NIST has released recommendations for automated Web services security. The announcement was published in GCN last week and the recommendations are open to comments. Information for sending comments is at the end of the GCN article. Comments need to be sent by October 30.
The Council on Competitiveness will unveil a “new study regarding public-private partnerships that leverage supercomputing resources funded by the federal government for greater industry strength” on September 7 during the Third High Performance Computing Users Conference. The announcement can be found on HPC Wire and we’ll post more details once the study is released.
The computing community has an image problem. This is not news to long-time readers of this blog — or indeed, anyone who has followed coverage of IT-related stories in the popular press. Dropping enrollment rates and dropping interest in computing are pretty good signs that that there is a perception among an increasing number of undergraduate (and probably younger) students that a career in computing isn’t as rewarding as a career in some other discipline. The reasons for this perception could be many — belief that a career in computing means long, lonely hours staring at an LCD screen; that the field is “mature,” and computing a “solved” problem; that the problems aren’t intellectually stimulating enough; or that the best IT jobs will get outsourced overseas. In previousposts, we’ve described some of the evidence out there that debunks these perceptions, yet they persist.
Fortunately, the computing community isn’t standing still. As we wrote last August:
At the Computing Leadership Summit convened by CRA last February, a large and diverse group of stakeholders — including all the major computing societies, representatives from PITAC, NSF and the National Academies, and industry reps from Google, HP, IBM, Lucent, Microsoft, Sun, TechNet and others (complete list and summary here (pdf)) — committed to addressing two key issues facing computing: the current concerns of research funding support and computing’s “image” problem. Task forces have been formed, chairmen named (Edward Lazowska of U of Washington heads the research funding task force; Rick Rashid of Microsoft heads the “image” task force), and the work is underway. As the summary of the summit demonstrates, no ideas or possible avenues are off the table…. We’ll report more on the effort as it moves forward.
Rashid and the Image Task force have been pretty busy. Rick detailed some of the Task Force’s conclusions at CRA’s Snowbird conference back in June (which Cameron Wilson of ACM has done a good job summarizing). One of the key conclusions, though, was that addressing this problem in a coordinated way is going to be a full-time job. And the Task Force members felt committed enough addressing the problem that they agreed to contribute their own resources to fund the position and get to work.
That position is now ready to be filled. From the job description:
The person in this position will become a national spokesperson for the computing discipline, working with executive level leaders from across the nation in industry, academia, government and not-for-profit organizations. Work will include forming strategic relationships with corporations, negotiating with academic institutions to shepherd computer science curricular reform, talking to the press, and promoting information technologies to the public. The position will plan and lead a national research and information gathering effort and use the results to define a strategy to encourage more young people to enter information technology, as well as create a greater public understanding of IT. The position will create and lead the roll out of a national awareness campaign and will be personally involved with changing the image of IT, through numerous speaking engagements, conference panels, outreach activities and written articles. This position is accountable for progress to the Task Force on the Image of IT (whose members represent such distinguished institutions as AAAI, ACM, CRA, Hewlett Packard, IEEE-CS, Intel, Microsoft, SIAM, and USENIX) and is housed in the National Center for Women & Information Technology (NCWIT) and ATLAS Institute.
For complete details, see the full posting. Please forward the link to anyone you think may qualify….
Interesting article on Enterprise Systems IT salary survey in Monday’s InfoWorld. The survey “found that although application programmers scored the largest pay increases, at almost 9 percent, all IT staff positions with applications and system responsibilities had year-to-year jumps in base salary.”
Other interesting stats from the survey include:
Application programmers received the biggest salary increases, 8.7 percent over last year
Systems administrators received the smallest increase, 2 percent over last year but their annual bonuses jumped 15 percent
The survey results are being released over the next four weeks at Enterprise Systems web site. The first round of data can be found here.
New legislation has been introduced in the Senate to expand the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program. While this is not in and of itself a bad thing, the correlating increase in the budget could actually hit the research agencies hard. The SBIR program is funded by a tax on federal research agencies (those doing more than $100,000,000 in R&D). Currently the agencies are required to contribute a minimum 2.5 percent of their total budget to the SBIR program. The new legislation, S. 3778 – the Small Business Reauthorization and Improvements Act of 2006, would increase the percentage to a minimum of 3 percent in FY 2007 and increase it by 0.5 percent each fiscal year until it reaches 5 percent in 2011 where it would remain until legislation is passed to increase it again.
