Chapter 4: Accomplishments & Deliverables by Functional Area
This chapter provides more detailed discussions of the major accomplishments presented in Chapter 2.
4.1 NEEScomm Headquarters
Table 4.1 NEEScomm Headquarters Year 1 Goals We need a table like this for every section
Goal
Fully
met
Partially
met
Comments
Community









4.1.1 Transition
4.1.2 Governance Board
4.1.3 Community Input
4.1.4 Engagement with Equipment Sites
4.1.5 Strategic Plan
4.1.6 Partnerships
NEES FY2010
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4.2 Education, Outreach, and Training (EOT)
In the initial NEEScomm proposal the NEES Education, Outreach, and Training Program established five
goals for development of the NEES Community and NEEShub during year 1:
1. Develop effective learning alternatives based on the use of NEES cyberinfrastructure to train and
educate researchers and students and to support outreach to the profession
2. Establish mechanisms to bridge theories-to-practice and the needs of practice-to-research priorities.
3. Establish a network of EOT developers across the sites to support ongoing local outreach and
training.
4. Investigate learning potential of NEEShub learning technologies
5. Produce engaging materials to promote NEES research and education successes to a variety of
audiences.
As summarized in Table 4.2, these goals align with strategic aims laid out in the strategic plan. In
addition to meeting these goals, NEEScomm EOT successfully completed its transition, developed an
REU program, and initiated partnerships with a number of organizations to support the development
and dissemination of EOT resources.
Table 4.2 EOT Year 1 Goals
Goal
Community
Build a community through building both
personal and cyber contacts and interactions:
 Host EOT summer workshop
 Participate in professional conferences
 Host annual meeting
Knowledge Transfer
Enable interaction between researchers and
practitioners through cyber interactions on
NEEShub and in NEES Academy
 Develop prototype of NEES Academy
Fully
met
X
Ongoing task
X
NASCC, EERI, USN-CCEE
Plans proceeding, scheduled
for October 7-9
X
X
X
X
 Host webinar series for practitioners and
researchers
 Publish research highlights on the web and X
NEES FY2010
Partially Comments
met
X
Population of NEES Academy is
an ongoing long term activity
Ongoing NEES-EERI activity,
first webinar in planning
Page 2
as a booklet
Workforce Development
Enhance the development of researcher and
practitioner pipeline through effective
education and outreach programs.
 Enhance and expand the REU program
 Explore partnership opportunities with
several organizations to expand the
impact of NEES to the K-16 communities
Public Awareness
Increase awareness of the NEES community,
capabilities, and contributions in reducing
earthquake and tsunami risks through
research, engineering and education

