@inproceedings{ca7d8897b3e149ba934724be1449955e,
title = "Metrics of financial effectiveness: Return On Investment in XSEDE, a national cyberinfrastructure coordination and support organization",
abstract = "This paper explores the financial effectiveness of a national advanced computing support organization within the United States (US) called the eXtreme Science and Engineering Discovery Environment (XSEDE). XSEDE was funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) in 2011 to manage delivery of advanced computing support to researchers in the US working on non-classified research. In this paper, we describe the methodologies employed to calculate the return on investment (ROI) for governmental expenditures on XSEDE and present a lower bound on the US government's ROI for XSEDE from 2014 to 2020. For each year of the XSEDE project considered, XSEDE delivered measurable value to the US that exceeded the cost incurred by the Federal Government to fund XSEDE. That is, the US Federal Government's ROI for XSEDE is at least 1 each year. Over the course of the study period, the ROI for XSEDE rose from 0.99 to 1.78. This increase was due partly to our ability to assign a value to more and more of XSEDE's services over time and partly to the value of certain XSEDE services increasing over time. From 2014 to 2020, XSEDE offered an ROI of more than 1.5 in value for every 1.0 invested by the US Federal Government. Because our estimations were very conservative, this figure represents the lower bound of the value created by XSEDE. The most important part of {"}returns{"}created by XSEDE are the actual outcomes it enables in terms of education, enabling new discoveries, and supporting the creation of new inventions that improve quality of life. In future work we will use newly developed accounting methodologies to begin assessing the value of the outcomes of XSEDE.",
keywords = "Computer-Supported Collaborative Work, Return on Investment, XSEDE, cyberinfrastructure, eScience",
author = "Stewart, {Craig A.} and Costa, {Claudia M.} and Wernert, {Julie A.} and Hancock, {David Y.} and McMullen, {Donald F.} and Philip Blood and Robert Sinkovits and Susan Mehringer and Richard Knepper and Jeremy Fischer and Marques Bland and Gary Rogers and Peter Couvares and Terry Campbell and Harmony Jankowski and Winona Snapp-Childs and John Towns",
note = "The cost of XSEDE for each year from PY4 to PY9 is simply the actual annual expenditures of NSF grant award funds obtained from XSEDE{\textquoteright}s Program Office as shown in Table 2. For each year, then, the total cost of the entire XSEDE enterprise forms the denominator in the ROIproxy calculations. Note that in this analysis we are concerned with the financial effectiveness of XSEDE per se. We focus specifically on the costs and the value of the integrating and supporting functions of XSEDE rather than the computational and data-centric resources funded by the US Federal Government under distinct and separate funding actions. Presently, such resources include systems such as the Texas Advanced Computing Center{\textquoteright}s Stampede 1 and 2 systems, the Indiana University Pervasive Technology Institute{\textquoteright}s Jetstream 1 and 2 systems, the San Diego Supercomputing Center{\textquoteright}s Comet and Expanse systems, and the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center{\textquoteright}s Bridges 1 and 2 systems [21]. Neither the costs of these systems nor the {"}returns{"} that result from the use of these systems are included in this analysis. The value of XSEDE support for these systems to the people and institutions that use XSEDE-supported resources are included as aspects of the value of XSEDE. (US) called the eXtreme Science and Engineering Discovery Environment (XSEDE). XSEDE was funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) in 2011 to manage delivery of advanced computing support to researchers in the US working on non-classified research. In this paper, we describe the methodologies employed to calculate the return on investment (ROI) for governmental expenditures on XSEDE and present a lower bound on the US government{\textquoteright}s ROI for XSEDE from 2014 to 2020. For each year of the XSEDE project considered, XSEDE delivered measurable value to the US that exceeded the cost incurred by the Federal Government to fund XSEDE. That is, the US Federal Government{\textquoteright}s ROI for XSEDE is at least 1 each year. Over the course of the study period, the ROI for XSEDE rose from 0.99 to 1.78. This increase was due partly to our ability to assign a value to more and more of XSEDE{\textquoteright}s services over time and partly to the value of certain XSEDE services increasing over time. From 2014 to 2020, XSEDE offered an ROI of more than $1.5 in value for every $1.0 invested by the US Federal Government. Because our estimations were very conservative, this figure represents the lower bound of the value created by XSEDE. The most important part of {"}returns{"} created by XSEDE are the actual outcomes it enables in terms of education, enabling new discoveries, and supporting the creation of new inventions that improve quality of life. In future work we will use newly developed accounting methodologies to begin assessing the value of the outcomes of XSEDE.; 2022 Conference on Practice and Experience in Advanced Research Computing: Revolutionary: Computing, Connections, You, PEARC 2022 ; Conference date: 10-07-2022 Through 14-07-2022",
year = "2022",
month = jul,
day = "8",
doi = "10.1145/3491418.3530287",
language = "English (US)",
series = "PEARC 2022 Conference Series - Practice and Experience in Advanced Research Computing 2022 - Revolutionary: Computing, Connections, You",
publisher = "Association for Computing Machinery",
booktitle = "PEARC 2022 Conference Series - Practice and Experience in Advanced Research Computing 2022 - Revolutionary",
address = "United States",
}