The irony in this proposal is that it will actually decrease the amount of money the agencies can spend on their core research missions, which may have impacts on the nation’s innovative capacity beyond any expansion of the SBIR program. At a time when Congress and the Administration seem to have agreed on the importance of increasing support for fundamental research as a way to improve the environment for innovation and help ensure the nation’s continued competitiveness, this proposal actually represents a step backwards.
The science advocacy community is beginning to organize to respond to this new legislation. We will keep you posted here when more details on the effort become available.
Last week the Senate Appropriations Committee (SAC) approved its version of the FY 2007 Defense Appropriations bill and once again, as they did last year, included a significant cut to DARPA’s “Cognitive Computing” program. In addition, the SAC approved cuts to both the “Information and Communications Technology” account and even the “Computer Science Study Group” activity at DARPA.
Here are the details: Information and Communications Technology: President requested $243 million in his budget for ICT in FY 07, an increase of $47 million (or 24 percent) over FY 06.
The House included $243 million in their version of the FY 07 Defense Approps.
The SAC approved $229 million, a cut of $13.4 million, or 5 percent, vs. the request — an increase of $34 million over FY 06 (17 percent).
Programs that would suffer cuts are “Responsive Computing Architectures” (-$3.9 million), “Security-Aware Systems” (-$3 million) and “Automated Speech and Text Exploitation in Multiple Languages” (-$6.5 million). Cognitive Computing Systems: The President requested $220 million for FY 07, an increase of $57 million (35 percent) over FY 06.
The House included the full $220 million in their bill.
The SAC approved $149 million, a cut of $70.8 million (32 percent) vs. the request, and a cut of $14 million over FY 06 (9 percent).
Programs targeted are “Integrated Cognitive Systems” (-$60 million), “Learning Locomotion and Navigation,” (-$3.8 million) and “Improved Warfighter Information Processing” (-$7 million).
In addition, SAC cut the Computer Science Study Group at DARPA — established this year to help expose young faculty to DOD-oriented problems in computer science — from the requested level of $6.6 million in FY 07 to $3 million.
This is obviously bad news. While the ICT cut is really just the slowing of the rate of growth of ICT programs, the cuts to Cognitive Computing represent a real scaling back of the program — back to FY 05 budget levels.
CRA will be working to oppose the cuts along with representatives from a number of the institutions affected. (The cut to the Integrated Cognitive Systems account alone would impact more than 20 universities and research institutions.)
The SAC bill may come before the Senate as early as Tuesday, August 1st. Senate leadership hopes to have debate on the bill wrapped up by the end of the week, before Congress sets off on its annual August recess. The next chance to contest the cut would then be during the conference for the bill, which could happen in September.
Keep a watch here for the latest details in the effort to oppose the cuts. The case we laid out last year remains true today:
Research in learning, reasoning, and cognitive systems is focused on intelligent intrepretations of signals and data, on controlling unmanned vehicles, and on amplifying human effectiveness. Its aim is to reduce U.S. casualties by providing improved command and control and tactical planning against adversaries, as well as improved training systems. Work in this area includes research responsible for the Command Post of the Future (CPOF) — a software system currently deployed and very widely-used in Iraq to coordinate battle plans and integrate multiple intelligence reports, providing U.S. forces the capability to plan, execute and replan much faster than the enemy’s decision cycle and cited by Secretary Rumsfeld as the major contributor to victory in the first phase of Operation Iraqi Freedom. It’s also cricital to the research and development of autonomous, unmanned vehicles that amplify our warfighting capability while reducing the number of U.S. forces in harm’s way. Cutting support so significantly for this research will hamper advancements in defense-related IT in the short- and long-term and will slow technological advancements essential to current and future military operations in Iraq and around the globe.
It also runs completely counter to recent concerns of Congress, PITAC and the DOD’s Defense Science Board. All three bodies have raised strong concerns about the shift of DARPA resources away from fundamental research at universities, especially in information technology. The Cognitive Computing program is one area where DARPA has responded positively to these concerns.
