Entrance Survey

An Entrance Survey is designed to be given at account creation or introductory training (if required for resource use) to all users of the ACI resource. This survey has two purposes:

Allow both the ACI-REF program and the institution to gather demographics of the user base
Understand user needs and experience

This document contains a suggested introduction and a variety of possible questions for an entrance survey. Not all questions included here would be necessary; facilitators should choose questions that are relevant to their resources. A sample implementation is here: https://docs.google.com/a/wisc.edu/forms/d/13k9AXGwl2Ih737bqzi_w4dj8IRYMs1CMAL0ZizbyPxI/edit

Introduction

Thanks for taking this moment to tell us a little about yourself and your background. We ask that you complete this survey as completely as possible. We ask that you be rigorously honest to enable a clearer evaluation of your current requirements and knowledge base, thus allowing for more targeted response to your needs.

Again, thank you for your input.

Question Bank

Name

Campus ID/username

Email address

Department

Lab/PI

How would you classify your lab’s domain science?

Chemistry
CS/Engineering
Physical Sciences
Life Sciences
Social Sciences
Math/Statistics
Other

In what area were you formally trained?

Chemistry
CS/Engineering
Physical Sciences
Life Sciences
Social Sciences
Math/Statistics
Other

Please tell us about your familiarity with the following computing concepts or methodologies:

(micro level)

	Never heard of it	Heard of it but never tried it	Novice	Use regularly	Fluent and experienced
Unix command line
Installing/compiling software in unix
Writing scripts
HPC/HTC/Cluster systems
Use of a batch/scheduling system
Cloud computing
Large disk arrays
Software defined (on-demand) networks

What software/programming language are you currently using (list specialized packages or libraries if relevant)?

What computing resources are you currently using to do your research?

personal computer
desktop workstation
research group resources (lab server, VM)
on-campus compute cluster
cloud (e.g. Amazon)
national computing centers (e.g. through XSEDE)
none
other

Describe a typical computing problem that you have run in the past:

description
input data size
output data size
time to run
number of cores
special requirements

How did you hear about us?

Would you be interested in meeting with a consultant (free of charge) anytime during the next six months to help you optimize your work?

__ Yes __ Maybe __ No

Is there anything else you’d like to share about your computing practices or methods?