Modeling protein structures. Parsing educational statistics. Identifying sources of environmental contaminants. 

Projects like these have one thing in common—massive datasets. ITS Research Services is helping investigators and educators interpret, manage, and share big data. 

“In addition to high-performance computing and large-scale data storage, we’ve scaled up access to collaboration tools, data-analytics services, and training,” says Joe Hetrick, senior director of ITS Research Services. 

All these initiatives let research teams—and, often, course instructors and students—save time and money.  

Global Collaboration 

Nick Schnicker directs the Protein and Crystallography Facility housed in the Carver College of Medicine. The voluminous datasets used to construct models of proteins and other biomolecules can be challenging to store and share. 

The Research Data Collaboration Service (RDCS) offers a solution. It provides access to Globus, a University of Chicago-based platform for sharing data with collaborators around the world. 

“We can give users—either on campus or external—access to the data we’ve collected so they can transfer it to their own space,” Schnicker says. “We can’t afford to store large amounts of data for everyone, so this system allows much easier sharing.” 

In 2021, the Iowa’s 82 RDCS users transfer 50 million files—324 terabytes of data. “We’ve added the ability for users to create shares themselves, which lowers the overhead for collaboration,” says John Saxton, a systems architect with Research Services. 

RDCS also lets Schnicker and colleagues use cryo-electron (cryo-EM) microscopy to locate atoms within proteins. The university doesn’t have its own cryo-EM microscope, meaning the data-intensive studies need to be conducted at other institutions connected via Globus. 

“RDCS gives Iowa-based researchers access to this technique and helps make the case for expanding our capabilities,” Schnicker says.  

Data Presentation 

Another initiative, the Interactive Data Analytics Service (IDAS), offers a gateway to tools like RStudio and Jupyter Notebook that help users create visualizations, prepare documents, and otherwise present complex data. 

Users can access IDAS tools via any web browser, no VPN or software installation required. Iowa faculty and staff use the service in both teaching and research. 

During 2021, IDAS supported 34 classes and 934 student accounts. Course instructors typically use IDAS tools for in-class demonstrations, assignments, and exams. 

On the research side, IDAS supports nearly 450 accounts. About a third were created during 2021. 

“We’ve seen a significant increase in research requests and research usage of the service,” says Cody Johnson, systems architect with Research Services. “Researchers have been eager to take advantage of the environment’s capabilities to accelerate their work.” 

Brandon LeBeau, associate professor of educational measurement and statistics, uses IDAS mostly in teaching. The service lets students use cutting-edge statistical programming without learning any code. 

“I don’t need to have students install anything, find data files, or manage other details that can be challenging,” he says. “It’s saved my course a week of time and alleviated a lot of stress for students at the start of the semester.” 

Programming Foundation 

For research teams that do need to learn programming languages like R or Python, ITS Research Services offers free, ongoing workshops. 

Training covers topics like programming concepts, data-analysis workflows, and interactive visualization. Five workshops hosted during 2021 drew 419 participants. 

“We’ve offered these workshops virtually since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic,” says Giang Rudderham, a data science consultant with Research Services. “For 2021, we split each into multiple sessions to reduce Zoom fatigue and make the material easier to retain.” 

Keri Hornbuckle, professor of civil and environmental engineering, encourages trainees and research staff on the Iowa Superfund Research Program (ISRP) to take the workshops and regularly joins them herself. 

“The ISRP draws faculty and students from engineering, public health, medicine, pharmacy, and policy,” she says. “R and Python are useful across all these disciplines.” 
The Research Services workshops serve as valuable refreshers or no-cost opportunities get started with data-analysis programming.

“They are very well-organized, provide lots of opportunities to practice, and generate new ideas for research,” Hornbuckle says. 

Fostering new ideas is central to Research Services’ work. 

“We want to help seasoned researchers expand their view of what’s possible,” Rudderham says. “But we also want to provide on-ramps to show new researchers how they can integrate data-analysis into their work.”