Anyway, this is a bit of a dark cloud over the otherwise very positive news we’ve received all year long (topped by the House and Senate both approving full funding for the ACI in their approps bills), but we’ve got a reasonable chance of mitigating this somewhat, provided we start moving now. Update: (Aug 1, 2006) — It appears now that the Senate won’t be able to begin consideration of its version of the FY 2007 Defense Appropriations bill until after the August recess — which is good news because it gives us a bit more time. However, it also means we’re a bit more likely to see another omnibus appropriations bill at the end of the session, which poses its own set of challenges…. Update 2: (Aug 1, 2006, 9:30 pm) — So, I should have known that as soon as I posted the update above, the situation would change. The Defense Appropriations bill came to the floor this afternoon and debate will continue for the remainder of the week. The plan is to finish it before the August recess begins — which means the Senate leadership would like to have it done by Friday or the weekend. One positive is an amendment planned by Sens. Ted Kennedy (D-MA) and Susan Collins (R-ME) that would appropriate an additional $45 million for basic research accounts at DOD. Here are the details:
$12 million in additional funds for Army University Research Initiatives (PE 0601103A)
$13 million in additional funds for Navy URI (PE 0601103N)
$5 million in additional funds for Air Force URI (PE 0601103F)
$6 million in additional funds for the DARPA (PE 0601101E) for its University Research Program in Computer Science and Cybersecurity
$9 million in additional funds for the SMART National Defense Education Program (PE 0601120D8Z)
This amendment is very similar to an amendment Kennedy and Collins introduced to the Defense Authorization early this summer, which passed unanimously after gaining the co-sponsorship of 21 other senators. We’ll pass along further details as we get them. Update 3: (August 7th) — The Senate didn’t manage to finish up debate on the Defense Approps bill before the recess, so they’ll take the bill up again when they return in September. No word on the fate of the Kennedy-Collins amendment, but it appears we’ve got some time to buttress support for it and for heading off the cuts to Cognitive Computing and ICT….
Information Week spent a great deal of its July 17 issue discussing the IT workforce shortage and a variety of issues surrounding it. One of the articles, Computer Classes Seen as Shop Class” at Many Schools, discusses an area of the talent pipeline that is contributing to the image problem of IT. The article starts:
If a kid takes a computer networking class as an elective, will college admissions departments look at it in the same spirit as an advanced physics class–or more akin to wood shop?
It goes on to discuss the different types of computer related courses that can be offered and the constraints that high schools are under as well as an example of a company program that works with schools on computer curriculum. However, it then states the disparity that while some computer classes are in the advanced placement or honors curriculum, others are often in the technical/vocational curriculum which makes parents steer their college-bound children away.
The question is, of course, a much more complicated one than just whether or not computer courses should be considered honors or vocational in high school. But it does raise the issue of how invasive the image problem that computer science suffers can be and the depth of the problem that needs to be addressed.
One of the most effective “tools” the science advocacy community has in making the case for federal support of science is, well, scientists. Those occasions in which researchers are able to sit down with Members of Congress and discuss their own work do more to advance the cause of science than five meetings with staff like me. There are a couple of reasons for this. One, scientists tend to be pretty smart and well-spoken. They’ve thought a lot about their work and usually understand how to explain it to lay people (despite the usual stereotypes about scientists, it’s a rare exception to this rule). More importantly, they’re usually pretty good at conveying why their work matters, and to do it in a way that makes any passion they feel for the research palpable. If they have the opportunity to spend 5, 10, 15 minutes with a Member, it’s pretty good odds that Member will leave the meeting with a better appreciation for the work and a sense of connection to the researcher.
And that’s no small thing. When the time comes to make decisions about priorities, a Member’s personal connection to a researcher, an understanding of what research goes on in his or her district, and an understanding of the long-term benefits of that research all can help swing the balance in favor of science. They are by no means the only factors that go into that decision, but they’re certainly weights we want to have on our side of the balance.
So I’m especially pleased to point out occasions when members of our community take time out of their schedules to spend time in Washington, mingling with policymakers and trying to convey a little of what it is they do. One occasion CRA tries to takeadvantage of everyyear is the Coalition for National Science Funding’s Capitol Hill Science Exhibition and Reception, held this year on June 7th.
