Secure Technologies for Aggie Researchers (STAR) is a collection of new, cloud-based tools that will facilitate rapid access to secure technologies for use by researchers across TAMU and TAMU Health that has controlled, confidential, or restricted data. Tools will include storage, compute, data analytics, machine learning, artificial intelligence, data transfer, and a self-service interface among many others. The goal of the effort is to streamline the current process for researchers that takes months to purchase and configure servers and storage down to days and hours by using secure, cloud-based tools with a self-service workflow. A focus group of faculty researchers is forming across TAMU and TAMUH to provide feedback on the initial versions of the program. Pilot members are able to utilize a new $180,000 Cloud Research Exploration Fund to cover their costs. For more information about STAR or to join the focus group, contact Dr. Joshua Kissee at joshua.kissee@tamu.edu.

• Develop a website for TAMU and TAMU Health researchers with content that will simplify the process for accessing research technologies and improve grant proposal writing.
• Create new business processes for researchers to access cloud-based research tools using a self-service portal.
• Configure AWS public cloud offerings with HIPAA, NIST, GDPR, FERPA, and FISMA compliance that also meets TAMU Security Control requirements.
• Implement an easy to use billing mechanism for chargeback to departments utilizing the service.
• Complete a focus group with researchers piloting the Amazon tools to improve the service.
• Deliver a new data collaboration tool to facilitate secure research between institutions to enable inter-disciplinary, multi-institutional collaboration among principal investigators.
• Create a new Research Data Management Classification tool to aid researchers in classifying their data and selecting the best technologies for their research.