Adoption and Sustainability of e-Research Alex Voss, Rob Procter and Tom Rodden
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Adoption and Sustainability of e-Research Alex Voss, Rob Procter and Tom Rodden e-Science Institute, 27th October 2008 What is e-Research? Research supported by distributed, shared, advanced IT resources Often crossing organisational and national boundaries, collaborative, multidisciplinary Examples Building models of humans from processes in cells to tissue, organs and, finally, the whole body Analysing data from large-scale scientific facilities like LHC or the Square Kilometer Array of telescopes Building simulations of social processes to inform policy making in urban planning or healthcare Using character recognition and text classification technologies in the study of ancient documents Cataloging finds in an archaeological dig Aims of the Theme To study factors that may inhibit the wider diffusion and adoption of e-Research technologies and tools, and devise strategies for tackling them. To study e-Research in its various forms, to identify broad themes that impact on e-Research To work up ways in which e-Research can be understood and taken up by a wide range of people To establish a research community that can drive these areas of work forward Visits and Events Workshops: ¾ Realising and Coordinating e-Research Endeavours ¾ Virtual Research Environments meet Collaborative Work Environments ¾ BoF on National Comparisons of Uptake and Sustainability at All Hands ‘07 ¾ Realising and Supporting Collaboration in e-Research at ECSCW ‘07 ¾ Mapping Worldwide e-Social Science at e-Social Science ’07 ¾ Panel at Microsoft e-Science Conference ‘07 ¾ Humanities and Social Sciences Community Group at OGF21 ¾ Visit to Academia Sinica Grid Computing ¾ Humanities and Social Sciences Session at ISGC’08 ¾ Mapping e-Research for Humanities, Arts & Social Sciences, OGF23 ¾ Mapping e-Social Science and Community Engagement, e-Social Science ’08 ¾ BoF on e-Infrastructure: tool for the elite or tool for everybody? ¾ Profiling UK e-Research: Mapping Communities and Measuring Impacts, AHM ‘08 Visits to the e-Science Institute by Rob Procter, Gary Olson, Vasa Curcin, Will Venters and Yingqin Zheng Visit by Dr Ly-Yun Chang and Dr Ji-Ping Lin from the Center for Survey Research at Academia Sinica to London and Manchester JISC Community Engagement Past, Present, Future ¾ Existing Practice (eIUS) ¾ Immediate Problems (ENGAGE) ¾ General Issues (e-Uptake) Common Steering Committee Framework of Understanding: approach & consent, data sharing, dissemination Understanding Adoption e-Infrastructures as complex socio-technical ensembles of technical configurations and social arrangements Not ‘tame’ like technical systems – ‘fostering’ rather than ‘building’ Impact on the nature of interventions needed – beyond ‘selling’ and ‘training’ Community Engagement ¾ Practical rather than academic research questions Community Engagement Active community engagement efforts Essential to gather effective information about: ¾ ¾ ¾ ¾ ¾ ¾ ¾ ¾ ¾ activities, events, service provision usage who the community is what activities researchers are involved in what the impact of investments is where success stories can be found where effort needs to be directed to overcome obstacles This needs to be an ongoing concern. Interviews e-Uptake has conducted 50+ interviews with researchers across disciplines Questionnaire used to gather baseline information 2nd wave of fieldwork now underway, focusing on intermediaries (IT services) Interviews being transcribed, coded and metadata applied Online repository of evidence of barriers and enablers, structured by typology Interviews (II) Respondents asked about their use of e-Infrastructure services: ¾Services used and role in research lifecycle ¾How services facilitated research ¾How respondents found out about them ¾Whether training and other kinds of support were available and made use of ¾Barriers encountered, if and how they were overcome ¾Enablers that would improve use of services Sample Coding Coding scheme initially based on earlier literature review Being iteratively modified as analysis progresses Hierarchical scheme with currently 166 codes Link between formulations of barriers and evidence base