Each year, CNSF brings together 30-35 of its members to stage a science fair of sorts on Capitol Hill for Members of Congress and their staff as a way to highlight the important and interesting work enabled by the federal investment in basic research at the National Science Foundation. This year, CRA was well-represented at the Exhibition by Lucy Sanders and Katie Ertz from the National Center for Women and Information Technology (NCWIT).
The NCWIT display occupied a unique niche at this year’s exhibition. While the great majority of booths highlighted particular research efforts of NSF, NCWIT’s was one of the few (if the only) to focus on NSF’s broader role of developing the science and engineering workforce. In particular, Lucy and Katie were able to bring some attention to the continued need to focus on increasing the participation of underrepresented populations within that workforce. The event was quite well-attended and Lucy and Katie found a number of willing listeners among Members of Congress (like Rep. Vern Ehlers (R-MI), seen at left), key congressional staffers, and a surprising number of agency personnel. There were times when it was quite difficult to move around the room, the bodies were packed so tightly. CNSF counted more than 300 attendees this year, including six Members of Congress, despite a very busy day in the House — a very encouraging symbolic display of support for science.
Thanks to Lucy and Katie for their willingness to travel to DC and participate and for making the case so effectively. They join a growing list of CRA member institutions who have participated in CNSF Exhibitions, including James Hendler and his colleagues from the Mind Lab at the University of Marylandin 2005, DK Panda and his students from Ohio State University in 2004, Tim Finin and his colleagues and students from the University of Maryland Baltimore County in 2003, and Thad Starner and Janet Kolodner of Georgia Tech in 2002. If you’re at a CRA-member institution and are interested in showing of your NSF-sponsored research at a future Hill event, drop me a line!
This is also a reminder that it’s not too late to participate in CNSF’s upcoming Fall Congressional Visits Day, scheduled for September 13, 2006 (with an orientation session on September 12th). This is a great opportunity to make sure computing researchers are represented as the research community goes up to the Hill to speak with one voice about the importance of the federal role in supporting research. CRA’s Melissa Norr has all the details.
You may recall that Senator John Ensign (R-NV) promised a hearing on high performance computing back in May while passing innovation legislation out of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation. This morning the Subcommittee on Technology, Innovation, and Competitiveness held a hearing on high performance computing that Sen. Ensign, the subcommittee chair, and Senator Maria Cantwell (D-WA) engaged in. Sen. Ensign acknowledged that he had little knowledge of high performance computing but asked questions and seemed very interested in what policies could help keep the US in a leadership position in the field. The seven witnesses all discussed the importance of high performance computing and the need for government funding to continue and increase to keep a competitive edge. Formal testimony is available online and a web cast should be available in a few days.
Everyone at the hearing tied the advances in high performance computing to Americas competitiveness. One example was when Michael Garrett of Boeing said that the companys ability to meet its performance goals was due, in part, to high performance computing and that had allowed it an edge over competitors in Europe. A couple of the witnesses put great emphasis on networking in high performance computing as opposed to hardware or even software. At the end of the meeting Sen. Ensign asked if Congress needs to direct NIH on how to spend money to get it to invest in high performance computing. Dr. Stanley Burt of the Advanced Biomedical Computing Center said Congress should do so and that collaboration and cross training of scientists is needed for the future of scientific research in biology using high performance computing. Burt said computational biology needs to get to the level that computational physics is currently at as a field.
…and they look pretty good! Better than we thought, certainly.
You’ll recall we worried that the President’s American Competitiveness Initiative would face problems in the Senate due to the need to pay for cuts to NOAA and NASA in the President’s budget. But the Senate Commerce, Justice, Science Appropriations Subcommitteemarked up their bill today (link doesn’t render on my Mac, however) and managed to get NOAA $1.1 billion more than the House included in their bill, and about $126 million more for NASA, without carving it out of the other science agencies. NSF and NIST managed to make it out of the markup with significant increases still intact. I haven’t seen the mark yet, so I don’t know all the details. But the short story appears to be that NIST will get its requested level and NSF gets almost everything requested — about $29 million shy of the request, actually — but still a healthy increase of $410 million over FY 06.
Here’s the detail the committee’s released so far (comparisons to the House bill in parentheses):
NIST: $764 million for the National Institute of Standards and Technology (vs. $627 million in the House bill) — $11.9 million above the FY06 enacted level and $182 million above the budget request. $106 million for the Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP) (vs. $92 million in the House). No mention of ATP funding (zeroed in the House). It’s not clear how much of that $764 million would go to the NIST Labs, but considering the House included the full $104 million called for in the ACI in their smaller allocation, odds are decent that NIST Labs will actually receive their requested funding.
