Thomas Attebery
Staff Writer
Starting as soon as February, ISU’s new Research and Data Center should be online.
“It is basically a facility with a lot of computer servers to enable ISU’s research community to do research that they weren’t previously able to do. That community being faculty, staff and students,” said Keith Weber, director of ISU’s Geographic Information System Research and Training Center.
The data center has been in the works for about a decade and has cost $250,000 to build. The funding came from the Idaho State Board of Education’s Higher Education Research Council.
“All the Idaho universities get that funding, and so ISU has decided to use some of that money to create this research facility that will benefit a large number of people here,” Weber said.
The center will be located in the engineering building, but will be accessible to all departments. It is possible, however, that it may be more beneficial to some than others.
“I suppose that those who do what we call ‘compute intensive’ research will be drawn to it a little bit more, but it doesn’t have to be.” Weber said.
“If a researcher needs access to the internet through a data portal to share data and collaborate to others off-campus or across campus, they could certainly use those resources there.”
“Anyone can use it, what ISU wants is to grow research at this institution. There’s researchers in the fine arts, there’s researchers in the College of Science and Engineering, and I think ISU wants to help all those places and their students.”
Weber emphasizes that it is not intended for only the sciences, but it is worth noting that the fields which do more compute intensive research and require large amounts of data storage are the science, technology, engineering and mathematics fields.
“When you really think about it, a tremendous number of researchers at ISU are students,” Weber said. “When you look at the amount of graduate students, those seeking their master’s, doctoral, and post-doc; really a tremendous amount of the researchers here are students.”
According to Weber, a lot of other universities have something like this. “There’s similar things put in place in the University of Idaho, Boise State has invested in similar things and the University of Utah, so it’s a very, very common thing to do for universities, and we’re doing it now.”
There has been a multi-stage planning process behind the creation of this center, including meetings with faculty asking for input and surveys.
The facility is not yet fully up and running, but servers have already begun to be installed and a researcher who requests the use of one could start using it as early as February. It will be completely operational by the summer.
“I’ve been championing for such a thing here for quite some time,” Weber said. When funding for the project was approved, he was asked to help in the details and planning.
“It’s been a pretty big undertaking, but it pays off, because now we can reap the benefits.”