News releases

Publish reports and participate in large
high visibility outreach events
X
Ongoing task
X
Continuing and expanding
process
X
Ongoing process
X
X
X
4.2.1 Completion of Transition
The major goals for transition included hiring staff, maintaining and expanding the existing EOT and
communications programs, identifying and collecting existing EOT materials to be included in NEEShub,
and developing a plan for building and expanding the NEES EOT community. A development team for
the EOT staff has been hired to support the development and implementation of EOT programs and
build the NEES Academy founded on the NEEShub architecture. Table 4.3 lists the team members and
their responsibilities. The EOT Coordinator and the EOT co-Leaders work closely, meeting several times
per week, to discuss the directions and progress of the EOT program.
Table 4.3 – NEEScomm EOT Team
Position - Persons
EOT Coordinator –
Barbara Cooper
EOT co-Leader –
Thalia Anagnos
EOT co-Leader –
Sean Brophy
Software Engineering –
Jason Lambert
Technical SpecialistJared West
Instructional Designer –
NEES FY2010
Responsibilities
Coordinates and oversees major NEEScomm EOT operations
involving the EOT Development Team and the NEES Network.
Provides strategic leadership for the EOT program
Provides strategic leadership for the EOT program
Principal lead in the technical development of NEES Academy
architecture and links with NEEShub. Coordinates integration of
NEES Academy with the IT efforts.
Developer of content related to EOT and communications program.
Provides technical competence for web design and graphic arts
support.
Principal lead in content development of NEEScomm EOT materials.
Page 3
To be identified
Graduate Student –
Yogesh Velankar
Coordinates and supports EOT efforts in the Network.
Supports the development team in the development, production,
implementation, and evaluation of materials and EOT activities.
The next major goal for the NEEScomm EOT was to identify and collect any EOT materials available from
NEESinc and the sites. The first step was to visit each site to learn more about their past EOT efforts,
their current needs, and identify potential Network-wide EOT efforts. Members of the EOT leadership
visited 9 sites between November and July to better understand their programs and needs and to
establish personal connections. As of this report three more sites will be visited in August, and two
remain to be visited before the end of the year. NEESinc sent a collection of resources they used to
promote NEES at various public venues such as conferences, the annual meeting, and K-12 outreach
efforts. These materials were sent to NEEScomm and evaluated for their potential reuse and then
cataloged as a spreadsheet database. A review of public presentations of EOT outreach was cataloged
in a spreadsheet database. Sources for this information were the NEES YouTube Channel and the EOT
section of each of the equipment sites ‘@nees.org' website. Material was reviewed for its accessibility
and potential for reuse in the NEES Academy. Finally, each of the 14 sites was asked to complete a
systematic inventory of EOT activities and products, and a survey was sent to all NEES-R researchers
asking about educational and outreach materials. At this time 12 site inventories have been received.
4.2.2 NEES Academy (Goals 1, 2 and 4)
The NEES Academy is a portal within the NEEShub designed to serve multiple stakeholders interested in
learning or teaching concepts associated with earthquake engineering research and practice. The
production of the NEES Academy has gone through a systematic design process to create a flexible
environment to meet these stakeholder needs. Here we briefly summarize several of the key steps in
our development process and some of the methods we are using to facilitate the design and
implementation of the learning materials in the Academy.
The EOT Development team creates the IT portion of the NEES Academy. Therefore, the initial alpha
version of the Academy was hosted on a separate server running a clone of neeshub.org. The EOT
leadership and development team experimented with several prototype versions of the Academy to
identify a usable interface that provided intuitive access for stakeholders. Each version went through
multiple internal reviews with the IT team to validate its consistency with the current version of
NEEShub. A beta version of the Academy was integrated into neeshub.org (Version 3.0) released in
June. The participants at the Annual EOT workshop provided feedback on the usability of the system
and commented on potential improvements. More testing with other user forums will be conducted
with the next large scale change of the Academy.
One IT responsibility of the EOT development team was to develop new resource types dedicated to the
NEES Academy architecture. Resource types such as videos and tools are basic elements of the NEEShub
architecture. These resources can be repurposed for a wide range of learning activities depending on
the context and focus provided to students. Each new activity involving a resource is defined as a
NEES FY2010
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learning object. A learning object presents a single activity typically aimed at achieving at least one
desired learning objective. A collection of learning objects can be systematically linked together to
formulate a learning objects series. This kind of modular architecture makes it possible to easily
repurpose resources for a range of learning opportunities.
The NEES Academy is now being populated with examples of learning objects for each of the
stakeholders. The sources for these learning objects are the resources cataloged during transition from
the equipment site inventories and systematic review of E&O web sites of related organizations, and
from examples provided by the participants at the Annual EOT Workshop. The resources are being
uploaded to neeshub.org and available for constructing future learning objects. Several of these
resources are being transformed into specific learning objects that could be used for either independent
learning experiences, or as part of a formal classroom activity.
Priority selection for creating specific learning objects depends on the needs of identified users and
what we can provide all stakeholders. Currently we have developed several simple learning objects
designed to answer frequently asked questions about the science and engineering related to
earthquakes and the innovations designed to mitigate the risk from these earthquakes. We are also
constructing several demonstration modules we can use to help promote the use of the system and to
help illustrate how new learning experiences can be designed based on current theories of knowing and
instruction.
Efforts are underway to define and construct consistent and high quality learning objectives for training
purposes. The user community requested that each tool have a “quick guide” tutorial to help new users
familiarize themselves with the tool. A short design document was created by the EOT development
team (see current draft in Appendix EOT6) to inform the development of these simple training videos on
how to use NEEShub tools. This design document provides a simple set of guidelines and processes to
make it easier for a tool developer to use a short instructional video to quickly initiate new users on how
to get started with the tool. This design document defines a process intended to provide level of
consistency and quality to the video production.
A second primer is being developed to define methods for authoring challenge-based learning objects
series for NEEShub. One model for sequencing a series of learning objects is the organizing framework
of the STAR.Legacy Learning Cycle shown in Figure 4.1. This learning cycle has been successfully used to
guide the design of effective learning environments in other domains (e.g. bioengineering, science
education, corporate training). Figure 4.1 illustrates a modified version of the cycle designed specifically
for NEES and earthquake engineering activities. Several example models are being constructed to
illustrate the potential of this approach and to solicit feedback and insights from the user community. A
similar model was presented at the Annual EOT workshop as an example. More examples will be
generated and presented at follow-on meetings with the EOT community to receive feedback and
recommendations.
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Figure 4.1 – Software Technology for Action and Reflection (STAR) Legacy Learning Cycle
K12 and higher educators can currently access several learning modules to introduce the field of
earthquake engineering. The EOT leadership and development team are developing several learning
modules to provide an introduction to science and engineering associated with earthquake engineering.
We are also reviewing the national standards for STEM to identify the learning objectives that could be
achieved using earthquake engineering as a theme for curriculum units.
Practitioners will find the NEES Academy provides easy access to continuing education opportunities.
Currently these opportunities include participating in the NEES/EERI webinar series either live or
through the video archive of past lectures. The development team is working to aggregate the
collection of video presentations conducted at various sites and make them available in For
Professionals section of the NEES Academy.
4.2.3 REU Program (Goal 4)
The NEES Research Experience for Undergraduates is an important initiative in our workforce
development strategic goal. The NEEScomm EOT team (Brophy PI and Anagnos co-PI) submitted an REU
proposal to NSF in October 2009 and was awarded a three-year REU grant for $300K. Based on a
competitive selection process, this year seven NEES research sites are serving as research nodes. Using
the REU grant to support 11 students, NEEScomm MOM funding to support 8 students, and the Purdue
SURF program to support 1 student, we have 20 students in the program. In addition we are partially
supporting 10 NEESR REU supplement students by providing travel support to the orientation and young
researcher symposium. Thus, by leveraging funding from multiple sources, the NEES REU program for
summer 2010 includes 30 students from diverse backgrounds and universities, including 24 civil
engineers, two architectural engineers, two computer science students, and two mechanical engineers.
REU Student Demographics:
This year's NEES REU students come from an ethnically diverse community. Of the 30 students 40% are
female and 27% Hispanic. A more specific breakdown is included in Table 4.4.
NEES FY2010
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Table 4.4: Ethnic and gender breakdown of REU students - summer 2010
Gender
M
F
18
12
race/ ethnicity
white
Hispanic
black
Asian
16
8
0
6
Native
American
The objectives of the REU program are to:
•
Develop in students an enthusiasm for research that translates into a desire to pursue postgraduate
education.
•
Develop in students an understanding of the process of and importance of transforming research to
application.
•
Attract undergraduates, particularly underrepresented students, into STEM careers, particularly the
field of earthquake engineering.
The NEES REU program is unique in that the participants are located at multiple equipment sites, and
community is built through both face-to face interaction at the orientation, and online interaction
through weekly WebEx meetings and online peer-reviewed communication skill development
assignments. Key elements of the NEES REU are summarized here:
•
Multi-disciplinary projects and students – NEES projects require the integration of analysis,
computer simulation, sensor technology, and construction of specimens, thus students are recruited
from all sub-disciplines of civil engineering, electrical engineering, mechanical engineering,
computer science, computer engineering, and engineering education.
•
Orientation – Students met face-to-face in Reno, Nevada June 24-27 to get to know one-another
and to learn about various aspects of doing research. To introduce both the students and the REU
coordinators to the range of projects being completed, each student gave a three-minute elevator
talk about the objectives and importance of his or her research project (Figure 4.2). Thalia Anagnos
led a writing workshop and afterwards students started on their literature reviews led by one of the
University of Nevada's research librarians. To gain insight into how structural dynamics affect
building performance, students designed small scale buildings and tested them on the mini shake
table (Figure 4.3). A picnic with graduate students and talks by graduate students about their
research gave REU students a flavor of what to expect if they attend graduate school. On the last
day Barbara Cooper gave a lesson on the geology and formation of the Lake Tahoe (including a
simulation of a prehistoric tsunami in the lake), which was followed by a field trip to the Genoa Fault
scarp (Figure 4.4).
NEES FY2010
Page 7
Figure 4.2: REU students deliver “elevator talks” about their research projects at the REU Orientation.
Figure 4.3: REU students learn about structural dynamics in a hands-on shake table activity developed
by Kelly Lyttle at University of Nevada, Reno.
Figure 4.4: An REU student explores the Genoa Fault scarp near Lake Tahoe
NEES FY2010
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•
Weekly cyber-enabled interactions between participants – Students use WebEx and other online
collaborations to meet on a regular basis with facilitation by the PI, co-PI, and senior administrator.
Weekly meetings in these online environments enable students to share research progress, critique
each other’s research presentations, interact with one another and with practitioners. Assignments
include writing a literature review for their projects, writing a project summary, and writing a
statement of purpose for graduate school. Students are exposed to a professional perspective with
presentations from Chris Poland who talked about resilient communities, Bill Allen who talked about
MTS testing capabilities, and Hermann Fritz who talked about tsunami reconnaissance in recent
earthquakes. In addition, students are able to meet in a virtual design room to collaborate with each
other on various research tasks as part of their REU experience.
•
REU Young Researcher Symposium – August 18-20 the REU students will convene at the University
of Illinois Urbana-Champaign NEES site for the Young Researcher Symposium where they will
participate in a poster session to share their findings from their projects as well as participate in
professional development activities. They will also tour the UIUC NEES facilities and participate in an
architectural tour of Chicago where students will earn about design considerations for both
earthquakes and wind for the modern and historic buildings of the city.
•
Virtual Poster Fair linking REU programs through a virtual world – Using an innovative virtual world
environment called QuakeQuest, students will participate in a virtual poster fair. Throughout the
program students have reported on the progress of their work through an REU moodle site (a
learning management system) prior to presenting it formally in a WebEx session. In addition, we
have collaboration with three other funded REU programs to participate in a Virtual REU Young
Researcher Symposium. This will provide students from several REU programs an opportunity to
learn from their peers and peer review their work as a preparation for the formal reviews that often
culminate an REU program.
•
Mentor training – Graduate student mentors have been provided with training on how best to
interact with and mentor undergraduates. The training consisted of describing the expectations of a
mentor, presentations by previous graduate student mentors, discussion of best practices, and
question and answer sessions.
•
Partnership with the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute (EERI) – EERI has served as a
resource to identify practitioners to participate in the weekly cyber-meetings.
A Moodle Learning management system was developed to support the administration of the REU
activities for the students. The site called, neesreu.org, provides a central location students can meet
virtually and have access to important information they need and be able to share that information.
This site has worked very well for our needs and is relatively easy to maintain. Now that the NEEShub is
available, we will take advantage of this cyberinfrastructure to support the collaboration of the REU
cohort next summer.
NEES FY2010
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4.2.4 Community Engagement (Goal 3)
Annual EOT Workshop - Summer 2010: As an important initiative in its strategic goal to build community,
NEES held an EOT workshop where representatives of various stakeholder groups gathered to become
acquainted and share ideas. The workshop, held on June 28-29, 2010 at Purdue University, was
attended by representatives from 11 of the sites, members of the NEES community of researchers,
educators, and EOT representatives from other large consortia. Activities at the workshop focused on
sharing ideas and developing plans for improved EOT efforts through better collaboration and
communication. In order to make the workshop available to a maximum number of community
members, the opening sessions on Monday morning and the last session on Tuesday afternoon were
transmitted via WebEx. Participants discussed their successes, their needs, best practices for delivering
EOT, and plans for the coming year. In addition, participants were treated to a sneak preview of the
NEEShub, the NEES Academy, and the quick start videos, and provided their feedback and suggestions.
The workshop deliberations were documented in a NEEShub group wiki created as a shared space for
this community.
The mission of the workshop was to foster an active EOT constituent among the sites, NEES researchers,
and complementary organizations committed to developing and implementing effective learning
experiences related to the earthquake engineering, science, and the mission of the sites. The specific
objectives of the workshop included
1. Identify and share existing learning experiences relevant to the Network
2. Identify current EOT needs of the Sites and constituents, their relationship with the Network
mission
3. Provide overview/instruction on the NEEShub and NEES Academy
4. Explore potential Education, Training and Outreach activities for the multiple stakeholders of
NEES (researchers, practitioners, young researchers, K-12 STEM community and the general
public)
5. Engage community in defining specific activities relative to the strategic plan
6. Identify project priorities for participants to champion for either the near (6 month) or
intermediate (1 year) time frame.
A schedule of events is included in Appendix EOT2.
Participants identified and shared successful EOT ideas and connected with others who share similar
goals and aspirations from their projects. In addition, several EOT experts from other organizations
made presentations about best practices and opportunities for NEES to collaborate on ongoing
activities. While most participants have been actively and consistently participating in and delivering
education, outreach, and training, it was apparent that most members of the community had major
impact only in their local regions and were unaware of what each was doing. We used “postcards” as a
particularly effective mechanism for sharing ongoing EOT activities (see Table 4.5 for summary list).
Each participant was asked to develop at least one postcard like the one shown in Figure 4.5. The front
NEES FY2010
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side of the postcard summarized the activity, and the back provided more details about the learning
goals, target audience, application, and who to contact for more information. These were posted around
the room, and workshop participants provided feedback and comments, which were posted in the
workshop wiki. The postcards generated a lot of enthusiasm and ideas, and also pointed out that a
number of participants were developing the exact same outreach materials, essentially “reinventing the
wheel.” One very positive outcome of the workshop was that we plan to pull together these similar
outreach activities and share them through the NEES Academy.
Figure 4.5: EOT postcard sharing the Make Your Own Earthquake activity developed at NEES@UCSB.
Table 4.5: Postcards Presented at Annual EOT Workshop, 2010
Project Title
Contact
Make your own Earthquake
NEES@USCB – Sandra Seale
Annual Research and Training Workshop
NEES@RPI – Inthuorn Sasanakul
Tanya Volchek
Mini-centrifuge and mini-shake table
NEES@RPI – Inthuorn Sasanakul
Tanya Volchek
K-12 Outreach with K’NEX
NEES@Berkeley - HeidiFaison