NSF: $5.99 billion for National Science Foundation: $410 million above the FY06 enacted level; $29 million less than the House bill.
NOAA: $4.43 billion for National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (vs. $3.4 billion in the House bill): $536 million above the FY06 enacted level, excluding supplemental appropriations, and $753 million above the budget request.
NASA: $16.8 billion for National Aeronautics and Space Administration (vs. $16.7 billion in the House): $126 million above the FY06 enacted level.
If these numbers survive the full committee markup — scheduled for Thursday — and then again on the Senate floor, then NSF and NIST (and likely DOE Office of Science, when it gets its turn in the Energy and Water bill) will just about be assured of getting nearly the level of increase called for by the President back in January. The only possible monkey wrenches at that point — at least that I can see — would be Presidential veto (unlikely) or some sort of appropriations meltdown that would lead to another across-the-board cut as happened last year. Even then, it’s hard to imagine an across-the-board cut stunting much of the growth NSF, NIST and DOE SC should experience as a result of these appropriations.
Further good news is a recent indication from OMB that the out-year increases for ACI called for in the President’s FY07 budget are likely to be realized, at least in the next budget (FY 08) — meaning the Administration doesn’t see ACI as a one-shot deal; it’s committed to a multi-year increase for these agencies.
So, we’re in pretty good shape at the moment (knocking on wood).
Of course, we’ll have more details as they come available….
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NIST Security Recommendations for Automated Web Services
/In: Research, Security /by MelissaNorrNIST has released recommendations for automated Web services security. The announcement was published in GCN last week and the recommendations are open to comments. Information for sending comments is at the end of the GCN article. Comments need to be sent by October 30.
New Supercomputing Study to be Released Sept. 7
/In: Misc., R&D in the Press, Research /by MelissaNorrThe Council on Competitiveness will unveil a “new study regarding public-private partnerships that leverage supercomputing resources funded by the federal government for greater industry strength” on September 7 during the Third High Performance Computing Users Conference. The announcement can be found on HPC Wire and we’ll post more details once the study is released.
Position Opening: IT “Image” Strategist
/In: People /by Peter HarshaThe computing community has an image problem. This is not news to long-time readers of this blog — or indeed, anyone who has followed coverage of IT-related stories in the popular press. Dropping enrollment rates and dropping interest in computing are pretty good signs that that there is a perception among an increasing number of undergraduate (and probably younger) students that a career in computing isn’t as rewarding as a career in some other discipline. The reasons for this perception could be many — belief that a career in computing means long, lonely hours staring at an LCD screen; that the field is “mature,” and computing a “solved” problem; that the problems aren’t intellectually stimulating enough; or that the best IT jobs will get outsourced overseas. In previous posts, we’ve described some of the evidence out there that debunks these perceptions, yet they persist.
Fortunately, the computing community isn’t standing still. As we wrote last August:
Rashid and the Image Task force have been pretty busy. Rick detailed some of the Task Force’s conclusions at CRA’s Snowbird conference back in June (which Cameron Wilson of ACM has done a good job summarizing). One of the key conclusions, though, was that addressing this problem in a coordinated way is going to be a full-time job. And the Task Force members felt committed enough addressing the problem that they agreed to contribute their own resources to fund the position and get to work.
That position is now ready to be filled. From the job description:
For complete details, see the full posting. Please forward the link to anyone you think may qualify….
IT Salary Survey
/In: Misc. /by MelissaNorrInteresting article on Enterprise Systems IT salary survey in Monday’s InfoWorld. The survey “found that although application programmers scored the largest pay increases, at almost 9 percent, all IT staff positions with applications and system responsibilities had year-to-year jumps in base salary.”
Other interesting stats from the survey include:
The survey results are being released over the next four weeks at Enterprise Systems web site. The first round of data can be found here.
