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EGI Virtual teams

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This page provides information about the Virtual Teams and the NGI International Liaisons of EGI.

Context

In 2011 the EGI community revised its user engagement activities and defined a new structure for them to improve efficiency and agility for the community in this area. A new structure has two key elements:

  1. Virtual Team framework: The Virtual Team framework (see source document) enables NGI and EGI.eu staff to initiate and participate in short-lived projects (also known as Virtual Team projects) that focus on activities that are relevant to the uptake and use of the production infrastructure. Virtual Teams can cover areas such as Marketing & Communication; Strategic Planning and Policy Support; Community outreach and events for new users; Technical outreach and support to new communities. Virtual Team projects typically focus around new communities and/or sustainability. The framework allows the EGI community to plan all related activities in conjunction and collaboration with the NGIs and can help integrate and align effort from multiple projects and countries. The VT project framework is open to all NGIs, countries and regions that are involved or collaborate with EGI. These entities can join existing Virtual Teams and can propose new Virtual Teams.
  2. NGI International Liaisons: The interaction between the NGIs and EGI.eu on non-operational activities is undertaken through an "NGI International Liaisons"(NILs in short). NILs are responsible within the NGIs for the delivery and interaction of non-operational tasks. Non-operational activities cover areas such as Marketing & Communication; Strategic Planning and Policy Support; Community outreach and events for new users; Technical outreach and support to new communities. The role of the NGI International Liaison recognises the complexity and diversity of each NGIs yet the need for these NGIs to be involved in pan-European, coordinated, non-technical activities of EGI, primarily through Virtual Teams. It is not necessarily the NGI International Liaison who undertake any of the non-technical activities, but instead they make sure the appropriate individuals or teams within the NGIs respond to any particular activity or issue that arises. These activities and issues arise within the Virtual Team framework, typically as requests to join a new Virtual Team or to react to some issue identified by a Virtual Team.

What is a Virtual Team?

The skills needed for EGI to successfully engage as a community with new users exist in many different organisations in the EGI ecosystem. It is foreseen that different members of EGI want to participate in different types of targeted activities that directly or indirectly relate to engagement with new users. The individuals needed to carry out such a targeted activity can be brought together by a Virtual Team in EGI. Virtual Teams provide a flexible and dynamic means to rapidly bring together certain members of the community for a well defined series of tasks to meet a specific goal that needs to be achieved in a relatively short period of time (up to two years) before being disbanded. The focus of these Virtual Teams will be to either directly increase the number of EGI users (e.g. through integrating a new application) or indirectly (e.g. by raising the profile of EGI through a hosted event; Performing a study/analysis of a specific area). Virtual Teams have members from multiple NGIs and carry out a targeted action within the following activity domains:

  • Marketing & Communication
  • Strategic Planning and Policy Support
  • Community outreach and events for new users
  • Technical outreach and support to new communities (incl. studies, specifications, developments)

Virtual Teams can be established and used to enable the development of a strategy for the long-term evolution of EGI, or to significantly increase both the diversity and quantity of users and communities exploiting the infrastructure for world class research. The application of the framework is limited only by the scope and imagination of the NGIs to commit resources to any particular goal.

Who are the NGI International Liaisons?


Alert.png This article is Deprecated and has been moved to https://confluence.egi.eu/display/EGIBG/NGI+International+Liaisons.



Introduction

EGI members (NGIs and EIROs) as well as EGI partner states/regions delegate International Liaisons to EGI. These International Laisions (NILs) have a key networking role in the EGI community. NILs work together with the EGI Foundation and with each other to link non-operational activities from their own country/institute/region with the rest of the EGI community. One of the most important of these non-operational activities is Engagement with new communities. With the NIL acting as a spearhead, each country (or EIRO or region) is able to connect its non-operational activities to the European landscape, and receive information on how the European landscape evolves. NILs demonstrate the added value of the country to new communities and to other NGIs. NILs connect the following activities from the national level to the European level (NILs don't necessarily perform these activities, but are connected to the people who do within the local NGI):

  • Proactive outreach to new communities
  • Promotion and communication of NGI services, EGI services
  • Training, workshops
  • Support for new users/communities

EGI defines and implements its Engagement Plan with the help of the NILs.

