When Davidson College joined NCShare in June 2022, Brandon Woods, an application analyst in academic technology, immediately posed a critical question: “What are we doing, and how is this different from a product we already have on campus?”
Since then, Woods has leveraged his charisma and interpersonal skills to market the program to faculty at Davidson, providing user-friendly software and high-speed networking capabilities across campus. At the same time, he’s consistently raised vital concerns, playing an integral role in the ongoing improvement of the program.
NCShare is a partnership with MCNC – a technology group based in Research Triangle Park (RTP) – and institutions such as Davidson, Duke University and North Carolina Central University (NCCU). The program has recently grown to include the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill and North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University.
As Woods explained, challenges have emerged because NCShare is largely targeted towards STEM professors, who prior to the program, already had a system that worked for them.
“If a department uses SPSS that means they could use R,” he said. “But if they’re trained in SPSS, they don’t want to use R.”
Woods is working to identify effective ways to pitch NCShare to faculty beyond the STEM field.
“I don’t know what the sale is for something like [NCShare] to an English professor,” he said. “Raw compute power doesn’t mean anything when you’re reading The Catcher in the Rye.”
The chief information officer at Davidson, Kevin Davis, said NCShare can also appeal to non-STEM faculty, as the use of computationally supported methods for data analysis purposes is growing across disciplines – including those traditionally thought to be outside STEM.
“NCShare offers services that can help faculty from diverse disciplines give their students access to world-class computing for course purposes without needing a campus computer lab or any research computing capabilities of their own,” he said. “From any device, even a low-end, basic laptop, they and their students can access resources like mathematical and statistical applications from anywhere on or off their campus.”
One of the key aspects of NCShare, especially when presenting it to faculty, is equitable access to technology and software across Davidson and the other participating institutions.
“In a perfect world, a product like NCShare means that every student has the same experience,” Woods said. “That’s the most important thing for me… NCShare to me is about equity.”
He also noted that the partnership plays a significant role in improving efficiency for faculty, staff and students.
“[In an ideal scenario], once we’ve given thought to how we’re going to roll out [NCShare] for different departments and courses, then it’s the ease of replicating it for all students – so faculty don’t have to spend time troubleshooting in class,” Woods said. “But the focus for me is that every student has the same experience.”
Looking ahead, Woods hopes that information about the partnership will continue to grow and reach faculty and students across both the Davidson campus and throughout the state of North Carolina.
“I wish more people knew how NCShare could apply to their individual situations,” he said.