SBIR Increase from Research Agencies Budgets
/In: American Competitiveness Initiative, Funding, FY07 Appropriations, Research /by MelissaNorrNew legislation has been introduced in the Senate to expand the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program. While this is not in and of itself a bad thing, the correlating increase in the budget could actually hit the research agencies hard. The SBIR program is funded by a tax on federal research agencies (those doing more than $100,000,000 in R&D). Currently the agencies are required to contribute a minimum 2.5 percent of their total budget to the SBIR program. The new legislation, S. 3778 – the Small Business Reauthorization and Improvements Act of 2006, would increase the percentage to a minimum of 3 percent in FY 2007 and increase it by 0.5 percent each fiscal year until it reaches 5 percent in 2011 where it would remain until legislation is passed to increase it again.
The irony in this proposal is that it will actually decrease the amount of money the agencies can spend on their core research missions, which may have impacts on the nation’s innovative capacity beyond any expansion of the SBIR program. At a time when Congress and the Administration seem to have agreed on the importance of increasing support for fundamental research as a way to improve the environment for innovation and help ensure the nation’s continued competitiveness, this proposal actually represents a step backwards.
The science advocacy community is beginning to organize to respond to this new legislation. We will keep you posted here when more details on the effort become available.
Senate Appropriators Target Cognitive Computing, IT Research Again
/In: Funding, FY07 Appropriations, Policy /by Peter HarshaLast week the Senate Appropriations Committee (SAC) approved its version of the FY 2007 Defense Appropriations bill and once again, as they did last year, included a significant cut to DARPA’s “Cognitive Computing” program. In addition, the SAC approved cuts to both the “Information and Communications Technology” account and even the “Computer Science Study Group” activity at DARPA.
Here are the details:
Information and Communications Technology: President requested $243 million in his budget for ICT in FY 07, an increase of $47 million (or 24 percent) over FY 06.
The House included $243 million in their version of the FY 07 Defense Approps.
The SAC approved $229 million, a cut of $13.4 million, or 5 percent, vs. the request — an increase of $34 million over FY 06 (17 percent).
Programs that would suffer cuts are “Responsive Computing Architectures” (-$3.9 million), “Security-Aware Systems” (-$3 million) and “Automated Speech and Text Exploitation in Multiple Languages” (-$6.5 million).
Cognitive Computing Systems: The President requested $220 million for FY 07, an increase of $57 million (35 percent) over FY 06.
The House included the full $220 million in their bill.
The SAC approved $149 million, a cut of $70.8 million (32 percent) vs. the request, and a cut of $14 million over FY 06 (9 percent).
Programs targeted are “Integrated Cognitive Systems” (-$60 million), “Learning Locomotion and Navigation,” (-$3.8 million) and “Improved Warfighter Information Processing” (-$7 million).
In addition, SAC cut the Computer Science Study Group at DARPA — established this year to help expose young faculty to DOD-oriented problems in computer science — from the requested level of $6.6 million in FY 07 to $3 million.
This is obviously bad news. While the ICT cut is really just the slowing of the rate of growth of ICT programs, the cuts to Cognitive Computing represent a real scaling back of the program — back to FY 05 budget levels.
CRA will be working to oppose the cuts along with representatives from a number of the institutions affected. (The cut to the Integrated Cognitive Systems account alone would impact more than 20 universities and research institutions.)
The SAC bill may come before the Senate as early as Tuesday, August 1st. Senate leadership hopes to have debate on the bill wrapped up by the end of the week, before Congress sets off on its annual August recess. The next chance to contest the cut would then be during the conference for the bill, which could happen in September.
Keep a watch here for the latest details in the effort to oppose the cuts. The case we laid out last year remains true today:
Anyway, this is a bit of a dark cloud over the otherwise very positive news we’ve received all year long (topped by the House and Senate both approving full funding for the ACI in their approps bills), but we’ve got a reasonable chance of mitigating this somewhat, provided we start moving now.
Update: (Aug 1, 2006) — It appears now that the Senate won’t be able to begin consideration of its version of the FY 2007 Defense Appropriations bill until after the August recess — which is good news because it gives us a bit more time. However, it also means we’re a bit more likely to see another omnibus appropriations bill at the end of the session, which poses its own set of challenges….