The NIL role and about their coordination within EGI

  • The NILs are subscribed to the <ngi-international-liaisons@mailman.egi.eu> email list which is used for coordination and discussion of activities. List archive is available at https://mailman.egi.eu/mailman/private/ngi-international-liaisons/.
  • The NILs are involved in the development and implementation of EGI's Engagement Strategy (http://go.egi.eu/engagementstrategy), ie. reaching out to new communities, collecting and analysing their requirements, setting up support for them.
    • Abstract of the EGI Engagement Strategy document: EGI Engagement reaches out to scientific communities, to national initiatives, to the long tail of science as well as to SMEs and industry and supports them in tackling scientific challenges using reliable and innovative ICT services and solutions. The Engagement Strategy coordinates EGI members’ activities to accomplish this complex mission, ultimately contributing to the European effort of building a sustainable digital e-infrastructure ecosystem for research. The Engagement Strategy document describes the specific goals of the EGI engagement activity, details the various tasks that this activity involves, provides information about the human networks and online resources and tools that help the community implement this strategy, as well as provides an action plan for the upcoming months.
  • Regular teleconferences are organised for the NILs - Currently with a bi-monthly freqency. Future and past events are available at https://indico.egi.eu/indico/categoryDisplay.py?categId=36. The meetings provide an important forum to update each other about recent development and future plans concerning national and European-level community outreach and engagement activities. (A 5 min. slot is offered for every NIL to report at these meetings)
  • Face-to-face meetings are organised twice per year for the NILs. These meetings are co-located with the main EGI Forums/Conferences (one in the spring and one in the autumn).
  • Newsletter emails are sent to the NILs' email list (~every 2/3 weeks) by Gergely Sipos to inform the NILs about the latest news from the EGI engagement and user support area.
  • The NIL activity is coordinated by the Customer and Technical Outreach Manager of EGI.eu, Gergely Sipos (gergely.sipos@egi.eu).

Resources for the NILs - To be successful in reaching out and supporting new communities

List of NILs

International Liaisons from EGI members (NGIs and EIROs)

  • CERN:
    • Bob Jones
  • Belgium:
    • Stephane Gerard, VUB
    • Olivier Devroede, VUB
  • Bulgaria:
    • Todor Gurov, IICT-BAS
    • Aneta Karaivanova, IICT-BAS
  • Croatia:
    • Dobriša Dobrenić, SRCE
    • Emir Imamagic, SRCE
  • Czech Republic:
    • Ivana Křenková, CESNET
    • Luděk Matyska, CESNET
  • Estonia
    • Ivar Koppel, University of Tartu
  • France
    • Genevieve Romier, CNRS
  • Republic of North Macedonia
    • Anastas Mishev, UKIM
    • Boro Jakimovski, UKIM
  • Greece
    • Kostas Koumantaros, GRNET
  • Italy
    • Luciano Gaido, INFN
    • Laura Perini, INFN
    • Davide Salomoni, INFN
  • Macedonia
    • Anastas Mishev, UKIM
  • Poland
    • Tomasz Piontek, ICBP
    • Mariusz Sterzel, CYFRONET
  • Portugal
    • João António Tomásio Pina, LIP
  • Romania
    • Mihnea Dulea, Horia Hulubei National Institute for Physics and Nuclear Engineering
  • Slovakia
    • Ladislav Hluchý, IISAS
  • Slovenia
    • Jan Jona Javorsek, JSI
  • Spain
    • Isabel Campos Plasencia, CSIC
  • Switzerland
    • Alex Upton Switzerland ETHZ
    • Dean Flanders, SwiNG
  • Turkey
    • Hakan Bayındır, TUBITAK
    • Feyza Eryol, TUBITAK
    • Onur Temizsoylu, TUBITAK
  • United Kingdom
    • Ian Collier, STFC