Using Ubiquitous Portable Instrumented Processors (P-I-Ps) for
Experiential Engineering Education
nees@UCSD- Lelli Van Den Einde
UCSD Seismic Outreach Project
Truss Bridge Challenge
Creating Educational Videos from NEES Experimental Programs
NEES@UIUC – Dan Kuchma, Greg Pluta,
Thomas Frankie and Aditya Bhagath
Capacity Assessment of Reinforced Concrete Columns
NEES@Purdue – Nestor Castaneda
The Tower Builder
Notre Dame - Tracy Kijewski-Correa
Hands-on Models of Linked Column Frame (LCF) System
CSU Los Angeles – Rupa Purasinghe
Model driving questions from science to earthquake engineering
NEES@Purdue – Sean Brophy
NEES FY2010
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Free Body Diagramming Assistant
Civil Engineering: The Earthquake Tower
Univ. of Nebraska – Terri R. Norton
Shake, Rattle and Roll
NEES@Minnesota - Cathy French
Base Isolation
Effects of earthquakes on Nonstructural Elements
Tower Competition
Natural frequency, Resonance, Pounding
Teleopertation/Teleparticipation of Instructional Shake Tables
NEES@Purdue – Shirley Dyke and Rich
Christenson (UConn)
Creating Design Based Curriculum for High School Engineering
Courses
UT Austin – Anthony Petrosino
The workshop successfully provided a forum for everyone to share their prior work and identify
synergies between their efforts. One exciting outcome of the workshop is that Mikael Gershfeld from
CalPoly Pomona, discovered the opportunities for dissemination provided by the NEES Academy. We are
now in discussions with Dr. Gershfeld and the Wood Education Institute to pilot the hosting of a
complete online wood curriculum that they are developing.
A culminating activity for the two day workshop was to have teams brainstorm lessons learned and
actions to take in the coming year. A brief summary of the group’s insights and suggestions follows:
•
All
Communicate with each other
Meet again – Annual Meeting, other times
•
NEEScomm
Add science standards to NEES Academy
Landing page on neeshub.org for General Public audience
Implement feedback from workshop to NEES Academy and training videos
Identify additional reviewers for NEES Academy
Develop template for recording EOT events
Post postcards on NEEShub
Organize a NEES Network-wide EOT project
•
Sites
Add materials to NEES Academy
Collaborate with Great Shakeout being organized by SCEC
Collaborate with each other to create shareable outreach materials
Develop teaching tools
•
Individuals
Add materials to NEES Academy
NEES FY2010
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An assessment of the EOT workshop was included on the final day. A full listing of the responses can be
found in Appendix EOT3, however the following ideas and insights contain the highlights of the
participants' comments to the assessment questions:
1. What were the two most interesting ideas that you can ‘take-away’ from the sharing Monday
morning?
a) There are lots of useful materials available for me to use as an instructor.
b) From my point of view—lots of interesting comments on how to improve the outreach that we
are already doing
c) Developing a toolkit of activities Organized by Undergraduate Course Title (i.e. statics, dynamics,
structural analysis). These activities should be complete “off the shelf” - easy to implement &
include assessment ideas, related PowerPoint, material lists, video demos, etc.
d) Don’t reinvent the wheel!! Let’s use each others’ presentations and make available for all
e) Content and direction for NEES Academy.
f)
Having someone at NEES or paid by NEES – cull together an extensive collection of outreach
activities already used & posted to web. i.e. develop an inventory of stuff already made so no
one has to reinvent the wheel. (i.e. K-12 programs)
2. How do you think you could utilize NEEShub for education, outreach and training (EOT) during the
coming year?
a) I would use the postcards and any subsequent lesson plans that are uploaded to get instructions
on how to conduct various hands-on EOT activities
b) Once the resources are made available, I will be able to incorporate material (videos, tutorials,
etc.) into my structural dynamics and engineering mechanics: dynamics classes as well as
explore engineering workshops that my students and I (EERI student chapter) put on.
c) What I think of is what I would like to see NEEShub become:
-A repository for outreach ideas, updates, news items, etc.
-A place where people can “rate” an outreach event and leave feedback
-A URL that we can pass out at events
-A template for all outreach activities -like the postcard -bigger, of course, so we could easily
see what other NEES sites are doing.
3. Now that you know a little about using NEEShub for EOT, what tool or resource could you envision
needing, that may not be present at this time – a HUB wish list, so to speak?
a) A clean & simple way of assembling and sharing site EOT activities. I have a feeling that very few
sites will take the initiative to share their materials, so NEEScomm should follow up with this.
b) I think it would be nice to have info on how someone from a non-NEES site can collaborate on
NEES research and/or proposals for funding.
NEES FY2010
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c) Assessment and evaluation tools.
d) Networking between engineering education experts & EE researchers.
e) Examples of good evaluation tools or recommendations for how to assess certain outcomes.
(Could be related to ABET)
4. What ideas gathered from your colleagues’ postcards do you believe will be the most useful to you in
your future EOT efforts?
a) How to adopt the material for other audiences and to get the college ambassadors involved in
giving demonstrations.
b) The variety of ways we can communicate complex content in simple & engaging way.
c) Expansion on existing activities could be possible because of the successes shared at other sites
through the postcards.
5. Did this workshop provide ideas for EOT activities for the coming year? If so which ideas are you
planning to pursue in the next six months?
a) Yes. The make-your-own earthquake activity! It is a quick activity and should be fairly easy to
assemble (pending funding and software)
b) I liked the mini research video samples developed by UIUC. May try this at our site but seems
time consuming without a funded student to help…
c) Video development – ideas/ brainstorming
d) Develop K-12 outreach
6. What plans for pursuing EOT ideas that are in the one-two year time frame have been enhanced or
clarified through discussions and interactions at this workshop?
a) Knowing what is available and how NEEShub can be a resource for EOT information has been
helpful. And will assist in planning for the coming year.
b) Lots of good ideas have been presented for improving and expanding “Make your own
earthquake”. Easy ways to improve it now (add real data) and ideas for the future-adding e.g.
spectra, 1-DOF models, etc.
c) Creation of info from researcher’s projects – identified as a need. Need to develop info based
on audience therefore may need multiple versions.
7. What was the aspect of the workshop that was most beneficial to you?
a) The postcards & share-a-thon discussions based on them.
b) Meeting NEEScomm and others in the network working on EOT
c) Networking with others on great ideas.
8. What would you suggest we include or exclude next year in the NEES EOT summer workshop?
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a) More discussions of what other virtual organizations are doing with EOT & how we can leverage
their work.
b) Add a session on practitioner needs; will need to host in a locations such as San Francisco or Los
Angeles.
c) Have team members rotate among groups so that we get to work closely with more
participants.
Supplemental Funding Projects (Goals 3 and 5): Seven sites provided requests for supplemental funding
to support EOT development activities. Proposals were sent to three outside reviewers along with a
rubric to provide an objective recommendation of which proposals should be funded pending funding
availability. Members of the strategic council reviewed these recommendations and balanced them
with other funding requests. Four requests for supplemental funding were approved as shown in Table
4.6. The PI’s for the proposal are working with the EOT team to increase the projects’ potential for
widest impact and to define assessment and evaluation methods to measure their potential
effectiveness.
Table 4.6: Supplemental EOT Funding Awarded in 2009-2010
PIs
Title
Amount
B. F. Spencer, D. A. Kuchma
Development of Educational Videos using Research Data
$60,000
Dan Cox
Use of Telepresence in Delivering EOT
$12,000
Dan Cox, Solomon Yim
Demonstration of mini-wave flume at Discover
Engineering Family Day – February 2010
$12,588
J. Enrique Luco, Jose I.
Restrepo
Documentary of the Experimental Research Process
$12,500
The NEES@Illinois site has produced a 7 minute video demonstration of a small scale experiment using
funds from their supplementary award. The video has the potential for use in undergraduate education
for a range of learning opportunities. Further, the developers scripted the sequence so that it could be
cut into a smaller number of thematic clips to achieve a wide range of learn resources. Additional videos
are in production. Participants at the EOT workshop previewed the first video, and the developers
provided information about how to develop such a video and what some of the challenges are. The
developers are also presenting their work the community during the EOT session at Quake Summit
2010.
The NEES@ OSU site was funded to take the mini-wave flume and several Engineering Ambassadors to
participate in the Discover Engineering Family Day at the National Building Museum. This annual event
attracts more than 5000 people and the mini wave flume has become a favorite hands-on station for
NEES FY2010
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participants (Figure 4.6). The Engineering Ambassadors participate in a very successful program at
Oregon State that engages undergraduates in delivering outreach. The OSU facility uses the
Ambassadors extensively to give wave lab tours, freeing up the staff to work on other pressing planning
and development activities. In the coming year, NEES plans to create its own Ambassadors program to
help sites with local outreach. Furthermore we are exploring a partnership with Howard University to
host an Ambassadors program and a second mini-flume for delivering outreach in the Washington DC
area.
Figure 4.6: Discover Engineering Family Day mini-participant anticipates the tsunami impact on his ministructure in the mini-flume
The NEES@OSU site was also funded to experiment with the use of telepresence in EOT. On April 27th
2010, 30 University of Hawaii (UH) fluid dynamics students participated in a remote “tsunami structure
test” with the Tsunami Wave Basin (TWB) at Oregon State University. Early in March kits were sent to
Dr. Michelle Tang at UH and she presented her class with the Tsunami Challenge. The students built the
structures and shipped them back to OSU, in mid-April. UH students watched over the webcams and
listened in over the Internet while Dr. Tang and the TWB EOT coordinator ran the test. Four waves of
increasing height were generated and results were observed by the students. After the activity the
student filled out an assessment which was mailed back to the TWB EOT coordinator; the data are still in
the analysis phase.
NEES Annual Meeting: Planning for the Quake Summit 2010: Shaking Research Forward, to be held
October 7-9 at the Marriott in San Francisco, California, has been an excellent opportunity to work
closely with both staff and researchers at the PEER Center. The technical program committee consists of
researchers representing NEES and PEER as well a several practitioners. The program promises to be an
excellent mix of reporting on findings from PEER and NEES research, training the community on NEES
tools, and exploring emerging research opportunities. Marketing for the conference is being achieved
through a conference website (http://quakesummit2010.org) and announcements on the PEER and
NEES list serves as well as through organizations such as EERI and SEAOC. Free registration for the
meeting is currently being accepted on the web. Over 100 early registrations, many of whom are
practitioners, are indicative of a lot of interest and enthusiasm from the earthquake engineering
NEES FY2010
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community. We will be holding a student poster session, a young researcher session on the day before
the meeting, and a media competition for interested individuals who may have videos or photos to
share with others in the community. NEES committees and community forums have meetings scheduled
for the two days before the meeting.
Communications (Goal 5): Communicating with the NEES Community and with the public are top
priorities for NEES. This year we attended three professional conferences, taking the booth and meeting
with earthquake engineering professionals to promote NEES and NEEShub: the EERI meeting in San
Francisco, California (February 3-6), the NASCC Steel Structures Congress in Orlando, Florida (May 1115), and the 9th US National and 10th Canadian Earthquake Engineering Conference in Toronto, Canada
(July 25-29). We designed and purchased new booth materials to provide NEES with an updated 'face'
for the public. At the Steel Structures Congress we used video clips and photographs from the
equipment sites on computer monitors to showcase the NEES sites to the community. For the Toronto
Conference we developed training materials for NEEShub and a working 'sandbox' environment and
made all available on laptop computers for the community to investigate NEEShub while visiting the
booth.
We published two new documents, a research highlights booklet and a tri-fold outreach brochure that
were distributed at the booth at each of the conferences. The highlights have been extremely useful
devices for communicating with a variety of audiences. Immediately after the Haiti earthquake we used
a highlight to point interested media to the work at NEES@Buffalo on container cranes. Recently
Discovery Channel contacted us about a piece they are developing on U.S. vulnerable infrastructure.
Highlights on the San Francisco Public Utilities pipeline project at NEES @Cornell and on the Grand
Challenge project on older concrete buildings were sent to the producer along with contact information
for project PIs. Currently the highlight booklet can be downloaded from the nees.org web site.
However, ultimately individual highlight will be part of the materials available in the Project Warehouse
and will be available through an outreach portal on NEEShub.
During year two we plan to publish documents targeted at the general public, at K-12 teachers and
children. These are scheduled to be available to teachers and others for the NSTA and HASTI
Conferences in early 2011. The ideas for these publications have come from similar publications
produced by other large consortia, like the National Nanotechnology Infrastructure Network (NNIN) and
Japan's Port and Airport Research Institute. By producing print materials for these communities we can
make earthquake engineering information more readily available. These materials will also be available
for download from neeshub.org.
NEEScomm participated in several activities to engage the K-12 community and the public at large,
including Discover Engineering Family Day at the Building Museum in Washington, D.C. (February 20),
the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) meeting San Diego, California
(February 18-21), and College of Southern Nevada Science & Technology Expo in Las Vegas, Nevada
(April 9). These activities attracted lots of visitors: more than 5000 visitors at the Discover Engineering
Family Day, about 5000 at the Technology Expo (Figure 4.7), and more than 300 at the AAAS meeting. At
each of these events we used highly engaging hands-on or interactive demonstrations to teach basic
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earthquake engineering concepts. At the Discover Engineering event participants built their own Lego
structures and subjected them to a small scale tsunami. At the Technology Expo small-scale multi-story
buildings were tested on small shake tables. At the AAAS meeting participants discovered what happens
to the contents of a house when the contents haven’t been fastened to supports. These events, while
extremely successful, take a lot of staff time and require costly shipping of equipment. To address these
challenges we are exploring several partnerships with universities to help deliver outreach. Students
from George Washington University will help with the USA Science & Engineering Festival on the Mall in
Washington DC on October 23 & 24, 2010. We are in discussion with Howard University for students to
help with the 2011 Discover Engineering Family Day in February.
Figure 4.7: Visitors learn about structural performance on mini-shake tables at the College of Southern
Nevada Science & Technology Expo (left) and the AAAS meeting (right).
Partnerships (Goal 5): The scope of the education, outreach, training, and communications objectives is
large and requires both the entire NEES Network to develop it and partners outside the network to
disseminate and implement many of the initiatives. Therefore, the EOT leadership has been forming
partnerships, or making initial contact, with a number of organizations who would be interested in NEES’
contribution to their own efforts. Table 4.7 summarizes the status of these partnerships.
Table 4.7: Partnerships Under Development
Partner
Earthquake Engineering
Research Institute (EERI)
Applied Technology Council
(ATC)
Charles Pankow Foundation
Potential Collaborations
Webinar Series : Reducing Earthquake Losses: From
Research to Practice
Collaboration on NIST funded project to disseminate
findings from NEES Grand Challenge projects
Co-Sponsor Reducing Earthquake Losses: From
Research to Practice
Precast/Prestressed Concrete Co-Sponsor Reducing Earthquake Losses: From
institute (PCI)
Research to Practice
International Code Council
Co-Sponsor Reducing Earthquake Losses: From
NEES FY2010
Status
Underway
Early
Discussions
Continuing
Discussion
Continuing
Discussions
Early
Page 18
(ICC)
Research to Practice
Discussions
Precast/Prestressed Concrete
Manufacturers Associates of
California (PCMAC)
Southern California
Earthquake Center (SCEC)
IRIS
Co-Sponsor Reducing Earthquake Losses: From
Research to Practice
Early
Discussions
Participate in ShakeOut Programs around the country,
Participate in EpiCenter network
Both IRIS and EarthScope has a national presence that
informs people of the mechanisms and causes of
earthquakes. NEES can add to that information the
engineering aspects of how people deal with the
consequences of earthquakes.
Host mini-wave flume and NEES Ambassadors program
Early
Discussions
Early
Discussions
Early
Discussions
Earthscope
Howard University
George Washington
University
4-H of Indiana
West Point Bridge contest
Quake Catcher Network
INSPIRE
Evergreen Aviation and
Space Museum
Exploratorium
Wood Education Institute
Students deliver outreach at USA Science & Engineering
Festival
Develop outreach activities as part of ongoing 4-H
program
Host software on NEEShub and provide companion
activities in NEES Academy
The QCN accelerometer is the sensor for Make You
Own earthquake. How can QCN benefit from our
outreach activity?
INSPIRE is interested in using Earthquake engineering
as a curriculum theme in their research in P-12
engineering education. They could use NEES materials
as part of their teacher professional development.
Interested in connections with classrooms in CA.
The museum is building a mini wave flume based on
the OSU model. What kinds of complementary displays
can we provide?
The San Francisco Exploratorium is building a new
facility. How can they make the seismic considerations
of the facility visible to the public? Also interested in
connecting with local sites for field trips.
The WEI is developing a complete online curriculum for
wood design aimed at both universities and
practitioners. They are interested in NEES Academy to
host the lecture series.
Early
Discussions
Underway
Early
Discussions
Continuing
Discussions
Early
Discussions
Continuing
Discussion
Early
Discussions
Early
Discussions
Continuing
Discussions
4.3 Information Technology
In the initial NEEScomm proposal the NEES IT team established five goals towards developing the
cyberinfrastructure needed by the NEES Community:
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1. Build a repository for uploading and managing NEES data
2. Address prioritized NEES site user requirements for user-focused IT resources.
3. Maintain and provide convenient access to valuable investments and products of NEES IT.
4. Integrate site-level and central IT efforts into a cohesive, functional cyberinfrastructure that helps to
facilitate a new functional level of communication with and between NEES sites