Update 2: (Aug 1, 2006, 9:30 pm) — So, I should have known that as soon as I posted the update above, the situation would change. The Defense Appropriations bill came to the floor this afternoon and debate will continue for the remainder of the week. The plan is to finish it before the August recess begins — which means the Senate leadership would like to have it done by Friday or the weekend. One positive is an amendment planned by Sens. Ted Kennedy (D-MA) and Susan Collins (R-ME) that would appropriate an additional $45 million for basic research accounts at DOD. Here are the details:
This amendment is very similar to an amendment Kennedy and Collins introduced to the Defense Authorization early this summer, which passed unanimously after gaining the co-sponsorship of 21 other senators. We’ll pass along further details as we get them.
Update 3: (August 7th) — The Senate didn’t manage to finish up debate on the Defense Approps bill before the recess, so they’ll take the bill up again when they return in September. No word on the fate of the Kennedy-Collins amendment, but it appears we’ve got some time to buttress support for it and for heading off the cuts to Cognitive Computing and ICT….
Another Piece of the Image Problem
/In: Diversity in Computing, Misc., People /by MelissaNorrInformation Week spent a great deal of its July 17 issue discussing the IT workforce shortage and a variety of issues surrounding it. One of the articles, Computer Classes Seen as Shop Class” at Many Schools, discusses an area of the talent pipeline that is contributing to the image problem of IT. The article starts:
It goes on to discuss the different types of computer related courses that can be offered and the constraints that high schools are under as well as an example of a company program that works with schools on computer curriculum. However, it then states the disparity that while some computer classes are in the advanced placement or honors curriculum, others are often in the technical/vocational curriculum which makes parents steer their college-bound children away.
The question is, of course, a much more complicated one than just whether or not computer courses should be considered honors or vocational in high school. But it does raise the issue of how invasive the image problem that computer science suffers can be and the depth of the problem that needs to be addressed.
Getting Scientists and Congress to Mingle…
/In: CRA, Diversity in Computing, Events, Funding, People, Policy, Research /by Peter HarshaOne of the most effective “tools” the science advocacy community has in making the case for federal support of science is, well, scientists. Those occasions in which researchers are able to sit down with Members of Congress and discuss their own work do more to advance the cause of science than five meetings with staff like me. There are a couple of reasons for this. One, scientists tend to be pretty smart and well-spoken. They’ve thought a lot about their work and usually understand how to explain it to lay people (despite the usual stereotypes about scientists, it’s a rare exception to this rule). More importantly, they’re usually pretty good at conveying why their work matters, and to do it in a way that makes any passion they feel for the research palpable. If they have the opportunity to spend 5, 10, 15 minutes with a Member, it’s pretty good odds that Member will leave the meeting with a better appreciation for the work and a sense of connection to the researcher.
The event was quite well-attended and Lucy and Katie found a number of willing listeners among Members of Congress (like Rep. Vern Ehlers (R-MI), seen at left), key congressional staffers, and a surprising number of agency personnel. There were times when it was quite difficult to move around the room, the bodies were packed so tightly. CNSF counted more than 300 attendees this year, including six Members of Congress, despite a very busy day in the House — a very encouraging symbolic display of support for science.
And that’s no small thing. When the time comes to make decisions about priorities, a Member’s personal connection to a researcher, an understanding of what research goes on in his or her district, and an understanding of the long-term benefits of that research all can help swing the balance in favor of science. They are by no means the only factors that go into that decision, but they’re certainly weights we want to have on our side of the balance.
So I’m especially pleased to point out occasions when members of our community take time out of their schedules to spend time in Washington, mingling with policymakers and trying to convey a little of what it is they do. One occasion CRA tries to take advantage of every year is the Coalition for National Science Funding’s Capitol Hill Science Exhibition and Reception, held this year on June 7th.
Each year, CNSF brings together 30-35 of its members to stage a science fair of sorts on Capitol Hill for Members of Congress and their staff as a way to highlight the important and interesting work enabled by the federal investment in basic research at the National Science Foundation. This year, CRA was well-represented at the Exhibition by Lucy Sanders and Katie Ertz from the National Center for Women and Information Technology (NCWIT).
The NCWIT display occupied a unique niche at this year’s exhibition. While the great majority of booths highlighted particular research efforts of NSF, NCWIT’s was one of the few (if the only) to focus on NSF’s broader role of developing the science and engineering workforce. In particular, Lucy and Katie were able to bring some attention to the continued need to focus on increasing the participation of underrepresented populations within that workforce.
