rse/units: Update for 2024 and new outreach

Author: rkdarst

rse/units.rst

@@ -1,83 +1,133 @@
 For units such as departments, schools, or flagship projects
 ============================================================
 
-Our service is funded by departments and schools, and members of these
-units can receive our services free of charge for a short period of
-time (in accordance to the shares of funding). In addition to the
-basic service, researchers and group leaders can request long-term
-support which they pay for themselves.
-
-**By joining the Research Software Engineering service, you provide
-the highest-quality computational tools to your researchers, enabling
-the best possible research and attracting the best possible
-candidates.  You fund a certain amount of time, and actual cost
-decreases when groups pay for long-term service themselves.  For both
-short and long-term projects, our surveys indicate a significant
-efficiency: (researcher time saved) ≥ 5 × (time we spend).**
-
-.. admonition:: Case study: Systematic improvements
-
-   Your department has a lot of people doing little bits of
-   programming everywhere, but everyone is doing things alone. What
-   if they could work together better? By joining the RSE program as
-   a unit, your staff can get rapid help to understand
-   tools to make their programming/data work better. After a few
-   years, you notice a dramatic cultural shift: there is more
-   collaboration and higher-quality work. Perhaps you already see a
-   change in your KPIs.
-
-
-
-Benefits
---------
-
-Benefits to schools/departments:
-
-* Increase the quality and efficiency of your research by providing
-  the best possible tools and support.
-* Provide hands-on technical research services to your community at a
-  higher level than basic IT (see :doc:`/help/garage`).
-* More societal impact, for example ChatGPT-type preview interfaces.
-* Help with data management, open science, FAIR data - be more
-  competitive for funding and help get value out of your unit's data.
-* You will be able to set priorities for your funding, for example do
-  you focus on a certain strategy, wide variety of projects,
-  high-impact project, etc.
-
-Benefits to groups:
-
-* Receive staff/on-call software development expertise within your
-  group, without having to make a separate hire, and at less than a
-  full time equivalent.  We don't disappear right after your project.
-* Instead of just one person, you have the resources of our whole team
-  available to you.
-* Your researchers focus on their science while improving their
-  computational skills by co-working with us.
-
-
-
-How to join
------------
-
-The RSE program is a part of Aalto Science-IT (Aalto Scientific
-Computing), so is integrated to our computing and data management
-infrastructure and training programs.  You don't just get a service,
-but a whole community of experts.  We can seamlessly work with
-existing technical services within your department for even more
-knowledge transfer - if it matches their mission, your existing
-technical services can even join us directly.
-
-In practice, joining us means that you contribute a certain amount of
-funding, which allows us to hire more staff (combined with the other
-departments), to provide a certain amount of time to research groups
-in your unit.  This is easy with basic funding, but we can also use
-Halli to work with project funding.
-
-If you would like to join contact Richard Darst or rse-group at
-aalto.fi.
-
-
-Current sponsoring units
-------------------------
+Computing is everywhere: in almost every unit of every field of
+research.  But computing is often hard, and not everyone can do what
+they need to alone.  Advanced computing needs to be a team effort, and
+we can help with that.
+
+Aalto Research Software Engineers (RSE) is part of Science-IT, the
+Aalto University infrastructure for scientific and high-performance
+computing.  Science-IT is a virtual organization in Aalto, and your
+unit can join by hiring staff to serve with us.
+
+
+
+Proposal in brief
+-----------------
+
+Aalto Science-IT is a research infrastructure, and part of it is Aalto
+Research Software Engineers.  Our job is to make computing possible
+for everyone.  We have some ability to serve all Aalto, but this is
+limited.
+
+Your unit can reach the next level of computing and AI based research
+by supporting its staff with Research Software Engineers.  This will
+allow your research community to do better science, faster, and more
+reproducible.  You'll waste less time on solved problems.
+
+You can fully join the RSE team by hiring (or finding
+internally) some staff interested in research software and scientific
+computing.  They'll join our team, taking full advantage of our
+knowledge and resources, while focusing on your own unit's problems.
+
+
+
+What do research software engineers do?
+---------------------------------------
+
+See also: `ASC blog post: What is a Research Software Engineer? <https://aaltoscicomp.github.io/blog/2024/what-is-a-rse/>`__
+
+What do you need to do with computing, but your staff currently
+struggle with?  It depends on your unit's needs, but in general
+activities include:
+
+- Consulting with project's small problems (solve problems faster and
+  save time)
+- Writing and supporting software, when the software isn't the main
+  goal of the research
+- Keeping data organized
+- Port code and manage workflows on supercomputers
+- Finalizing projects and making nice interfaces for the public to
+  view.
+- Manage automation and workflows: reach a larger scale.
+- Assist in planning for research ethics evaluations and data
+  management.
+- See our :doc:`portfolio <portfolio>` for more examples of real
+  projects.
+
+**Previous measurements have shown that RSEs are a good investment: an
+hour of our time usually saves 5 hours of researcher's time or more**.
+We also make new projects possible, which couldn't be done otherwise.
+Aalto RSE's biggest impact is speeding up and improving lots of small
+projects, but we usually have some longer projects going on, too.
+
+.. figure:: https://github.com/AaltoSciComp/aaltoscicomp-graphics/blob/master/figures/rse-alignment.png
+
+   One way of looking at the types of projects a RSE can do.  Note we
+   do anything from providing advice to speed up other projects to
+   doing projects ourselves, where an academic can't.
+
+
+
+How it can work
+---------------
+
+**Aalto Science-IT (and thus Aalto RSE) is a university-level research
+infrastructure.  It operates as a virtual team: in principle, it's
+easy for your staff to join.**  Here's how we would go about it:
+
+First, think of where such a person can be situated.  Are they hired
+at the school level?  Department?  Service staff or academic staff?
+Job title?  All of these can be adapted to what makes the most sense
+for your school.
+
+.. admonition:: School of Science practices
+   :classes: dropdown
+
+   At the School of Science our arrangement is:
+
+   - Have hired at the school level as Technical Services
+   - Full time and permanent
+   - Job title "Research Engineer", business title "Research Software
+     Engineer".
+   - Service staff with regular working hours.
+   - Funded from school and department budgets.  Research projects
+     also directly contribute funding via Halli for their share of the
+     work.
+
+As for the actual hiring, you might already have someone internal who
+is interested in a focus shift.  For new hires Aalto Research Software
+Engineers can help with recruitment.  We can suggest good candidates
+from our recruitment calls - we get many good candidates from various
+schools.
+
+Your new hire would begin in your school, but initially spend time
+working with Aalto RSE.  They can join our support and training
+sessions and learn the tools of our trade, while focusing on your own
+unit's problems.  This is the way we onboard people to computational
+support.  See the `RSE work rotations
+<https://aaltoscicomp.github.io/blog/2024/rse-work-rotations/>`__ blog
+post for more info.
+
+After some time, your staff may split off into its own team, or they
+might continue operating as part of the Aalto-wide team.  We'll discuss
+and see what is best for you.  Some continued collaboration is best,
+because a large team has the most knowledge to draw on.
+
+
+
+
+How to get in touch
+-------------------
+
+If the above sounds like something that would benefit your unit, Aalto
+RSE is ready to help you (2024).  Gen in touch with Richard Darst or
+[email protected].
+
+
+
+Current member units
+--------------------
 
 See :doc:`procedures/units-info`