Overview

In addition to resources available through CloudBank-eligible NSF solicitations, CloudBank makes modest resources available on a non-competitive basis in support of various community purposes, including but not limited to: classes, workshops and training, exploratory purposes, such as preparing estimates for proposal of CloudBank-eligible solicitations, and hosting of community data sets. Resource requests are reviewed and made available on an as-available basis with no specific deadlines. As the name implies, community resource requests should benefit larger groups of people and researchers. Requests are reviewed by CloudBank project PIs, staff and others as appropriate for the nature of the request. Turnaround time for reviews is typically no more than 5 business days.

Please see Getting Started With Instruction to find tools available to help run your class on the cloud.

Eligibility

Projects must have an eligible Principal Investigator (PI), who will be responsible for the accuracy of the resource request and the management of any allocated resources. An eligible PI can be a researcher or educator at a U.S. academic or non-profit research institution, federal or state agency, or Federally Funded Research and Development Center (FFRDC). High school or undergraduate students are not qualified as PIs. However, a qualified advisor such as a high school teacher or faculty member can serve in this capacity. In most cases, a graduate student may not be a PI, though an exception is made for NSF Graduate Student Fellows and Honorable Mention recipients. Unaffiliated researchers or for profit organizations interested in CloudBank should contact help@cloudbank.org for specific eligibility discussion.

Resource Limits

Over a given year we anticipate a total of $25K available for all community requests with a single request in range of $500-$1,000, and a maximum request of $2,500. The length of the award depends on the specific request, e.g., for classes it may be one quarter, while hosting a dataset may be longer.

Proposal Requirements

To apply please email help@cloudbank.org with the following information in no more than a three page document:

  • Project Abstract: Abstract should include a description of the research objectives or the project/course/training. Abstract should also briefly explain why the project requires access to CloudBank resources, the intended audience, who will use the resources.
     
  • CVs: Curriculum vitae (CV) for the requestor who will serve as the PI, and for any additionally listed co-PIs. CVs should be in standard, two-page NSF or NIH format.
     
  • Resource Justification: Include how the requested amounts were estimated, and why the requested resources were selected.
    • Course or training resource estimations should be based on the specific tasks the students will perform. The request should indicate the number of students and describe the computational resource requirements for each activity. This information should be used to calculate the approximate resource need for the class as a whole. Description should include sufficient detail to allow a reviewer to verify that the work is appropriate for the requested resource and of reasonable scale for the allocation.
       
  • Syllabus (if applicable): Educational (course or training) requests should provide a syllabus that outlines the topics to be covered in the course.