5. Provide an “end-to-end workflow solution” for the earthquake engineering community.
Table 4.8 summarizes the progress in meeting these goals. The NEEShub played a large role in meeting
these goals, and is discussed in detail in the following sections. In addition to meeting these goals,
NEEScomm successfully completed transition.
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Table 4.8 IT Year 1 Goals
IT Goals for Year 1
Goal 1: Build a repository for uploading and managing NEES
data
Upload and curate existing experimental data
Assist users and Site IT in data upload, annotation, and
curation
Maintain repository
Fully Met
Partially
Met
Comments
X
The Data Working Group and RAAS were the
two groups to provide input on and approval
for IT Plan documents
X
Assessment of NEES tools happened in Year
1 for a small subset of tools. The majority of
NEES tools were brought over 'as-is' into
NEEShub
X
X
X
Goal 2: Address prioritized NEES site user requirements for
user-focused IT resources
RATF/CSC to update IT Plan documents
Develop, test updated IT product schedule
Deploy NEEShub updates
X
X
Goal 3: Maintain and provide convenient access to valuable
investmets and products of NEES IT
Assess current NEEScentral tools for usefulness and easeof-use
Make available all tools, resources, simulators in use by
NEES researchers
Goal 4: Integrate site-level and central IT efforts into a
cohesive, functional cyberinfrastructure that helps to
facilitate a new functional level of communicatio with and
between NEES sites
Regularly occurring communication between Site and
Central IT Groups
User and site training
IT teams integrative activities
Assist site IT in adding site resources to NEEShub
Goal 5: Provide an "end-to-end workflow solution" for the
earthquake engineering community
Maintain NEEShub and underlying services
Maintain and staff ticket systems
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
4.3.1 Completion of Transition (Goal 3)
The NEEScom leadership developed job descriptions for the NEEScomm IT Team early in Year 1. In
parallel, a formal process for interviewing and hiring was also defined by the IT group. The process
started with reviewing resumes, then progressed to a phone interview, and was followed by in-person
search committee and technical interviews, and finally concluded with reference checks. Candidates for
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IT positions who possessed industry software development experience were selected to ensure a high
level of software development expertise and project management experience to meet the needs of the
project. The full complement of NEEScomm IT staff was hired by the end of Year 1.
The Transition effort to move IT infrastructure and assets from San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC)
along with the website www.nees.org and associated components to Purdue hardware was completed
ahead of schedule prior to the end of the transition period in mid-February 2010. This was a complex
project that required close coordination between the San Diego and Purdue IT teams. The IT transition
group put in considerable effort to understand the hardware and software environments in great detail
to accurately replicate them at Purdue without loss. Several coordinated rounds of testing occurred to
ensure the system at Purdue would behave exactly the same as the system at San Diego Supercomputer
Center.
Knowledge Transfer
Knowledge Transfer from San Diego Supercomputer Center resources to Purdue resources took place
during the latter weeks of the Transition phase. The Purdue IT team learned to maintain and support
the SDSC NEESit system. Several members of the IT Team from San Diego Supercomputer Center
travelled to Purdue for face-to-face sessions. However, most of the knowledge transfer took place via
WebEx conference calls.
Production transition from San Diego Supercomputer Center to Purdue (“Go-live”)
Go-live of the IT transition effort occurred during the week of February 15. During this week, individual
components of www.nees.org were switched from running on San Diego Supercomputer Center
infrastructure to running on IT infrastructure located at Purdue. The NEEScomm IT team sent
announcements to the NEES community to communicate the start and completion of the transition for
each component. Through the use of a component-based transition strategy, at no time was the entire
system unavailable.
Support
Upon go-live of the Purdue hardware, the NEEScomm IT team established a personnel rotation system
to provide support. Each of the NEEScomm IT members served as the primary support contact for the
system for one week at a time. This gave each member of the NEEScomm IT team a chance to see issues
that were commonly encountered and to interact with members of the NEES community.
Software
The Purdue IT team worked with the San Diego IT team to understand all software that needed to be
purchased or acquired to support www.nees.org and its associated components. Minimal investment
was required since many licenses were free, already funded under existing Purdue academic software
license agreements, or could be transferred from San Diego to Purdue. As the IT team installed and
configured the software, each software component was tested individually (unit test) and then as an
integrated part of the entire system (integrated system).
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Hardware
Through the use of VMware software, a virtualized hardware environment was created at Purdue that
mirrored the physical hardware environment at San Diego. This approach allowed for much faster
server setup and configuration, as well as a considerably smaller investment in physical hardware.
Separate Test and Production environments were set up for to allow for adequate testing of any
changes for www.nees.org and associated components.
A diagram of the www.nees.org hardware environment is shown in Figure 4.8.
Figure 4.8: The nees.org hardware environment
Backups
A subcontract with San Diego Supercomputer Center was established to provide regular data backups to
meet the immediate needs for offsite data backup at the end of the transition period. Hardware from
the previous San Diego backup site (UNAVCO) was transferred to San Diego Supercomputer Center for
use by Purdue. For on-site backups, the central IT organization at Purdue (ITaP) is providing tape-based
backup using IBM Tivoli software for NEES project data.
4.3.2 NEEShub (Goals 1 through 5)
NEEShub is the central cyberinfrastructure platform. It serves as a portal to NEES, at nees.org, through
which NEES IT functionality is made available to the user community. The NEES Project Warehouse is
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accessible through NEEShub as well as community tools (IT tools developed by NEES sites and
researchers) that can be launched at or downloaded from NEEShub. The OpenSees simulation
environment is among the important community tools. Figure 4.9 shows a prototype of the landing page
for nees.org and the NEEShub.
Figure 4.9: Third Prototype of NEEShub
Since NEEShub is based on the HUBzero platform, much of the hardware environment design was
known and straightforward. The storage mechanism for the Project Warehouse was a new feature
introduced to the HUBzero environment. This mechanism, an Oracle database and associated File
Server, was utilized in generally the same physical form as it existed in NEEScentral. A diagram of the
Release 1 NEEShub hardware environment is shown in Figure 4.10.
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Figure 4.10: The NEEShub hardware environment
Through the use of HUBzero as the underlying platform for NEEShub, additional software requirements
were minimal. Basically as new scientific tools were added to NEEShub, associated software was added,
mainly in the form of on-off technical files. No significant software was purchased for NEEShub.
Because Purdue retains a campus-wide license for Oracle, no additional charge was required to support
the Project Warehouse.
4.3.3 NEES Project Warehouse – The Data Repository (Goals 1 and 3)
The new data repository, the Project Warehouse within NEEShub, is an evolution of the data
functionality that was provided by NEEScentral within www.nees.org.
The Project Display capability within the Project Warehouse was designed to achieve several goals. The
most important goals included:
 a comprehensive and compact display of research data that can be navigated with fewer mouse
clicks,
 a more intuitive and logical organization of data, and
 integration with inDEED, a data visualization and plotting tool.
The Project Warehouse was developed in an iterative manner and in close partnership with the Core
Feedback Group and other researchers from the NEES community. Figure 4.11 shows an example of a
Project Display for research investigating soil-foundation structure interaction.
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Figure 4.11: Project Display in the NEES Project Warehouse
4.3.4 NEEShub Tools (Goals 2, 3, and 5)
PEN Data Upload Tool
SingleShot, an upload tool originally developed by the University of Texas, was used as the code base for
a new Project Warehouse upload and synchronization tool, Project Explorer for NEES (PEN). PEN
provides a file management capability and works from a local machine or from the Hub environment. It
is designed to establish a connection to one or more projects in the Project Warehouse. With that
connection established, files can be uploaded to or downloaded from the Project Warehouse using PEN.
PEN monitors downloaded files that have been modified as well as files that have not yet been
uploaded. Through an easy to understand color coding scheme, PEN provides an ‘at a glance’ visual
snapshot indicating if a file is the same as is stored in the Project Warehouse, different than is stored in
the Project Warehouse, or not yet in the Project Warehouse. PEN will also restart uploads automatically
if there is a network problem that terminates the upload.
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SynchroNEES
In collaboration with the Purdue HUBzero group, NEEScom developed a prototype data uploading tool
to aid researchers in the process of uploading and sharing small-scale documents, such as Word
documents, PDFs, and work-in-progress non-archived data sources that are not intended for long-term
data curation. This tool, SynchroNEES, is an integral component of the NEEShub community
collaboration space. Figure 4.12 shows a screenshot of the SynchroNEES tool.
Figure 4.12. The NEEShub SynchroNEES data upload tool for community collaboration.
inDEED
The inDEED (interactive Depository for Earthquake Engineering Data) tool offers NEES researchers an
integrated way to process, visualize, analyze and compare their experimental and numerical earthquake
simulation data. With inDEED, information from sensors, drawings, images, test annotations, and videos
can all be visualized within a single program. inDEED leverages one of the fundamental strengths of the
NEEShub environment – the ability to co-locate and integrate large volumes of complex data, software
analysis and simulation tools, and the community of researchers and practitioners. Figure 4.12 shows a
screenshot of inDEED displaying results from the NEES project “Collaborative Research: Using NEES as a
Testbed for Studying Soil-Foundation-Structure Interaction” (PI Saiidi), which is displayed directly from
the project metadata and curated project data stored in the NEEShub. The raw sensor displacement
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data from the shake table used in this experiment can then be plotted with inDEED within the hub, as
shown in Figure 4.13. inDEED provides features for single and multiple sensor plots, interactive
visualization, data value display, and the exporting of graphs for use in other applications.
Figure 4.12. NEEShub inDEED interactive Depository for Earthquake Engineering Data tool.
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Figure 4.13. Display of inDEED graph representing displacement information from shake table data from
NEES project stored in the NEES Project Warehouse.
NEEShub Simulation Environment (OpenSEES)
The NEEScomm IT team successfully completed a proof-of-concept effort to verify the correct operation
of OpenSEES in the Hub environment. The most recent source code release from University of
Californina - Berkeley (OpenSEES 2.2.1) was used to build a Debian-based OpenSEES environment within
NEEShub. Building on this success, a simple Rappture encapsulation tool was built to allow a Researcher
to edit a file of TCL commands (representing a building model within OpenSEES) that can be executed
within NEEShub. Figure 4.14 shows OpenSEES running within the NEEShub environment.
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Figure 4.14: OpenSEES running within the NEEShub environment.
The NEEShub environment was used to create a graphical user interface (GUI) customized to the
corresponding model. Using the GUI-based model a public tool within the HUBzero framework, new
building models can then be made available to other researchers. The GUI-based building models
developed to demonstrate this functionality allowed users to input variables through the GUI, run the
simulation model, and receive the corresponding execution output.
The conceptual framework of running OpenSEES, an inherently text-based application, run within the
NEEShub using a GUI interface is a tremendous springboard from which more sophisticated functionality
and integration focused on meeting the needs of the research community will arise over the coming
months and years.
4.3.6 Requirements Gathering (Goal 2)
The requirements gathering and analysis process for Release 1 of NEEShub was non-trivial. Numerous
sources of requirements were consolidated. The primary source was the Requirements Traceability
Matrix (RTM) prepared by NEESit in 2007. The RTM was evaluated by representatives of the
community. Requirements that were deemed to remain relevant and valid by the community were
identified. Details about the RTM are noted in the Site Visit Response Report in Appendix ???. A
secondary source of requirements was a Gap Analysis assessment that identified functionality gaps
between the NEESit system and the foundational functionalities provided through HUBzero technology
for the NEEShub. Functionality lacking in HUBzero/NEEShub that were present in the NEESit system
were identified and added as new requirements to ensure that no existing functionality would be lost in
the transition to NEEShub. The NEEScomm IT team also gathered requirements through site visits, email,
and workshops.
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The full resulting set of requirements were consolidated and prioritized by the Data Working Group
(data-related requirements) and the RAAS (non-data related requirements). NEEScomm IT evaluated
the final set of prioritized requirements to determine a subset that could be completed for NEEShub
Release 1. The full set of requirements was stored in the Polarion system, a requirements management
tool (http://www.polarion.com/products/requirements/index.php).
At the beginning of the second Release, the NEEScomm IT team reviewed and analyzed the
requirements process from Release 1 to identify areas for improvement. The team gathered new
requirements from multiple sources (NEEShub Wish List, emails, workshops, and existing requirements
not addressed by Release 1) and identified an overall strategy for Release 2. This strategy provided
initial criteria for determining if a given requirement was a good fit for the Release. Capacity was
somewhat broadened when the NEEScomm IT team completed the difficult part of the technical
learning curve.
On an ongoing basis, the NEEScomm IT team is using the Polarian requirements management system to
gather, store, analyze, and prioritize user requirements. It is based on Web 2.0 technology and provides
functionality to handle several requirement gathering processes such as importing requirements from
multiple external sources such as Word, Excel, and XML. It also helps maintain bi-directional
synchronization between Polarion and the external sources. The Polarion off-line client can be used for
synchronization when web access is not available.
The Web-based requirements designer can be used to manage structured requirements, which can be
edited like a document. The Polarion web-based requirements management system can be simply
integrated into the existing workflow processes, as well as wiki and email notification processes that are
currently in use at NEEScomm. Polarion provides ways for linking or embedding work items, artifacts
and content. It also provides automated linking of granular requirements for traceability and impact
analysis that helps to track multi-directional relationships and interdependencies between requirements
and work item or artifact during the lifecycle. Polarion also provides reusable, customizable
requirements libraries/templates to create workflows per project / group. The requirements on Polarion
can be integrated with QA & development for total traceability. It can also be linked with existing
testing, tracker, or task management tools that are in use at NEEScomm.
Polarion has a built-in change control of every requirement from start through reuse, derivatives, and
archival. It has a security mechanism built in the tool that is selectable by role, user, project, group, or
LDAP. The GUI of Polarion is a flexible “Tree” view that provides the impact analysis without querying.
As of July 2010, 245 work items (requirements?) are stored in the Polarion system.
Figure 4.15 shows a screenshot of the Polarion tool in action. An example of a requirements processed
in the Polarion is shown in Figure 4.16.
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Figure 4.15. Polarion Requirements Management Tool used by NEEScomm for collecting and managing
NEES community user requirements.
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Figure 4.16: Sample NEES Requirement from the Polarian Requirements Management Tool.
4.3.7 NEEShub Development Process (Goals 2, 5)
Core Feedback Group: For much of the year, the NEEScomm IT team met on a weekly basis with the Core
Feedback group, a group consisting of five earthquake engineers with different specialties. This group
answered specific domain questions, provided user interface design direction for the Project
Warehouse, provided feedback on test data, and guided the go-live strategy. The NEEScomm IT team
found interaction with the Core Feedback Group to be invaluable.
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User Interface Design: Prior to availability of a fully functional NEEShub system, the NEEScomm IT team
undertook extensive work to design and refine the NEEShub home page. Input from multiple groups
(e.g., Data Working Group, Users Forum, Site Managers) was received that were representative of the
NEES community. In June 2010, the NEEShub Users Workshop was held at Purdue in which the
functionality of the NEEShub was demonstrated to participants. Valuable feedback from the community
present at the workshop helped to confirm the effectiveness of the Release 1 NEEShub interface and
front page.
Prototypes and Prototype Testing: Through the spring and summer, three distinct NEEShub prototypes
were provided as a part of the overall development process. Targeted testing groups were given access
to each of the prototypes in order to provide feedback to the NEEScomm testing group. The feedback
was either blended into an upcoming prototype or determined to be an entirely new requirement. New
requirements retained and made available as candidate requirements for the upcoming requirements
gathering process.
NEEScomm demonstrated the pre-release prototype in the NEES booth at the 9th US National and 10th
Canadian Conference on Earthquake Engineering conference held in July 2010 in Toronto, Canada.
Figure 4.17 shows EOT Coordinator Barbara Cooper demonstrating the features of NEEShub at the
conference NEES booth.
Figure 4.17: Demonstrating NEEShub to NEES community members
Development Environments: Because of the close relationship with the HUBzero development team, the
IT team defined a process to ensure the efficient and controlled movement of source code across
different technical environments. This process evolved each time code progressed from development to
stage to production.
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4.3.9 Data Curation (Goal 1)
The first project year began with a significant backlog of uncurated projects. Adequate progress was
made up to the spring 2010 timeframe, at which time a new Data Curator Stanislav Pejsa was hired. The
former Data Curator Claude Trottier at NEESinc was retained through June 2010 under a subcontract to
provide assistance during the transition and startup phases. The two curators have created a sound
