Project Progress


What do the progress bars for each active project on the Research Page mean?

Every project on World Community Grid is at one of the following four stages:

  • Just Launched - The project was launched on World Community Grid within the last few weeks.
  • In Progress - The project is running regularly on World Community Grid and is not close to completion.
  • Nearly Completed - The project is within a few weeks of finishing its work on World Community Grid.
  • Completed - The project has completed its work on World Community Grid.


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Is there any way to estimate an end date for projects running on World Community Grid?

There are many variables with each project that determine how long it will last and how much work it will run on World Community Grid. These include:

  • Change in research direction or project scope (e.g., results from work on World Community Grid that takes the project in a new direction)
  • Increase or decrease in lab resources such as funding, staffing, etc
  • New research findings from collaborators or other scientists in the same field 
  • The pace at which computational work is being performed on World Community Grid

Researchers rarely know if or when these variables will come into play during their projects, which makes it challenging to estimate a project end date with any level of accuracy.


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Is there any way to express how close a project is to completion as a percentage? Can the progress bars show that a project is X% complete?

Over the years, we've found that most research teams don't load a certain number of work units into World Community Grid, let them run, and then declare the project complete. Rather, they create work units based on their initial research questions, then make adjustments to future work units based on their findings on World Community Grid and on outside research findings. This makes it impossible to accurately express project completion as a percentage.


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