Coding (II) e-Research Tools Analytical approach being developed and CAQDAS tools (Atlas.ti, NVivo, etc.) considered Alternative TEI/XML-based solution gives us: ¾ Non-proprietary file formats ¾ Support for collaborative work ¾ Integration of qualitative, quantitative and meta-data ¾ Dynamic online presentation in a number of different forms for different stakeholders ¾ Complex queries ¾ Semi-automatic markup, meta-data generation and anonymisation e-Research Tools Sharing & Sustainability Repository of findings enables analysis across larger body of evidence (e.g., 40+ ENGAGE interviews) Ensure this data remains available for re-use: ¾By the project members ¾By stakeholders ¾By other researchers in the future Findings 150+ formulations of barriers 70+ formulations of enablers Relationships between them Underpinned by quotes from transcribed interviews Links to existing literature Barrier: Lack of Awareness Description: There seems to be a lack of systematic introduction to the services and the training available, which results in a lack of awareness as well as a a lack of understanding of how services and methods can facilitate research and what different options exist. Examples: ¾ [MR02], [EP02], [AH04] ¾ “one barrier is not having heard of these things” [AH03] Candidate responses: ¾ Boundary spanning ¾ Opportunities for learning about e-Research / e-Infrastructure ¾ Systematic training of young researchers Typology: ¾ Social Issues / Training, Education and Outreach / Early Engagement & Outreach Enabler: Boundary Spanning Description: Boundary spanning refers to the moving of people from one discipline to another. It can help transfer ideas, knowledge and skills across disciplinary boundaries. Example: As one Arts and Humanities researcher put it: “before I was at [my current institution], I was at an engineering department at [other institution] and so I was kind of aware of a lot of these things that we are talking about – Access Grid, e-Science.” [AH01] Barriers addressed: ¾ Lack of awareness of services Typology ¾ Social Issues / Individual / Career Choices ¾ Training, Education and Outreach Intervention Closing the gaps between stages of engagement: cf. EGEE Virtuous Cycle Also OSS-Watch model UK One-Stop-Shop A ‘warehouse’ of information: ¾Events ¾Training Material ¾(Support Contacts) ‘Retail outlets’: ¾General: www.engage.ac.uk ¾Discipline-specific: NCeSS, AHeSSC (at a future date) Tailored Training Events Three linked events on data access and integration with OGSA-DAI With specific focus on Arts & Humanities and Social Sciences ¾I: Traditional training ¾II: Online traininig ¾III: Consultancy Research in a Connected World General introduction to e-Research for researchers of all disciplines Delivery through website as well as print Integration with other material such as eIUS and ENGAGE video podcasts Funded under JISC Community Engagement Strand and led by e-Uptake e-Roadshows & Summer Schools 1st run in Bristol September: ¾about 40 attendees, generally successful 2nd in Manchester 6th November Advanced Distributed Services Summer School. Oxford, 24th Aug. to 6th September 2009 Interventions Widening Uptake Around the Globe EU-funded Support Action 4 EU partners, 11 from 8 countries in AsiaPacific region Workpackages ¾ Requirements & Coordination Policy ¾ Applications ¾ Dissemination ¾ Training Recommendations Findings show a wide range of issues ¾ No silver bullet ¾ Invest in ‘social infrastructure’ ¾ User-designer relations, shared understanding ¾ Tailor message to audience ¾ Remedies often understood but difficult to implement ¾ Coordinated approach needed, e.g., triage of contacts ¾ JISC Community Engagement projects provide an example of what coordination can achieve Outlook Activities initiated by the theme continue beyond its official end in January 2008 JISC Community Engagement projects will run until end June 2009, EUAsiaGrid to end March 2010 Continuation of work in fora such as OGF ET-CG Sustainability options being explored ¾ Sustainability of outputs (cf. database of findings) ¾ Sustainability of effort Thanks Thanks to the e-Science Institute for hosting the theme and this workshop, to the collaborators on the theme for their help and advice, to the collaborators on the projects for their hard work.
