Current scientific computing space is available at http://www3.hmc.edu/scspace.

1. Entities of the Scientific Computing Space

“Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler.” – Albert Einstein

The schematic is composed of four entities: user object, tool/system object, common space and its boundary.

	User object (oval): The object representing a faculty or a staff member who uses/wishes to use certain scientific computing tools and systems.  The user object may be thought of a body with a force that pulls a tool/system object closer to itself.  An arrow from a user object to a tool/system object represents a user-tool or a user-system usage relationship.
	Tool/system object (octagon): The object representing a scientific computing tool or system.  The more connections a tool/system object gets, the closer to the center it is placed in the space.
	Common space (gradient oval): The space where tools and systems that have two or more connections (or usages) reside.  When there are two users connecting a tool/system object, the tool/system object enters into the common space.  Otherwise it stays outside the common space to the corresponding user.
	Orbit (dashed oval): The outer boundary of the common space.  User objects are placed on the orbit.

2. How to read and use the space

On the orbit, you will find users (a.k.a. clients).  They are essentially the faculty members who participated in the scientific computing interview.  The faculty members are clustered by their department.

Inside the common space, you will find scientific computing tools and systems that have two or more arrows – an arrow directed from a user to a tool/system object shows that the user has been using the tool/system or planned to use (or to learn) the tool/system in near future.

Outside the common space, you will find less common tools and systems that were mentioned by only one user.  This doesn’t necessarily mean that there is only one user using the tools in the college or that they are less important.  But if we consider probability, they would most likely be less popular tools than the ones closer to the center of the space.

Tools or systems that receive more arrows from users are moved closer to the center of the space. Hence, by examining the objects near the center, you will find popular software tools or systems for scientific computing users of the college.   A dashed oval near the center of the space indicates a so-called hot region, hence reddish.

3. The scientific computing space website

For interactive use of the space, we developed a website containing all tool-user highlighted pages and departmental usage spaces.  In this section, we give examples of the web pages and describe how to utilize them.

By clicking on a tool/system object, you highlight its users who have attached their arrows to the tool/system object.  This is the best way to focus on a particular tool and system in the tangled and complicated-looking space.

By clicking on a department name, you open another diagram showing the departmental usage of scientific computing tools and systems.  In the department-specific scientific computing space, you may perceive the tendency (or the preference) of using and choosing certain types of scientific computing tools and systems for each department.

By clicking on a user name, the departmental usage diagram will pop up to show the user’s usage of scientific computing tools and systems.

By looking into the arrows on the entirety of the space, you may be able to see who and which department would likely be a regular customer of the scientific computing services and vice versa, for example, HSA Department vs. Mathematics Department.