Revisiting Computation for Research: Practices and Trends [abstract] (PDF)
Jeremiah Giordani*, Ziyang Xu*, Ella Colby, August Ning, Bhargav Reddy Godala, Ishita Chaturvedi, Shaowei Zhu, Yebin Chon, Greg Chan, Zujun Tan, Galen Collier, Jonathan D. Halverson, Enrico Armenio Deiana, Jasper Liang, Federico Sossai, Yian Su, Atmn Patel, Bangyen Pham, Nathan Greiner, Simone Campanoni, and David I. August
Proceedings of the International Conference for High Performance Computing, Networking, Storage and Analysis (SC), November 2024.
Accept Rate: 22% (102/449).
(*Co-first authors)

In the field of computational science, effectively supporting researchers necessitates a deep understanding of how they utilize computational resources. This study, building upon a decade-old survey that explored computational practices among researchers, aims to bridge the gap in understanding between those providing computational resources and the computational researchers. At the core of this study are over a hundred interviews with researchers, revisiting key questions from the earlier survey and introducing more open-ended questions to gather direct feedback. The findings illuminate the current landscape of research computation, highlighting trends and challenges through a comparison of past and present results, further enhanced by employing large language models for qualitative analysis. Given the rapidly evolving nature of computational science, maintaining the validity of results and interpretations requires regular updates, a task often filled with challenges. To facilitate frequent examination of the computational science landscape, this work introduces a toolkit outlining methodologies and insights designed to simplify future research efforts. With its contemporary findings and the toolkit for future updates, the study serves as a resource for researchers focused on enhancing computational systems. It deepens their understanding of user needs, guiding their efforts towards addressing the key challenges.