Introducing the Research Facilitation Service

Research has become technologically complex and data-driven. It can be challenging to find the guidance, services, and tools that one needs. The new Research Facilitation Service (RFS) can help.

Through a partnership between the NC State University Libraries, the Office of Information Technology (OIT) and the Office of Research and Innovation (ORI), the RFS will provide a single point of contact for research computing and data questions, strengthen communication among the many research service providers around campus, support the continuous assessment of researcher needs, and offer advice on tools. The idea is not to add another service provider to campus, but to help each individual researcher connect with the specific providers they need.

RFS guidance helps researchers focus on their research
NC State offers a wide variety of computing and data services for researchers. Ranging from research data storage and high-performance computing to guidance around security and compliance requirements, and from data science and data visualization support to finding and acquiring public and licensed data sets, these services are offered by numerous units and departments scattered across the university. While it’s great to have so many options, it can be tough to narrow them down. And once you do, it's not always obvious how to get started or who to contact for help.

The RFS team—which currently includes a service director, a research facilitator, and a research solutions consultant—cuts through the confusion by partnering with a variety of service providers across campus to address research computing and data questions, freeing researchers to focus on their research. 

"The Research Facilitation Service is an important collaborative effort to provide the mix of expertise, research computing infrastructure, and data support services necessary for supporting increasingly complex and interdisciplinary research efforts," notes Greg Raschke, Senior Vice Provost and Director of Libraries.

The starting point for specialized expertise
The RFS will operate as an umbrella service to help facilitate other units’ relationships with one another and offer a single point of entry into a larger suite of services and support. 

“Modern data architectures involving cloud, storage, networking, and IT security require experts and compliance controls beyond the scope of a department or college. The University-level RFS supports those needs,” says Marc Hoit, Vice Chancellor for Information Technology & CIO.

The RFS will improve the awareness, coordination, and effectiveness of research computing and data services offered throughout campus, through four main functions:

• Research facilitation—providing an effective, consistent, and efficient pathway to research computing and data services
• Research solutions consulting—consulting with researchers and other IT staff to analyze computational, data, and networking resource requirements, make recommendations, and propose design solutions 
• Service provider and research support resource—connecting research computing and data service providers and offering a technical point of contact for research administrators
• Collector of strategic input—gathering feedback from researchers and research computing and data service providers to advocate for resources to meet new and evolving needs

“Our research enterprise is constantly finding innovative solutions to the world’s growing problems,” says Mladen Vouk, Vice Chancellor for Research and Innovation. “In working with the RFS, our researchers, faculty, and staff will be able to take their work to the next level by accessing appropriate discovery accelerators. Access to computing and data technologies will help those in the planning and discovery phases of research as well as those working on proposals and administration.”

Contact the RFS
The RFS is launching a pilot phase with the College of Sciences and plans to expand across campus throughout 2022–2023. During the pilot phase, those unaffiliated with the College of Sciences may contact the RFS team with general questions about the service. RFS staff may be able to assist non-CoS researchers, contingent on the team's current capacity.

RFS team
Susan Ivey, Director
Moira Downey, Research Facilitator
Chris Blanton, Research Solutions Consultant
group-research_facilitation@ncsu.edu
www.lib.ncsu.edu/rfs