EGI members without a NIL

  • Netherlands
  • Sweden

Liaison contact points in other countries and regions

  • Armenia:
    • Hrachya Astsatryan, IIAP NAS RA
  • Belorus
    • Serge A. Salamanka, UIIP NASB
  • Cyprus
    • Marios Dikaiakos, UCY
    • Maria Poveda, UCY
  • Estonia, ETAIS
    • Ivar Koppel, University of Tartu
  • Denmark, UCPH
    • Martin Laimonis Veicherts, UCPH
    • Anders Waananen,
  • Georgia
    • Nugzar Gamtsemlidze, GRENA
    • Ramaz Kvatadze, GRENA
  • Hungary
    • Robert Lovas, MTA SZTAKI
  • Israel
    • Zivan Yoash, IUCC
  • Latvia
    • Dana Ludviga, IMCS-UL
    • Leo Trukšāns, IMCS-UL
  • Lithuania
    • Jelena Tamuliene, VU
  • Moldova
    • Petru Bogatencov, RENAM
    • Nicolai Iliuha, RENAM
  • Republic of Serbia
    • Antun Balaz, IPB
    • Dusan Vudragovic, IPB
  • Russia
    • Ilyin Viacheslav, E-ARENA
    • Korenkov Vladimir, JINR
  • South Korea
    • Soonwook Hwang, KISTI
    • Jik-Soo Kim, KISTI
  • Taiwan
    • Vicky Huang, AS
    • Simon C. Lin, AS
  • Ukraine
    • Andrii Golovynskyi, V. Glushkov Institute of Cybernetics NAS of Ukraine
  • EMBL-EBI
    • Steven Newhouse

Confirmed contacts to handle EGI Service Orders

  • France: NIL (see above)
  • Turkey: grid-teknik@ulakbim.gov.tr (This includes also the NILs)
  • Italy: Luciano Gaido, Davide Salomoni and Laura Perini (see above)
  • Belgium: Stephane GERARD and Olivier Devroede (see above)


Meetings and Minutes

News & Actions

Processes

Establishing a new Virtual Team

1. The request to form a Virtual Team can come from any NGI or EGI.eu. The request must be sent to the vtc@egi.eu email address and it must describe:

  • the title of the project
  • the goal of the project (What is its expected output?)
  • the resources being requested (What skillset does the Virtual Team aim to gather from NGIs?)
  • the potential value of the project to EGI
  • the expected duration of the project and effort required
  • dates for the final and any intermediate outputs

2. The request is reviewed by the EGI-Engage project Activity Management Board members based on clarity, completeness and achieve-ability. The request is sent back for refinement if it is not clear, not complete or not achievable. The technical content is not reviewed at this stage. Rejected requests can be resubmitted after modification and/or improvement.

3. After a project is accepted it gets an entry in the "Active Virtual Teams" section of this site and a request to join the project is circulated to the NGI International Liaisons (NILs). The NILs make sure that the NGI as a whole or appropriate individuals or teams within the NGIs respond to the participation request. The NGI decision process is treated as a black box. Some NGI International Liaison may decide on their own on participation, others may need approval from NGI Coordinator or from NGI members. Note that because Virtual Teams have a relatively short lifetime, the window of opportunity for NGIs to respond is expected to be short too.

4. The positive answer from at least two NGIs is enough to run a Virtual Team. Virtual Teams with one NGI cannot be active within this framework. The leader of the Virtual Team must be an individual from an NGI or from EGI.eu. If the team is lead by an NGI member then an "EGI.eu buddy" is provided for the team to facilitate the integration into the EGI ecosystem.

Running a Virtual Team

  • The Virtual Teams need to run themselves and can choose management and meeting structure, methods and tools that are most suitable for them.
  • The leader of the Virtual Team must be an individual from an NGI or from EGI.eu with support from his/her hosting organisation. If the team is lead by an NGI member then an "EGI.eu buddy" is provided for the team to facilitate the integration into the EGI ecosystem.
  • Each Virtual Team has an entry in the EGI Wiki where - following a pre-defined template - the team must provide information about its goals, members and progress.
  • Each Virtual Team is provided with an email list under the mailman.egi.eu domain. The Virtual Team leader(s) can subscribe and remove members.
  • Virtual Teams can use the EGI Requirements Tracker, Applications Database, Indico, Training Marketplace, Helpdesk, Audio/Video conference system and other user-facing services to track issues, applications, events, organise meetings, etc.
  • Virtual Teams are reported in the EGI-Engage progress reports (towards the European Commission and the general public).
  • Virtual Teams are expected to provide monthly updates to the EGI Engagement board during the board's monthly teleconferences.
  • Virtual Teams are expected and will be invited to contribute to EGI Newsletters, Leaflets, Workshops or other dissemination and marketing materials and events.

Templates

References