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ICER User and Data Policies

Effective 04/01/2025

By using ICER resources, all users agree to the expectations and responsibilities outlined in applicable Michigan State University (MSU) policies, including but not limited to the MSU Institutional Data Policy (IDP) and the MSU Acceptable Use Policy (AUP).

  1. User Accounts and Projects

    1. User accounts and projects can only be requested by an MSU employee designated as faculty with a justified need for High Performance Computing Center (HPCC) resources for a research project or other scholarly endeavor, an instructor of record for an academic class, or the designated contact for an external institutional partner. Such individuals are considered as Principal Investigators (PI) for ICER administration purposes.

    2. To access ICER resources, a user must be sponsored by a PI. Each user can be sponsored only by a single PI. PIs are the only users who can sponsor themselves.

    3. All PIs are required to implement user training and oversight procedures consistent with the IDP and AUP for all their sponsored users and users in their projects.

    4. Any user who is not currently an MSU employee or student (with some exceptions, see Section 2 below) can be sponsored by a currently active MSU-employed PI by requesting a NetID for an Affiliated Person. If the user was a previous MSU employee or student, e.g., a student that graduated, but is still working with a PI on a project that requires the use of the HPCC, they must still request an affiliate ID.

    5. A project is a collection of data and users that organizes work in MSU's interest or for an external partner. Projects must be accompanied by an abstract outlining the work in sufficient detail and are subject to review against MSU's IDP and AUP.

    6. All users must be associated with at least one project that has been created by their sponsoring PI. Users can optionally be associated with multiple projects with multiple PIs, but their sponsoring PI will not change unless requested by the user and the new sponsoring PI.

    7. PIs may unsponsor users at any time. Users without an active project or sponsorship will need to identify a new sponsor and project within 30 days of being notified or their account will be deactivated and clause 4b applies.

    8. ICER checks user accounts against MSU's central identity management system on a regular basis to determine whether they are active or inactive.

    9. If a PI account becomes inactive, their sponsored users will become unsponsored, and their projects and associated research spaces will be archived. For unsponsored users, clause 1g applies. Research spaces that belong to the PI will be handled according to the MSU IDP.

    10. ICER will ask PIs to re-confirm their sponsored users and requested projects on an annual basis. All sponsored users that have not been re-confirmed will be considered unsponsored and clause 1g applies. If a PI is not responsive, ICER will put forth a best effort to contact their department or representative.  If there is no response after 90 days, the account will be considered inactive, and clause 1i applies.

  2. External User Accounts and Projects

    External institutional partners (EIP) have agreements with ICER to use HPCC resources. All policies outlined in the "User Accounts and Projects" section apply with the following exceptions:

    1. All external user accounts and projects must be requested and sponsored in their usage of the HPCC by a single point of contact associated with the EIP. This point of contact is specified in the agreement with the EIP and acts as their PI. The EIP PI is responsible for that institution's usage of the HPCC resources.

    2. ICER checks external user accounts with the EIP's PI on an annual basis to determine whether they are active or inactive.

  3. Filesystem Usage

    1. All users are required to identify, understand, and comply with all data access restrictions associated with a project. All PIs are required to implement user training and oversight procedures consistent with these restrictions for all users who are members of that project.

    2. All users are provided a home space with a limit of 100GB and 1 million files. PIs cannot access a user's home space without the written consent of that user or an approval from the MSU Chief Information Officer (CIO).

    3. All users are provided a scratch space with a limit of 50TB and 1 million files.

    4. Each project has an associated research space with a default size of 250GB. Upon request, PIs can be provided up to 3 TB of space per PI. Each TB in a research space will be proportionally allocated 1 million files.

      1. Users may be provided additional storage or resources as outlined on ICER's public documentation pages.

      2. Research spaces for projects with Restricted Access Data as outlined in clause 3a above require a customized "Restricted Access Research Space".

    5. ICER reserves the right to adjust space quotas based on technological or system changes.

  4. Data Retention

    1. Any files in scratch spaces that have not been modified in the last 45 days are subject to deletion without notification.

    2. For an inactive ICER user account, data in their home space will be available for 90 days after notification that the account is being deactivated. After 90 days, their data will be deleted from our main systems. The disaster recovery system will also remove that data over time, which typically takes an additional 90 days.

    3. ICER will examine research spaces for modifications on an annual basis. Owners of research spaces without any modified files or directories will be contacted to determine if their research spaces can be moved elsewhere or if they are still needed.

  5. Discretionary Management and Communication

    1. In cases regarding user accounts, projects or data that are not covered by any of the above terms, the ICER Director has the discretion to decide any transition or deletion of user accounts, projects or data, in compliance with Federal, State and Michigan State University laws and policies.

    2. ICER will do a best effort to inform users of and ensure their compliance to the above terms via the forms of communication available to it, namely email, ICER's ticketing system and the ICER website (https://icer.msu.edu).

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