strategy and plan for addressing the backlog. Significant progress has been made to reduce the backlog,
which was completed for all 2009 and prior projects by July 2010. At the end of the transition period in
April 2010, there were a total of 137 projects for which there was experimental data that needed to be
curated and archived. Of the 137, 43 projects (31.3%) of the projects had been completely curated. By
the end of June 2010, curation was completed for 5 additional projects, and the curation of
experimental data (awaiting final review and validation by projects PIs) for 15 additional projects was
completed, yielding a curation ratio of 46% - an increase of 47% from the data curated by April 2010.
In summary, when NEEScomm took over operations on October 1, 2009, there were 39 completed
projects in the NEES data repository, with 18 curated and 21 waiting for curation. As of July 31, 2010, 32
of these 39 projects have been curated. The remaining 7 projects require information from the PIs for
curation to be completed. These PIs have been contacted and the Data Curator is waiting for their
response. Since October 1, 2009, another 29 projects have been completed and 22 of these projects
have been curated. Therefore, as of July 31, 2009, a total of 54 projects have been completed and
curated, while another 14 are complete and curation is underway. Finally, curation has been initiated
on another 81 projects; these projects are not experimentally complete but the Data Curator has started
curating the experiments that have been uploaded and are complete.
The NEEScomm Data Curator has worked closely with the NEEScomm Contracts Office to produce a
comprehensive inventory of active research projects. This inventory provides the NEEScomm Data
Curator with information for a scorecard to track projects approaching expiration dates in order to
determine their readiness for data curation. The NEEScomm Data Curator is in regular contact with
researchers and PIs responsible for active projects.
4.3.10 Community Engagement (Goal 4)
Site IT Managers
Relationships are an important focus for the NEEScomm IT team. The NEEScomm Director of IT
conducted a phone interview each with Site IT manager to understand the role of the Site IT Manager,
as well as to understand the issues, concerns, and to solicit new ideas for improvement. Valuable
information was gathered from the Site IT managers on common Site practices and tools used at each
site.
Liaison to EOT and Site Operations
The NEEScomm IT team worked to cultivate and provide integration across internal teams and
operations. Two Senior Software Engineers were named as liaisons to the EOT and Site Operations team
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to ensure those two teams had sufficient IT support and to stay informed of potentially overlapping
activities.
4.3.11 Data Sharing and Archiving Policy (Goal 1)
The Data Sharing and Archiving Policy was streamlined and simplified during Year 1. The review process
for review of the policy (in order of review) included the Data Working Group, Strategic Council, Purdue
Administration, and the NEES Governance Board. The resulting revised policy is in closer alignment with
the Equipment Site Utilization Form and the Data Management Plan. The policy defines NEES data goals
and the strong commitment of NEEScomm to storing, sharing, and preserving valuable research data. It
outlines responsibilities of the NEES sites, researchers and NEEScomm with respect to collecting and
ensuring the quality and integrity of research data. The Data Sharing and Archiving Policy is provided in
Appendix XX.
4.3.12 Network Performance Testing (Goal 4)
NEEScomm IT collaborated with many of the Site IT Managers to diagnose poor end-to-end network
performance between the NEES sites and Purdue. Each Site IT Manager was asked to set up a temporary
Linux box, on which network performance diagnostic software (Iperf) and a series of diagnostics tests
identified specific problems that limited network performance. End-to-end throughput was vastly
improved through Tom Hacker’s tuning efforts. One example is the case of poor network performance
experienced by NEES site at University of California – Los Angeles. Initial measurements showed a poor
end-to-end throughput of only 13.2 Mb/sec. After diagnosing network performance problems and
performing system modifications, Tom Hacker and Steve Kang achieved an end-to-end throughput of
734 Mb/sec for a single TCP stream – a remarkable 550% improvement in throughput. For the vast
majority of other NEES equipment sites involved in tuning to date, end-to-end network performance
was remarkably improved. Table 4.9 shows measured network performance before and after network
tuning efforts.
Table 4.9: Network Measurement Results for NEES Sites
Site
Prior_to_tuning
(Mb/sec)
Berkeley
9.18
518
UCLA
13.2
734
UCSB
141
295
UIUC
769
Lehigh
4.3
90 (Lehigh has a 100Mb/sec link for the entire campus)
Minnesota
125
809 (multiple TCP streams from a single host)
Reno
35.5
419 (multiple TCP streams from a single host)
NEES FY2010
After_tuning (Mb/sec)
Page 36
4.3.13 Cybersecurity
The GAMA authentication and authorization module, which had been developed by NEESit at San Diego,
was made operational with all user accounts transitioned. Thus existing users were not inconvenienced
and did not have to re-register.
We deployed firewalls on all the NEEScomm servers and made these restrictive enough to allow only the
absolute minimum required access level to the NEEScomm assets from outside Purdue. Thus, only the
hosts from outside that require access to the NEEScomm servers are allowed access, following the
principle of deny by default. Also, only ports that have services running on them are kept open. We have
deployed a single front-end for visualizing and making changes to all the firewalls' configurations from a
single server. See Appendix ??????? for a figure showing the connections of different machines and the
firewall configurations.
We have scanned the NEES servers for security vulnerabilities and done a preliminary analysis of the
reports from the scan to determine that no known vulnerabilities exist. We are continuing with further
scanning at different levels of the application stack. Appendix XXXXXX contains the security testing plan
for the NEES cyberinfrastructure.
The security assessments for the NEES cyberinfrastructure are divided into four categories: (1) unit
testing, (2) integration testing, (3) security configuration testing, and (4) firewall configuration testing.
Unit testing refers to a set of tests to be performed locally on the authentication server to certify the
correct operation of the web, authentication and certificates services provided by the server. Integration
testing defines all tests required to guarantee the correct implementation of the authentication service
provided by GAMA, on the different remote applications that the NEEShub hosts. Security configuration
testing includes the tests required to determine the list of security patches as well as the identification
of different security vulnerabilities currently existing in the NEEShub - at the application as well as the
network layers. Finally, firewall configuration testing refers to the set of tests on the individual firewalls
deployed on each of the hosts running in NEEShub. This is to check that only the required accesses by
external machines and to the required ports on the local machines are allowed.
In October 2009, an updated Cybersecurity Plan was developed by the team led by the NEEScomm
Cybersecurity Officer, Saurabh Bagchi. The draft was reviewed by NEEScomm IT Operations and the Site
IT Managers and revisions were made on the comments received. The final, detailed version was
provided to NSF on November 1, 2009 and went into effect on December 1, 2009. A revised summary
version was made available to NSF in spring 2010.
To handle cybersecurity incidents, a cybersecurity phone hotline was put into place at NEEScomm IT
headquarters in April 2010. An associated support process was also defined and reviewed by the Site IT
Managers. This allows anyone at the site to report a cybersecurity incident and NEEScomm staff to
attend to it promptly.
NEES FY2010
Page 37
4. 4 Site Operations
The substantial national investment in the NEES network combined with the dedicated efforts of site
staff, network staff, researchers, and volunteers have created the world’s most comprehensive and
advanced set of experimental facilities dedicated to earthquake-engineering research. As stewards of
this community resource, NEEScomm accepts leadership responsibility for the health, maturation,
evolution and success of the NEES collaboratory infrastructure. NEEScomm manages the network of
equipment sites to enable research and education excellence in a synergizing, IT-enabled environment.
NEEScomm envisions a high-quality and flexible set of cooperating facilities that are ready to address
the increasing demands for research on complex civil systems.
As outlined in the Strategic Plan, there are two main Strategic Aims that Site Operations Impacts:
Research and Community. Additionally, from an operational standpoint Site Operations has an aim of
overall Stewardship. Stewardship encompasses both financial and contractual oversight, as well as
safety management. In Year 1 NEEScomm Site Operations set goals and undertook several initiatives in
order to meet these aims. Table 4.10 summarizes the outcomes of the Site Operations goals.
Table 4.10 Site Operations Year 1 Goals
Partially
Site Operations Goals
Met
Met
Comments
Research
Achieve High Level of NEES Researcher Satisfaction
X
Complete Experimental Work Expeditiously
Equipment Available for Testing
Increase Network Capabilities
Community
Engage Sites in Network-Level Initiatives
Achieve Site Satisfaction with NEEScomm
Achieve High Researcher Satisfaction
Prioritize Funding Increments to Support Network
Strategic Needs
Stewardship
Review of Subawards and Maintenance Agreements
Oversight of Compliance with Site Subawards and
the MTS Maintenance Agreement
Maintain high-level of network safety
X
While a formal site user
survey was not conducted,
informal feedback from
users has been exceptionally
positive regarding the
capabilities and functionality
of the network sites
See Volume 2
X
See comment above
NEES FY2010
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
Page 38
4.4.1 Selected Major Research Accomplishments
The NEES network of structural, geotechnical, tsunami, and earth science fixed and mobile laboratories
aims to provide a fertile environment for collaboration of teams capable of tackling major earthquake
engineering challenges in a multidisciplinary fashion. These facilities are making it possible for
researchers to perform a new generation of large scale experiments, in a collaborative environment,
therefore pushing the envelope of discovery, analytical models, and experimental techniques. This
section highlights several major NEES research accomplishments organized by NEES Site. Additional
research highlights are found in the 2009 Research Highlights booklet.
NEES@UCLA
Under an NSF RAPID project (PI-Wallace), UCLA mobilized structural monitoring instrumentation to Chile
following the February 27, 2010 magnitude 8.8 megaquake. NEES@UCLA sent staff and researchers to
Chile two weeks after the earthquake along with two 24-channel monitoring systems. These were
deployed to measure aftershocks in three buildings for two weeks. One system was left in Chile and was
retrieved later. The Chile earthquake and its aftershock sequence presented a unique opportunity to
study the response of the modern built environment to large ground motions. John Wallace,
NEES@UCLA PI, Anne Lemnitzer, NEES@UCLA collaborator and Assistant Professor at CSU Fullerton, and
Alberto Salamanca, NEES@UCLA staff member, worked with the two major Chilean universities to
deploy monitoring systems on several buildings (see Figure 4.18). They gathered important data on the
response of damaged and undamaged structures to strong shaking during aftershocks.
(a)
(b)
Figure 4.18: (a) Instrumented building in Chile; (b) Collected data
The design requirements for reinforced concrete buildings in Chile, which are the predominant form of
construction, are almost identical to the American Concrete Institute (ACI) Building Code; ACI 318-95;
there are very minor exceptions. Therefore, the performance of these reinforced concrete buildings is of
significant importance to the United States, as the performance of these buildings is effectively a test of
U.S. code provisions. As well, studies following the large 1985 earthquake in Chile resulted in significant
NEES FY2010
Page 39
changes to the ACI 318 building code. NEES@UCLA acted rapidly to collect data from damaged and
undamaged buildings to provide the data needed to support comprehensive future studies. During the
two-week deployment, NEES@UCLA also trained Chilean university staff and students to monitor the
installed equipment, which was left in-situ to gather data until May, 2010. Results of the monitoring are
being posted on a website as they are completed and widely publicized so that interested U.S.
researchers will have access to data generated in this rapid deployment of NEES resources.
NEES@UCSB
A major earthquake occurred at 3:40:40 PM on Easter Sunday, April 4, 2010. The magnitude 7.2 event
occurred 83 km (39 miles) SSE of Calexico, California, in Baja Mexico and was ~110 km (68 miles)
epicentral distance from the NEES@UCSB Wildlife Liquefaction Array field site. The site was fully
operational, including real-time data streaming via the HPWREN wireless network.
The M7.2 event provided a unique data set for the study of liquefaction that was captured by the field
site instrumentation. The peak ground acceleration recorded at the ground surface was ~0.1g. Surface
waves continued to shake the Imperial Valley for several minutes after the initial arrival of the
earthquake. Excess pore water pressure was observed in the liquefiable sand layer at the Wildlife site
but complete liquefaction did not occur during this event due to the distance and moderate levels of
ground shaking at ~10%g. The Wildlife and other sites operated by NEES@UCSB are among a handful of
sites with dense instrumentation at strategic soil layer depths. The instrumentation and thorough
geophysical site characterization at the sites provide a natural laboratory for testing predictive models
of soil behavior and ground shaking. The data from the M7.2 event will be valuable records for
improving the understanding of the physical process of pore pressure build up leading to liquefaction,
and should help to improve the ability to predict the level of ground shaking where liquefaction will
occur (see Figure 4.19).
NEES FY2010
Page 40
Figure 4.19 Location of Epicenter in relation to Site and Corresponding Data
NEES@UNR
After being subjected to a succession of eight separate earthquake simulations, a 110-foot long, 200-ton
concrete bridge model at the University of Nevada, Reno withstood a powerful jolting, three times the
acceleration of the disastrous 1994 magnitude 6.9 Northridge, California earthquake, and survived in
good condition.
The bridge model (shown in Figure 4.20) was shaken with bidirectional forces to realistically simulate an
earthquake. The researchers mimicked the Northridge earthquake using recorded data of the actual
earthquake. Computer programs direct the movements of the three large hydraulically-controlled shake
tables in the NEES@Reno’s large-scale structures laboratory. The project PI, Saiid Saiidi, indicated that
the bridge was estimated to fail at 8 inches of deflection, but the structure withstood 10 inches of
NEES FY2010
Page 41
deflection in the support columns and the bridge remained standing and useable despite considerable
internal stresses.
Figure 4.20: Four span bridge tested in the shake tables at NEES@UNR
The University of Nevada research team is experimenting with and testing a number of materials and
innovations to potentially revolutionize seismic design of future bridges to help protect lives, prevent
damage and avoid bridge closure even when there is a strong earthquake. It is anticipated that these
designs and components would be used in future bridge and overpass construction. The 11-foot-high,
four-span concrete bridge model was the third experiment in a series of these tests using innovative
composite materials and construction to give superior seismic performance for bridges and highway
overpasses.
About 50 engineers and industry representatives, including Caltrans chief of earthquake engineering and
several senior bridge engineers from Caltrans and Nevada Department of Transportation (NDOT),
attended the test. About 100 viewers from around the country observed the test live via the Web.
NEES@ UCSD
A 65kW wind turbine completed over 90 individual experiments at the NEES equipment site at UC San
Diego (Figure 4.21). Input accelerations of up to 1 g elicited a structural response approaching 3 g at the
top of the turbine (PI-Elgamal). The turbine reached a height of 70 ft tall and weighed over 23,400 lbs.
One of the tests subjected the turbine to ground motions simulating the 1992 Landers magnitude 7.3
earthquake.
The demonstration was a first step towards understanding how earthquakes impact wind turbines. This
question will become increasingly important as California grows more reliant on renewable energy
sources such as wind power. A significant concern is the resilience of wind turbines to earthquakes
because the main wind energy producing regions of California are within close proximity to active
earthquake faults
NEES FY2010
Page 42
Figure 4.21: Wind turbine on outdoor shake table at NEES@UCSD
NEES@Lehigh
In conjunction with the NEESR small group project, Self-Centering Damage-Free Seismic-Resistant Steel
Frame Systems, hybrid simulations of a large-scale 4-story self-centering concentrically braced steel
frame were performed at the NEES@Lehigh facility under 1995 Takatori ground motion input recorded
in Japan. The project is investigating a family of innovative self-centering (SC) steel frame systems with
the potential to withstand the currently accepted design basis earthquake (DBE) for buildings without
damage (Figure 4.22). Both self-centering moment resisting frames (SC-MRFs) and self-centering
concentrically-braced frames (SC-CBFs) are being studied. The project team is multi-organizational,
involving Lehigh, Princeton, and Purdue Universities, includes international participation from the
National Center for Research on Earthquake Engineering (NCREE) in Taiwan, and is advised by a board of
individuals from engineering firms well known in the U.S. and international earthquake and structural
engineering communities.
NEES FY2010
Page 43
Figure 4.22: (a) Plan of prototype, (b) Elevation of 0.6-scale 4-story 2-bay SC-MRF test frame, and (c)
Experimental test frame (the yellow frame)
Unlike conventional earthquake-resistant steel frame systems that are designed to develop significant
inelastic deformations under the DBE, resulting in significant damage as well as residual drift, the
innovative SC steel frame systems developed by the project have the potential to avoid structural
damage under the DBE as a result of several features. First, the lateral force-drift behavior softens
without inelastic deformation of the structural members, and, therefore, without the resulting structural
damage and residual drift. Second, softening behavior is created by gaps opening at selected posttensioned connections (e.g., a separation at the beam-column interfaces of a SC-MRF; or separation at
the ground floor column base and the foundation of a SC-CBF resulting in uplift and rocking of the
frame). Third, the ductility capacity of the lateral force-drift behavior can be quite large and is not
controlled by material ductility capacity. Finally, energy dissipation under seismic loading is not from
damage to main structural members, but from energy dissipation elements that are specified in the
design process, which can be replaced if damaged. The 4-story self-centering (SC) concentrically-brace
frame (CBF) test structure was based on a prototype structure designed for a site in Van Nuys, California
4.4.2 Site Operations Transition
The major goals of transition involved hiring Site Operations staff and expediting funding to the
Equipment Sites. Director of Site Operations was filled by December 2009, and the remaining two
positions were filled by June 2010. To ensure there were no gaps in service during the transition,
NEES FY2010
Page 44
NEEScomm made an enormous effort to ensure the sites received their funding in record time.
Expedited review and execution of subawards was key to the smooth operation of the NEES network.
Using the process described below, all subawards were executed by December 15. Sites received 65 %
of their funding in January 2010 and 100% of their funding by the end of March 2010.