Thanks to Lucy and Katie for their willingness to travel to DC and participate and for making the case so effectively. They join a growing list of CRA member institutions who have participated in CNSF Exhibitions, including James Hendler and his colleagues from the Mind Lab at the University of Marylandin 2005, DK Panda and his students from Ohio State University in 2004, Tim Finin and his colleagues and students from the University of Maryland Baltimore County in 2003, and Thad Starner and Janet Kolodner of Georgia Tech in 2002. If you’re at a CRA-member institution and are interested in showing of your NSF-sponsored research at a future Hill event, drop me a line!
This is also a reminder that it’s not too late to participate in CNSF’s upcoming Fall Congressional Visits Day, scheduled for September 13, 2006 (with an orientation session on September 12th). This is a great opportunity to make sure computing researchers are represented as the research community goes up to the Hill to speak with one voice about the importance of the federal role in supporting research. CRA’s Melissa Norr has all the details.
High Performance Computing Hearing
/In: Misc. /by MelissaNorrYou may recall that Senator John Ensign (R-NV) promised a hearing on high performance computing back in May while passing innovation legislation out of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation. This morning the Subcommittee on Technology, Innovation, and Competitiveness held a hearing on high performance computing that Sen. Ensign, the subcommittee chair, and Senator Maria Cantwell (D-WA) engaged in. Sen. Ensign acknowledged that he had little knowledge of high performance computing but asked questions and seemed very interested in what policies could help keep the US in a leadership position in the field. The seven witnesses all discussed the importance of high performance computing and the need for government funding to continue and increase to keep a competitive edge. Formal testimony is available online and a web cast should be available in a few days.
Everyone at the hearing tied the advances in high performance computing to Americas competitiveness. One example was when Michael Garrett of Boeing said that the companys ability to meet its performance goals was due, in part, to high performance computing and that had allowed it an edge over competitors in Europe. A couple of the witnesses put great emphasis on networking in high performance computing as opposed to hardware or even software. At the end of the meeting Sen. Ensign asked if Congress needs to direct NIH on how to spend money to get it to invest in high performance computing. Dr. Stanley Burt of the Advanced Biomedical Computing Center said Congress should do so and that collaboration and cross training of scientists is needed for the future of scientific research in biology using high performance computing. Burt said computational biology needs to get to the level that computational physics is currently at as a field.
First Details of Senate Commerce, Justice, Science Appropriations…
/In: American Competitiveness Initiative, Funding, FY07 Appropriations /by Peter Harsha…and they look pretty good! Better than we thought, certainly.
You’ll recall we worried that the President’s American Competitiveness Initiative would face problems in the Senate due to the need to pay for cuts to NOAA and NASA in the President’s budget. But the Senate Commerce, Justice, Science Appropriations Subcommittee marked up their bill today (link doesn’t render on my Mac, however) and managed to get NOAA $1.1 billion more than the House included in their bill, and about $126 million more for NASA, without carving it out of the other science agencies. NSF and NIST managed to make it out of the markup with significant increases still intact. I haven’t seen the mark yet, so I don’t know all the details. But the short story appears to be that NIST will get its requested level and NSF gets almost everything requested — about $29 million shy of the request, actually — but still a healthy increase of $410 million over FY 06.
Here’s the detail the committee’s released so far (comparisons to the House bill in parentheses):
If these numbers survive the full committee markup — scheduled for Thursday — and then again on the Senate floor, then NSF and NIST (and likely DOE Office of Science, when it gets its turn in the Energy and Water bill) will just about be assured of getting nearly the level of increase called for by the President back in January. The only possible monkey wrenches at that point — at least that I can see — would be Presidential veto (unlikely) or some sort of appropriations meltdown that would lead to another across-the-board cut as happened last year. Even then, it’s hard to imagine an across-the-board cut stunting much of the growth NSF, NIST and DOE SC should experience as a result of these appropriations.
Further good news is a recent indication from OMB that the out-year increases for ACI called for in the President’s FY07 budget are likely to be realized, at least in the next budget (FY 08) — meaning the Administration doesn’t see ACI as a one-shot deal; it’s committed to a multi-year increase for these agencies.
So, we’re in pretty good shape at the moment (knocking on wood).
Of course, we’ll have more details as they come available….