Expert
19%
Intermediate
43%
.
Preferred method of training.
1%
4%
Classroom training
4% 3%
42%
20%
Reference material (books, on-line
documenta on, etc)
On-line training (videos, courses, etc)
None Specified
Other
No training
Drop In with Expert
26%
How we used this information
• We bought a site license for Matlab
• We brought a site license for Qualtrics
• We have established classroom based
training courses for Matlab, R, Python and
Linux and now have a wiki for advertising
courses that others provide
• We’ve got a dialogue going with researchers
• We’ve installed the major pieces of software
on our mini HPC cluster
Infrastructure Questionnaire
• Biographical data
• Hardware.
– Type of research done with computers.
– Operating systems
– Computer specs
• Storage
– Do you backup your research data?
– Where?
• Wi-Fi.
• Training courses and information.
• General Comments.
Infrastructure Questionnaire
• 244 responses in total.
• 34 separate departments
• 50 research institutes
Responses by department
40
Number of responses
35
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20
15
10
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Departments
What do you use your computer for?
Simula on/
modelling
15%
Programming
tasks (e.g.
Matlab, C++,
Python.)
22%
Mainly for word
processing,
spreadsheets,
presenta ons.
34%
Data analysis
(e.g. R or
STATA)
29%
Operating system use
Use computers mainly for word
processing, spread sheets, presentations
Data analysis
Programming tasks
Simulations/modelling
Other
1%
Other
1%
Apple
19%
Apple
22%
Linux/
Unix
5%
Windows
72%
Linux/
Unix
37%
Windows
43%
Where is research done?
2%
10%
Office desktop
Laptop
31%
57%
Department
machine/cluster
Other
Would more powerful hardware help?
• Do researchers think their research would be
significantly improved if they had access to
larger/faster machines? (93 responses)
• Yes 33%
• Not sure 13%
• No 54%
• Percentage of researchers who said yes or not
sure who would be interested in receiving help to
run computing jobs on larger/faster machines.
• Yes 42%
• Not sure 44%
• No 6%
Storage
• Are you storing your research data in a facility that is not part of, or
located at the University of York (196 people responded)?
– Yes 67 %
– No 33 %
• Do you have colleagues from other institutions that access data stored at
the University of York (196 people)?
– Yes 20 %
– No 80 %
• Would you be interested in using the data storage facilities provided by
the University of York and IT services (196 people)?
– Yes 54%
– No 14%
– I am already using these facilities. 32%
Do you backup your research?
• 91 % of those who responded claim to
backup their research.
• There seems to be no correlation
between department or job title from
those who do not back-up their
research.
Professor/Reader
11%
Lecturer/Senior
Lecturer
26%
Teaching Fellow/
Senior Teaching
Fellow
5%
Economics and Related
Studies
Electronics
Health Sciences
Responses
The York Management School
Physics
Research Fellow/
Senior Research
Fellow
26%
Other
5%
Masters Student
0%
PhD Student
11%
Centre for Reviews and
Dissemina on
Educa on
Ins tute for Effec ve
Educa on (IEE)
Biology
Chemistry
Computer Science
Mathema cs
Social Policy and Social Work
0
1
2
Department
3
4
Post-doctoral
Research Associate
16%
5
Where are research data stored?
Data Storage Type
• 49 % of researches report backing up their data on personal external hard disks,
44% on departmental storage and 20% using storage provided by IT Services.
• It also seems that many people are using Dropbox, Google cloud and Apple iCloud
to store their data.
140
Other
120
Cloud
100
Google Drive/Dropbox
Other storage
services
Stored in a loca on away
from the University of
York.
Stored using storage
provided by central IT
Services.
80
60
Stored on departmental
storage.
40
External hard disk
a ached to your
computer.
20
DVD, USB s ck.
0
0
10
20
30
Responses
40
50
60
Dropbox.
Google Cloud Apple iCloud Amazon Web Microso
(e.g. Drive, (e.g. find my Services (e.g. OneDrive
Forms, groups iPhone, EC2, storage).
etc.)
Backup).
Responses
Windows
Cloud
UoY dropoff
Other.
Comments
• “The availability of cores and memory limits
research questions that I can address. More of
both would help. But another barrier is the
time needed to train, program and interface
with distributed systems. A more desktop-like
experience would help. “
• “I use Dropbox for everything because it is
reliable and accessible and (apparently) free.
But I'd prefer this to be a UoY service. I guess I
could use the Google based services for this,
but they're nothing like as easy as Dropbox.”
Comments
• “I do think a central storage facility for raw
research data would be very useful. Backing-up
data seems like an individual endeavor for
unsupported machines. Other Universities
seem more proactive about this. “
• “No additional storage space given for PhD
students by the university. When I have
enquired about obtaining extra filespace, I have
been informed by the IT Support Office that it is
not possible to increase my filestore quota. “
Questions?
Thanks to
Dr Emma Barnes and Dr Andrew
Smith