Site Operations Subcommittee (SOS) reviewed all 14 of the site AWPs and required changes to
five of them.

Submitted AWPs and SOS evaluation report to NSF.

Site subawards were executed for all 14 sites by December 15, 2009.

Amendment 1 to site subawards (with 65% of site funding) was executed for all sites by January
12, 2010.

Fully executed 25 subaward amendments; $14,470,795 is authorized for subawards.

All NEES sites have 100% of their AWP budgets by the end of Q2.
4.4.3 Research Support
Ensuring that the NEES sites continue to provide researchers with the facilities, equipment, and staff to
perform the highest quality research is a top priority for NEEScomm. The Site Operations team develops
plans and initiatives based on interaction with researchers and the sites with the goal of maximizing the
network capabilities and research throughput and outcomes.
NEES Researcher Satisfaction
Researcher satisfaction with the NEES Sites has historically been high. The Researcher Survey for FY
2010 is currently under development. NEEScomm will have completed survey results by the end of
FY2010. The results will be provided to NSF when they become available.
HPU Health Monitoring
NEEScomm has been working with MTS to provide a health monitoring system to the MTS-supported
sites. This system will contain a series of sensors on the Site HPU systems that will be continuously
monitored in order to detect failures early. This system will prevent any catastrophic failures of the HPU
systems, which would result in significant down time at the site. It is expected that MTS will install the
system at selected sites by the end of FY2010.
Increase Network Capabilities
In Year 1, Site Operations led two initiatives to increase network capabilities. The first was the
supplemental funding competition (described in Section 4.4.4 under Community) and the second a
proposal to NSF for equipment enhancements (described in Section 4.4.5).
NEES FY2010
Page 45
4.4.4 Community Engagement
Site Visits
To foster community engagement, as well as contribute to oversight efforts, NEEScomm has conducted
site visits. The NEEScomm team efforts during the visits to the sites focused on developing stronger
partnerships and learning from the experience collected by the sites during the first five years of the
network. NEEScomm goals for site visits are:

Build relationships (face-to-face) with Site PIs as well as the Site Operations, IT, and EOT
personnel
Learn about the Site’s local cyberinfrastructure, EOT program, or operations and about any
critical factors that are blocking them (their top concerns).
Ask the sites for potential development of and contributions to community building activities.
Give an overview of NEEScomm’s vision and what we are planning to do.
Discuss how sites could be invoved in the NEEShub production site.
Get comments on our plan





A typical agenda for the visits follows:
0800-0830
0830-0930
0930-1030
1030-1045
1045-1100
1100-1200
1200-1300
1300-1330
1330-1430
1430-1500
1500
Welcome and introductions (Site PI or representative)
Tour of laboratory (Site PI and/or Site Manager)
NEESR research: past, present, future (Site PI and/or Site Manager)
Break
Equipment site administration (Site Manager or representative)
Cyberinfrastructure (IT Personnel)
Lunch
Education, outreach and training (Site Manager or EOT personnel)
NEEScomm vision (NEEScomm Team)
Discussion and planning (All)
Adjourn
In Q1, the NEEScomm team visited 10 equipment sites. Table 4.11 summarizes the outcomes of the Q1
visits and includes the Site, date of the visit, NEEScomm team members participating, and action items.
Table 4.11 Quarter 1 Site Visit Summary
Date
Site
Tsunami Web
11/20/09 Basin, Oregon
State University
NEES FY2010
NEEScomm
Team
J. Ramirez,
T. Anagnos,
D. Weisman,
R. Pordes,
T. Hacker
Action Items
1. Provide IT support to streamline reporting.
2. Follow up on the incorporation tsunami research
related simulation tools and tsunami damage
information in the NEEShub.
3. Availability of sensor information on NEES central.
4. Alicia to follow-up with Thalia on collecting
demographics of participants during site outreach
Page 46
Date
Site
Large High
Performance
Outdoor Shake
11/23/09
Table, University
of California San
Diego
NEEScomm
Team
J. Ramirez,
T. Anagnos,
D. Weisman,
T. Hacker
12/1/09
Cornell
University
J. Ramirez,
S. Brophy,
D. Weisman
12/2/09
State University
New York,
Buffalo
J. Ramirez,
D. Weisman,
R. Eigenmann
NEES FY2010
Action Items
activities and other information to be collected.
5. Solomon and Julio discussed and will follow up on
the PARI MOU, and contacts with potential funding
agencies: FHWA, DHS, FEMA, and NIST.
6. Webinar on tsunami lessons
7. Create a tsunami and earthquake damage
reconnaissance portal or partner with EERI.
8. Plan now for NEES beyond 2014
1. Provide IT support to streamline reporting.
2. Industry involvement is critical for the
sustainability of the network beyond 2014.
3. Marketing of the network as a whole
4. Leverage strengths and products from other sites
network-wide as appropriate.
5. Improve data uploading capabilities and data
repository as a whole to facilitate population of the
repository and usage of it by other researchers.
6. Conduct a Hybrid-Simulation workshop.
1. Provide IT support to streamline reporting.
2. Enhance relations with practicing engineers.
3. Work towards a strong industry participation by
identifying real problems
4. Find ways to enhance the capabilities of the
network to cover multi-hazard environment and
beyond earthquakes perhaps to include wind and
hurricane protection.
5. Develop NEES research report series.
1. Provide IT support to streamline reporting.
2. Enhance relations with practicing engineers.
3. Market network products better, create a NEES
research report series.
4. Improve data archiving and curation capabilities of
the network.
5. More webinars to enhance practitioner
participation on the activities of the network.
6. Add a representative of the ESMF to the PAC.
Page 47
Date
12/3/09
12/4/09
Site
NEEScomm
Team
RPI
J. Ramirez,
S. Brophy,
D. Weisman,
R. Eigenmann
Lehigh
University
J. Ramirez,
S. Brophy,
D. Weisman,
R. Eigenmann
Action Items
1. Provide IT support to streamline reporting.
2. Enhance relations with practicing engineers.
3. Market network products better by creating a
NEES research report series.
4. Improve data archiving and curation capabilities of
the network.
5. Measure project productivity on the basis of %
completion of the project.
6. Emphasize the importance of properly estimating
mobilization cost to the researchers as they are
preparing proposals.
7. Find ways to enhance the capabilities of the
network to cover multi-hazard environment and
beyond earthquakes perhaps to include wind and
hurricane protection.
8. Engage the ESF in discussion on the sustainability
of the network.
9. Initiate dialog with the NEHRP to better coordinate
funding efforts of NSF, NIST, Army, and DHS.
1. Provide IT support to streamline reporting.
2. Market network products better by creating a
NEES research report series.
3. Improve data archiving and curation capabilities of
the network.
4. Measure project productivity on the basis of %
completion of the project
5. Emphasize the importance of properly estimating
mobilization costs to the researchers as they are
preparing proposals.
NEEScomm visited three sites in Q2. On January 28, 2010, a NEEScomm team comprised of Barbara
Fossum, Dawn Weisman, Scott Newbolds, and Barbara Cooper traveled to the NEES MAST facility at the
University of Minnesota. The group met with Carol Shields, Site PI, and the rest of her team and shared
discussions covering site operations, IT, and EOT. The team toured the facility and heard about the
testing being done in conjunction with MTS for monitoring the hydraulic pump system to reduce
unscheduled down time.
On January 29, the team toured the MTS facility in Eden Prairie, Minnesota and held discussions on
possible extended collaboration with MTS to use the NEEShub for the delivery of online learning
modules for training users on MTS equipment at the sites. Additionally, MTS discussed their proposed
HPU heath-monitoring program as well as the status of their metrics.
NEES FY2010
Page 48
On February 3, 2010, Scott Newbolds visited the facility at the University of Nevada at Reno.
During the NEEScomm participation in the annual EERI meeting held February 3-7, Newbolds met with
members of the Berkeley facility and toured the facility to discuss Site Operations. Notes from all of
these visits are available in Appendix E.
In Q3, NEEScomm participated in the NSF Site Visit of UCSB. DSO Newbolds, SOE Lovell, and EOT
Coordinator Cooper were on-site for the review. Due to flight cancellations, Center Director Ramirez
and Deputy Center Director Fossum participated remotely. The NEES @UCSB site visit agenda is
provided below.
Day 1 – Thursday June 3rd
7:30 am
8:30 am
8:45 am
NSF briefing for SVT members only
Break
Site Staff and NEEScomm Introductions
9:00 am
NEEScomm Presentations
 Overview of the NEES network
 NEES Co-Laboratory
 Network-wide oversight of facilities
 Annual Work Plan Development
10:00 am
10:15 am
Break
NEES@UCSB Overview
 Overview of the UCSB Field Sites
 Facility Space at UC Santa Barbara
10:30 am
Interactions between NEEScomm and NEES@UCSB
 AWP development, Reporting, & Working group participation
 Collaboration between NEES@UCSB and Network
10:45 am
Overall Facility Operations
 AWP Goals & Priorities, GPRA Performance
 Shared Use Operations
 Safety
11:00 am
Facility Staff
 Staff Positions and Duties
 Staff Retention
11:10 am
Facility Equipment
 Equipment Inventory Database & Documentation
 Equipment Functionality & Monitoring
 Maintenance and Calibration
 Equipment Failure, Losses, Replacement
 Physical Security
11:30 am
Facility IT Operations
 IT Infrastructure, Software, Version Control, Documentation
 HPWREN and Internet2 Connection
NEES FY2010
Page 49



Data Management Plan, Data Portal
Telepresence Capabilities and Usage
Cyber Security Compliance
11:45 am
Facility Budget
 Budget Background
 Current Year Budget Breakdown
 Annualized Equipment & Maintenance Budget
 Program Income & User Fees
 Budget Controls
12:00 pm
Facility Usage
 NEESR Projects
 Non-NEESR Projects
 User Support and User Cost
12:15 pm
Facility Education, Outreach, & Training
 NEES@UCSB Website
 Training Workshops & Virtual Site Tours
 Student Activity in NEES O&M and Research
 Summer REU activity
 K-12 Outreach, “Make your own earthquake” demonstrations
12:30 pm
1:30 pm
Lunch [NSF & SVT Executive Session]
Travel to Garner Valley Field Site
2:30 pm
Garner Valley Field Site Tour
 NEESR Projects and T-Rex
 NEES@UCLA Command Truck
 Permanent Ground Instrumentation
 Data Acquisition and Communications
 SFSI Instrumentation
4:00 pm
5:00 pm
5:15 pm
5:45 pm
6:15 pm
Travel back to Palm Springs
Break
NSF and SVT Executive Session
Questions given to NEEScomm and NEES@UCSB to address overnight
Dinner
Day 2 – Friday June 4th
8:00 am
Response from NEEScomm and Facility to SVT Questions
9:00 am
SVT report writing
12:00 pm Lunch
1:00 pm
SVT report writing
3:00 pm
Break
3:30 pm
Debriefing by NSF and SVT
4:00 pm
NSF and SVT departure
NEES FY2010
Page 50
Additionally, on June 15 Site Operations Engineer, Matt Lovell, visited UNR for the test of the four span
bridge conducted by the Saiidi project. Mr. Lovell met with the UNR staff including Site PI, Ian Buckle
and Site Operations Manager, Sherif Elfass. It was a wonderful opportunity to see the UNR site in action.
Increased Site Involvement in Decisions
An important component of fostering strong community is involving sites in major decisions and
communicating clearly. To that end the following efforts were undertaken.

