IS&T Community Forum
Information Services and Technology (IS&T) will host its annual community forum on key strategic initiatives on Tuesday, Feb. 27 from 1 to 2:30 p.m. in W20-306. This forum will give community members an opportunity to hear about IS&T's FY08 strategic and operational plans, ask questions, and provide input. Among the planned topics of discussion are recent organizational changes, including IS&T's role in providing academic computing services, IT governance, and the future of the MIT network, with an update on Voice Over Internet Protocol services. For more information, check the IS&T web site at web.mit.edu/ist/ later this month.
Grant Submissions via CoeusLiteâ„¢
Grants.gov is dramatically changing the way research applications are submitted for federal support. Online submissions via the Grants.gov portal are replacing paper applications.
MIT's preferred mechanism for submission to Grants.gov is Coeus, a grants management system developed at MIT and used at more than 40 universities. The Office of Sponsored Programs (OSP), in collaboration with IS&T, is now providing training on CoeusLite, a web-based version of Coeus. Using CoeusLite, individuals can create proposals, route them for approval and ultimately submit them to any of 26 federal funding agencies via Grants.gov.
MIT has submitted almost 100 applications using Coeus during the Grants.gov ramp-up process, as sponsors convert to paperless submission standards. The next major submission, on Feb. 5, will be for NIH's funding mechanism, now a required Grants.gov application. To learn more, visit coeus.mit.edu.
Xgrid@MIT
The Laboratory for Nuclear Science (LNS) is using an Apple Xgrid cluster for high-energy and nuclear physics calculations. With Xgrid--a distributed computing architecture built into Mac OS X--LNS researchers can run computationally intense queries across multiple computers at once. Over the past year, LNS has harnessed the spare cycles of 30 PowerPC and Intel machines, including its own and some in the Department of Urban Studies and Planning. Since Xgrid is preinstalled on new Macintoshes, adding machines to the cluster is a cinch.
If you'd like to run your own queries on Xgrid@MIT or donate computer cycles, check out deltag5.lns.mit.edu/xgrid/. You can even download a Dashboard widget tachometer with real-time cluster stats.
New books at the Libraries
Now you can get up-to-date information by e-mail, RSS feed, or on the Libraries' web site about the newest books, music CDs and DVDs arriving at the MIT Libraries. New titles are posted weekly at libraries.mit.edu/help/rss/barton/ for more than 60 subjects, from "graphic novels and manga" to "nanoscience and nanotechnology." You can choose to subscribe to RSS feeds by subject or browse through subject areas on the web site. Links to catalog records in Barton, the Libraries online catalog, are provided for each title.
For humanities titles, also check out the Humanities Library's virtual browsery at libraries.mit.edu/browsery/. A new blog format lets you browse online for books in the "physical" browsery, link to book reviews, see other books by the same author and comment and discuss books with others in the MIT community.
Digitalk is compiled by Information Services and Technology.
A version of this article appeared in MIT Tech Talk on January 24, 2007 (download PDF).