Formed working group on site Goals, Metrics and Reporting Requirements. The working group
includes representatives from the Site Managers Forum (SMF) and Equipment Site Forum (ESF).
It has reviewed all proposed changes to administrative requirements.

Included members of the Site Managers Forum and Equipment Site Forum on the Site
Operations Subcommittee. The SOS has been involved in the policy revisions as well as the
revision of the AWP process and the review of the FY 2011 Site Annual Work Plans.

Issued Site Operations newsletter in November 2009. Began regular bi-weekly newsletter in
June.

Interim Director of Site Operations met with Site Managers’ Forum and Equipment Site Forum in
December 2009. NEEScomm Site Ops team met with ESF in June 2010.

Participated in SMF meetings in January, March, April, and July.

NEES leadership visited 10 equipment sites during 2010 to-date.

Site representatives were present at the NEEScomm kick-off event. All sites were represented.

Representatives of the ESF and SMF were present for the NEEScomm transition review.
Streamlined Contractual Structure between Researchers and Sites
All Research Participation Agreements (RPAs) in effect under the former management system expired
on September 30, 2009. In order to reduce the administrative burden on the sites and researchers, the
RPA structure, which required for every research project a three party agreement between the Site, the
Researcher’s institution and NEESinc, was replaced a more efficient structure that uses two separate
documents- the Site User Agreement (SUA) (contractual) and Equipment Site Utilization Form (ESUF)
(programmatic). The revised documents were developed with input from the Sites. All Sites were given
notice on December 17, 2009 that they could begin executing SUAs and ESUFs with user institutions.
NEEScomm developed a guidance document to aid the Sites and Researchers in the implementation of
these forms. The document, as well as the revised forms, is posted on nees.org.
NEES FY2010
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Streamlined Site Quarterly Financial and Activity Reports
NEESComm worked with representatives from several sites to streamline the amount of staff effort
required to complete quarterly financial and activity reports (QFRs and QARs). With the approval of
NSF, a decision was made to reduce the level of expenditure detail requested and have sites provide
estimated numbers due to the 30 day reporting deadline to NSF.
NEEScomm received very positive feedback from the Sites about the improvements to the Quarterly
Financial Report format implemented in the first quarter. Initially, there were concerns that estimated
financial data would not be very accurate due to the quick turnaround required by the reporting
deadlines, but a detailed review found that half of the estimates provided by the Sites were within one
dollar of the invoiced amounts. The format for the financial reports was modified slightly for the second
quarter upon suggestions from NEES Sites. NEEScomm will continue to solicit feedback and suggestions
from the Sites on ways to improve and streamline reports to reduce the administrative burden of
reporting while also maintaining accuracy.
The Working Group on Goals, Metrics, and Reporting Requirements (GMRR) worked to revise the
Quarterly Activity Report (QAR). Members of this group currently include: Marc Eberhard, Meagan
Kramer, Scott Newbolds, Enrique Luco, Harry Stewart, Bob Nigbor, Tom Albrechcinski, Remy Lequesne,
Swami Krishnan, Dawn Weisman, and John Eston. The goals in revising the form were to 1) simplify the
QAR form 2) make it more informative and 3) align it with the performance metrics and NSF reporting
requirements. Efforts were made to balance requests for a simple reporting system while still being able
to capture needed information for reporting purposes. A guidance document was developed by
NEEScomm to assist the sites in implementing this new form. Additionally, two question and answer
sessions were conducted to allow the sites to get additional information on the new format. This new
QAR form was used starting in the Site’s Q2 reporting.
Site Managers Forum Meeting in Austin, Texas
An important part of building high morale and fostering relationships is to meet in person. Much of the
communication that is done between NEEScomm and the Sites is done through remote meetings.
Meeting in person provides an opportunity to communicate in a different manner. It also provides a
good opportunity for sharing experiences and team-building activities.
NEEScomm personnel (Deputy Center Director, Fossum, IT Director, Weisman, and DSO, Newbolds)
participated in the Site Managers Workshop April 15 and 16. The workshop was hosted by
nees@UTexas in Austin. The themes of the event were “Synergy between NEEScomm and SMF” and
Life beyond 2014. An agenda of the event follows.
NEES FY2010
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Streamlined Site Annual Work Plan Development
The Site Annual Work Plan (AWP) process was enhanced to encourage greater collaboration amongst
the sites and to encourage increased network impact. A section was provided in the WBS to allow
network collaboration, allowing the Sites to share equipment or personnel throughout the network.
This was a need that was identified by the SMF and underlines the benefits of network-wide
collaboration. Additionally, the new AWP process provides the opportunity for Sites to propose
Network EOT activities. Many Sites have active local EOT programs from which the network could
benefit. This new feature was added to encourage Sites to broaden some of these ideas to provide a
national impact.
At the Site Managers Forum Meeting in Austin, the Site Managers proposed a new format and
procedure for the FY-2011 Annual Work Plan (AWP) development. The proposed spreadsheet
eliminated many of the tedious details that were required in previous year’s AWPs, thereby making the
AWP process simpler for the Sites. NEEScomm and the Site Operations Subcommittee evaluated the
proposed spreadsheet and report generation methodology. While it was determined that there was not
enough time to implement the report generation methodology, it was decided to implement the
NEES FY2010
Page 53
proposed spreadsheet. NEEScomm modified the spreadsheet to capture additional personnel
information and enhancements to encourage greater Site participation in network activities. The Site
Operations Subcommittee approved the final version and it was used for the development of the
FY2011 AWPs. A guidance document was prepared by NEEScomm to aid the sites in implementing the
new procedures. Additionally, NEEScomm held two question and answer sessions to allow Sites to ask
questions about the streamlined AWP process.
Prioritize Funding Increments to Support Network Strategic Needs
For the preparation of the Site AWPs, NEEScomm has asked that the Sites maintain a flat budget for
FY2011. This will provide additional money for supplements to be provided to the Sites that address
network strategic needs. The FY2010 Site budgets totaled $12.7 million. The overall budgeted amount
for FY-2011 is $13.4 million. The hold-back of $675,000 represents 5% of the site budgets. The target
was to provide at least 5 percent to the sites in the form of supplements to address strategic needs. The
current AWP submitted by the sites targets 5 percent as the level of funding that will be utilized for this
purpose.
Network-Wide Safety Policy
Safety is an underlying tenet of NEES Site Operations. In order to provide a uniform policy for the
network, a Network-Wide Safety Policy was developed. The purpose of this document is to provide an
overarching policy that addresses safety for the NEES network. This document outlines Responsibilities
and Requirements for NEEScomm, Sites, and Users; Dispute Resolution; Responding to Accidents and
Incidents; and Web Accessible Safety Plans. The policy was developed from a document that was
drafted by members of the Site Managers Forum. NEEScomm working with the Site Operations
Subcommittee finalized the document. The policy was reviewed by the NEES Strategic Council, the NEES
Governance Board, Purdue University, and approved by the Center Director. A copy of the policy is
posted on nees.org. Metrics for measuring network safety is OSHA reportable injuries and Updated Site
Safety Plans which is reported in Volume 2 under Site-Related Metrics.
Supplemental Funding for Network-Level Initiatives
A Request for Proposals was issued 12/5/09 and addressed three pressing needs for the NEES network:
(1) increasing the rate of completion of NEESR experiments at sites with high NEESR experimental work
loads, (2) increasing the impact of the network Education, Outreach and Training (EOT) activities, and (3)
increasing the contributions of sites to community-level Information Technology (IT). The experience of
issuing an RFP and reviewing proposals will also allow NEEScomm to develop a fair and efficient process
for making supplemental awards in future years.
The funding available through this informal solicitation ($250-300k) represents only 2% of the total NEES
Equipment Site Operations budget of $14.3M. This level of funding is only sufficient to begin to address
all three needs in FY 2010. To support long-term success, NEEScomm expects to continue successful
NEES FY2010
Page 54
activities (contingent on making good progress in FY2010), and to significantly increase the funding
available for new supplements in subsequent years.
A total of 18 proposals were submitted by Equipment Site PIs to NEEScomm Deputy Director Barbara
Fossum by the deadline of December 21st. Proposers were asked to clearly indicate what new resources
were needed and/or what resources would be reallocated from the current Annual Work Plan. The
proposals were to clearly indicate what specific steps would be taken, how they would increase the
value of the network and how progress and success should be measured.
Multi-year projects could be proposed, and NEEScomm intends to continue funding successful
initiatives, but only the first year of funding was guaranteed during this competition. Continued support
will depend on progress made during FY2010 and on available funding. Multi-site proposals and
proposals that team with NEESR researchers were encouraged too. All proposals were limited to 2 pages
and to a 12-pt font. To ensure fairness to all participants, no over-length or late proposals were
reviewed. The NEEScomm staff reviewed the proposals with input from the various Project Advisory
Committee subcommittees.
The target was to provide at least 3 supplements to the sites in order to increase network capabilities.
Through the supplemental competition NEEScomm provided 6 supplements. The proposals awarded are
presented in Table 4.12.
Table 4.12: FY2010 Awarded Supplemental Proposals
Institution
Contact
Oregon State
Dan Cox
Oregon State
Dan Cox
RPI
Inthuorn Sasanakul
UC Berkeley
Khalid Mosalam
UC Davis
Ross Boulanger
UC San Diego
J. Enrique Luco
Illinois
B. F. Spencer
Minnesota
Carol Shield
NEES FY2010
Project Title / Description
Outreach with mini wave flume
in Washington DC
Use of telepresence in EOT
NEES site supplemental fund
(TY2010) for community IT (3D
Data Viewer)
Enhance site productivity via
addition of lab mech. To
NEES@Berkeley staff
Enhance throughput capacity by
increasing sensor inventory and
conducting facility repairs
Video: documentary of
earthquake engineering research
experimentation process
Video: understanding the
response of structures to
imposed loadings
Improve collaborative capabilities
Category
Amount
Funded
High Impact EOT
$12,000
High Impact EOT
$13,046
Community IT
$50,000
Site Productivity
$30,000
Site Productivity
$80,000
High Impact EOT
$12,500
High Impact EOT
$60,000
Community IT
$20,700
Page 55
Reno
Ian Buckle
via server-based RDV
configuration and delivery
Enhance productivity by adding
temp. technician to NEES@UNR
staff
Site Productivity
$12,289*
Grand Totals
$290,535
*reallocation of funds originally budgeted for a table move
4.4.5 NSF Proposal for NEES Equipment Enhancements
NEEScomm has submitted a proposal to NSF on behalf of the network that will provide for $1 million in
equipment enhancements for the network. The needs of the researchers are of primary importance in
determining the capabilities of the NEES network. The NEES Sites, being a foremost collaborator with
the researchers, are also in tune to their needs. Additionally, the sites have had NSF Site Visits that
have, in some circumstances, proposed enhancements to their equipment. In such cases, these have
been documented in the Site Visit Reports. It is these sources, the researchers, NSF reviewers, and the
sites, from which the list of technology upgrade needs was proposed.
NEEScomm learned of the funding opportunity on June 18, 2010 and the Sites were subsequently
notified the same day. The request for pre-proposals was sent to the Site PIs and Site Managers
requesting that pre-proposals be returned to NEEScomm on June 23, 2010. Twelve proposals
representing 11 Sites were received on June 23. A list of these proposals is provided in Table X.
Members of the NEES Users Forum were identified to review the proposals. This group was utilized to
provide critical user input in rating the proposals. The criteria used in the evaluation are provided in
Figure X. Users Forum members and NEEScomm reviewed the pre-proposals on June 24, 2010. Five to
seven reviewers evaluated each proposal. The results were evaluated and compiled by NEEScomm and
a ranked list was sent to the NEES Program Director on June 25, 2010. These results were reviewed with
the Program Director on June 29, 2010 and a final list of selected projects was developed. Sites were
notified of the selected pre-proposals by July 2, 2010.
NEEScomm worked with the selected sites to develop the proposal, which was submitted to NSF July 19.
The resulting project description follows.
Earthquakes and tsunamis have the potential within the United States to cause significant casualties
and economic loss. The George E. Brown, Jr. Network for Earthquake Engineering Simulation (NEES)
originated as a national research collaboratory to support the efforts of researchers seeking
innovative engineering solutions focused on mitigating this risk. Today, NEES is a network of 14
advanced experimental sites connected by an advanced cyberinfrastructure that enables the
operation and control of interconnected multi-site experiments, remote viewing and participation,
rapid data viewing and analysis, and data archiving (http://www.nees.org). During the first six years
of research at the NEES experimental sites, over 160 multi-year, multi-investigator projects have
been completed or are in progress, yielding many advances in earthquake engineering. This number
includes those funded by NSF through the NEESR Program and those funded by other agencies
NEES FY2010
Page 56
under the NEES Shared-Use Program (Non-NEESR). The common theme in all of these projects has
been the use of cutting-edge experimental simulation tools and facilities to reduce earthquake risk.
Whereas experimental work has been undertaken in the past, the distinguishing feature of most of
these studies is that they have been conducted at large scale to better replicate nonlinear behavior
and simulate collapse.
This NSF-funded network of structural, geotechnical, tsunami and earth science fixed and mobile
laboratories aims to provide a fertile environment for collaboration of teams capable of tackling
major earthquake engineering challenges in a multidisciplinary fashion. These facilities are making it
possible for researchers to perform a new generation of experiments and do so in a collaborative
environment. However, to manage the impact of future earthquakes, it is essential to maintain the
state of the art of NEES facilities. NEEScomm at Purdue University, as the manager of network
operations, is requesting support for the acquisition of equipment to enhance the technological
capabilities of the network. In order to maintain the premier status of the NEES network it is
imperative that needs of the research community be continually assessed and the equipment
upgraded and enhanced accordingly. The equipment requested in this proposal has been identified
by the researcher community as necessary for NEES to stay at the forefront of earthquake and
tsunami hazard mitigation research.
The proposed equipment will impact various aspects of the network testing capabilities. Increased
loading capacity and range will allow a greater range of structural and shake table testing to be
conducted (NEES@UCLA and NEES@UNR). Improved sensors and data acquisition will improve
testing efficiency and enhance data quality in large-scale facilities and field- testing (NEES@UIUC
and NEES@UTexas). New wave basin components will permit more innovative tsunami hazard
testing (NEES@OSU). While Purdue is requesting the support on behalf of the network, the sites will
retain ownership of their respective equipment. In addition, if additional funding is available,
NEEScomm is requesting additional imaging equipment that will be retained by Purdue University
and be made available to sites as a network resource.
INTELLECTUAL MERIT: The existing physical infrastructure and the new requested equipment will
empower the earthquake engineering and science community to advance knowledge, innovation,
and education to reduce earthquake losses.
BROADER IMPACTS: NEES provides open access to the equipment sites and its cyberinfrastructure
for research and education. Technical staff operating the experimental facilities and
cyberinfrastructure offer training workshops to help researchers, educators, and students discover
and use NEES resources. The NEES collaboratory provides for the integration of research findings
and activities with education, outreach, and training, thus enabling the smooth transition of ideas
from conception to education to practice. NEES is striving to become the global resource for
earthquake engineering simulation and education, serving not only researchers in the US and other
developed nations, but also as a 24/7 resource for researchers in countries with less developed civil
infrastructure and seismic provisions.
NEES FY2010
Page 57
Table 4.13 summarizes the requested equipment.
Table 4.13: Requested Equipment in NSF Equipment Enhancement Proposal
Funding Equipment
Priority
Site(s)
1
UCLA
2
Oregon
State
3
Illinois
4
Texas,
UCLA,
UCSB
5
UNR
6
Network
Requested Equipment
Upgrade current Linear Shaker to 75 kips and
earthquake waveform capability. Replace
cylinder, accumulators, servovalve, hoses,
and reaction mass subsystem
Removable / reconfigurable bathmetry and
beach system for the Tsunami Wave Basin
Coordinate Measurement Machine with
Integrated 3D Scanner
Trillium Compact Seismometers
Three large stroke (24 in.), high performance
servo-controlled actuators (55K, 180 gpm
valves), manifolds, and controller upgrade
Coordinate Measurement Machine with
Integrated 3D Scanner
TOTAL
Estimated
Cost of
Acquisition
Proposed
Date of
Operation
$175,000
1/1/11
$300,000
3/31/12
$173,582
12/31/10
$178,940
12/31/10
$195,000
12/31/10
$173,582
12/31/10
$1,196,104
4.4.6 Summary of Research Project Status and Allocation of Network Resources
Shared-Use Project Status
During the first two quarters of FY-2010, NEEScomm placed a freeze on approving new Shared-Use
requests. This was done in order for NEEScomm to evaluate both the shared-use policy as well as to
evaluate the load on the network. Consequently, only three new projects were added to the network.
The non-NEESR projects were granted shared-use status by NEEScomm. The projects are as follows:



“EAGER: Developing and Testing Algorithms for Generating Leading Tsunami Waves,” PI
Kaihatu, was funded by the National Science Foundation to support work at the Oregon State
University equipment site.
“RAPID: Post-Earthquake Monitoring of Buildings in Chile Using NEES@UCLA Resources,” PI
Wallace, was funded by the National Science Foundation to support work at the UCLA
equipment site.
“NEHRP: Characterizing the geometry and time of deformation of the Meeman-Shelby Fault,
near Memphis, TN,” PI Magnani, was funded by NEHRP to support work at University of Texas –
Austin equipment site.
NEES FY2010
Page 58
The table in Appendix AAA provides a summary of the completion status and funding source for the 164
projects that have been assigned to the NEES network. The number of projects at a site is only a coarse
measure of experimental activity, so the summary is most useful for evaluating the status of the overall
network, rather than for assessing the demand or performance of an individual site. These projects
resulted from 92 full NEESR awards, 13 payload projects and 46 non-NEESR shared-use projects.
The project types and sponsors are distributed as follows:






65% correspond to pre-NEESR or NEESR awards (105/164),
8% correspond to NEESR and NSF payload projects (13/164),
11% correspond to other projects sponsored by NSF and NSF centers (18/164)
9% correspond to projects sponsored by other federal agencies (15/164)
6% correspond to projects sponsored by state agencies (10/164), and
4% correspond to projects sponsored by industry, local agencies or international agencies
(7/164).
Allocation of Network Resources
The network allocations of resources for various high-level WBS categories are summarized in Figure
4.23 and Table 4.14 for the network as a whole. The numbers presented represent the cumulative
expenditures through Quarter 3. According to estimates in the site Quarterly Financial Reports, 38% of
the site budgets were expended on research support, 29% was expended on site readiness, and nearly
26% was expended to satisfy network requirements. Approximately 6% of the resources were expended
towards capacity building, which includes facility enhancement and community IT efforts. Figure 4.24
summarizes the site-by-site estimated expenditures as a percentage of their total AWP budget.
Through the third quarter, three sites reported the receipt and expense of program income. Program
income was generated by equipment use charges and totaled approximately, $121,557. Program
income was then used to pay for operation and maintenance costs of the equipment of approximately
$73,492.
NEES FY2010
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Figure 4.23: Percent Distribution of Support Expenditures According to WBS Category
Table 4.14: Overall Research Support Expenditures According to WBS Category
Activity Category
Shared-Use Research Support
Site Readiness
Network Requirements
IT Community Activities
Facility Enhancement Activities
Annualized Equipment Maintenance
Total
NEES FY2010
Estimate Through Q3
$3,328,607
$2,531,153
$2,250,149
$133,687
$344,011
$66,239
$8,653,846
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Figure 4.24: Estimated Budget Expenditures for WBS Categories by Site
4.4.7 Stewardship
Oversight of compliance with site subawards and the MTS maintenance agreement
Subaward Administration Research activity at all fourteen NEES Equipment Sites continued through the
2nd quarter unimpeded by contractual obstacles. NEEScomm has processed all invoices in a timely
manner and we have received no negative feedback regarding financial administration. Amendments,
which authorized full funding of FY2010 operational budgets, were initiated the first week of February
for all fourteen NEES equipment sites, MTS, and all seven NEES administrative support institutions. A
new subaward was authorized with University of California, San Diego to provide NEESit support to
NEEScomm IT thru June 30 and tape back-up services thru March 31, 2011.
Needs Q3 Update from Meagan / Jeremy or reference to their section
Replacement of RPA with SUA and ESUF
All Research Participation Agreements (RPAs) in effect under the former management system expired
on September 30, 2009. In order to reduce the administrative burden on the sites and researchers, the
RPA structure, which required for every research project a three party agreement between the Site, the
Researcher’s institution and NEESinc, was replaced a more efficient structure that uses two separate
documents- the Site User Agreement (SUA) (contract) and Equipment Site Utilization Form (ESUF)
(technical form). All Sites were given notice on December 17, 2009 that they could begin executing
SUAs and ESUFs with user institutions.
NEES FY2010
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Site User Agreement (SUA)
The Site User Agreement, which is a two party agreement between the Site and the researcher’s
institution, addresses contractual issues between those two parties. This agreement is valid until the
expiration of the NSF Cooperative Agreement and is not project or research specific. No SUA is
necessary if the researcher is internal to the Site. Once SUAs are executed between institutions, they
will not need to be negotiated again when new projects involve the same institution pair. Because the
SUAs are two party agreements, Sites have the right to modify the SUAs to meet their needs as long as
any modifications are consistent with their subawards. This gives the Sites the necessary flexibility to
add language or modify language that is required by their state or Institution’s policies. This requires,
though, that they still meet the programmatic expectations set forth in their subawards. In the event of
dispute, The NEESComm Director of Site Operations can serve as the arbitrator between the Site and the
Researcher’s Institution, allowing NEESComm to ensure smooth operations and gives both the
Researcher’s Institution and the Site a third party to assist in arriving at a compromise.
Equipment Site Utilization Form (ESUF)
The Equipment Site Utilization Form addresses all programmatic issues. This form captures the specifics
of the project, including equipment needs, schedule, and non-standard costs. The approval of the ESUF
is technical, not contractual, and therefore doesn’t need to run through the Site’s sponsored research
office for execution. The NEESComm Director of Site Operations will receive, review, and approve all
ESUFs. ESUFs are required for researchers internal and external to the Site to ensure that all researchers
have equal access to the NEES resources. Purdue will maintain a central repository of executed SUAs
and ESUFs.
NEEScomm continues to focus on procurement of Site User Agreement (SUA) and Equipment Site
Utilization Form (ESUF) documents. NEEScomm developed a guidance document to assist both Users
and Sites with the implementation of these documents. Document templates as well as the guidance
document have been posted on nees.org. Additionally, NEEScomm has provided each Equipment Site
with contact information for all of its Users’ Sponsored Programs/Research Administration Offices. The
SUA documents often undergo legal review and require institutional signature from both concerned
institutions. The ESUF documents, being of a programmatic nature, require the coordinated efforts of
equipment site operations personnel and research participants. To date, 6 of 51 required SUA’s, and 24
of 82 currently-required ESUF’s have been obtained and recorded.
The NEEScomm team continues to make progress in site document procurement and, in support of that
effort, continues to communicate with site operations personnel as well as institutional research
administration personnel. All sites have indicated that they are working with their researchers and user
institutions to get the required site documents prepared and submitted to NEEScomm.
NEEScomm and the Sites have been working with researchers and their institutions to ensure that
contractual Site User Agreements (SUAs) and programmatic Equipment Site Utilization Forms (ESUFs)
are completed for ongoing research projects. NEEScomm met with the Sites in March to address
NEES FY2010
Page 62
questions regarding these documents. NEEScomm has provided assistance to the Sites in making
contact with researcher Sponsored Programs Offices. NEEScomm developed a guidance document to
aid in the completion of these forms. Blank forms as well as the guidance document are posted on
nees.org. A table containing the status of these documents is contained in Table 4.15.
Table 4.15: Status of Site User Agreements and Equipment Site Utilization Forms
Equipment
Site
Site User Agreements
Equipment Site Utilization Form
(SUA)
(ESUF)
Total #
Projects
Submitted
In Process
Not
Currently
Required
Submitted
In Process
Not
Currently
Required
Buffalo
11
6
4
10
Cornell
3
2
1
2
Lehigh
6
2
3
5
1
Minnesota
7
6
2
1
3
3
OSU
5
3
1
5
RPI
6
3
2
4
1
1
Texas
6
2
1
4
1
1
UC Berkeley
7
5
2
2
4
1
UC Davis
13
3
9
8
5
UCLA
9
2
7
4
5
UCSB
3
2
1
3
UCSD
6
UIUC
10
UNR
2
3
1
6
2
3
2
4
2
1
4
9
2
Policy Review and Revision
As part of transition, NEEScomm was required to review and revise all existing NEES policies. The Site
Operations Subcommittee (SOS) has been working on this activity. Members of the SOS currently
include: Marc Eberhard, Carol Shield, Jim Ricles, Bob Nigbor, Gustavo Parra, Wei Song, Scott Newbolds,
NEES FY2010
Page 63
and Meagan Kramer. The policies being reviewed are the Shared-Use Partnering Policy, Major
Equipment Repair Policy, Fiscal Control Policy, and the PMCR Policy. To date, the Strategic Council has
approved revisions to the Shared-Use Partnering Policy, the Major Equipment Repair Policy, the Fiscal
Control Policy and the newly developed Network-Wide Safety Policy. The Network-wide Safety Plan and
the Shared-Use Policy have been approved and are posted on nees.org. The Major Equipment Repair
Policy and the Fiscal Control Policy are pending final approval and are posted as interim documents on
nees.org. The remaining policies continue to be revised by the SOS. Copies of the policies will be posted
on nees.org as soon as they have received final approval from the Center Director. Table 4.16 contains a
summary of the policy review status.
NEES FY2010
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Table 4.16: Status of Site Operations Policies
NEEScomm NEEScomm
SOS
Review
Revised
Reviewed
Final
Draft
Strategic
Council
Approval
Governance
Board
Review
Purdue
University
Review
Final
Approval
(Center
Director)
Priority
Policy
Owner
Status
1
Shared-Use
Policy
Scott
Newbolds
Approved
and posted
on nees.org
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
2
Networkwide Safety
Policy
Scott
Newbolds
Approved
and posted
on nees.org
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
3
Major
Equipment
Repair Policy
Scott
Newbolds
Interim
document
posted on
nees.org
x
x
x
x
x
x
5
Fiscal Control
Document
Meagan
Kramer
Interim
document
posted on
nees.org
x
x
x
x
x
x
4
Preventative
Maintenance,
Calibration,
and Repair
Policy
Scott
Newbolds
/ Meagan
Kramer
SOS to
review by
9/1
x
6
NEES Facility
Users Guide
Scott
Newbolds
SOS to
review by
9/1
x
NEES FY2010
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