The ENGAGE Initiative
Neil Chue Hong
Web: www.omii.ac.uk
Email: info@omii.ac.uk
JISC Community Engagement
Engaging the
community to develop
better use of eInfrastructure in the UK
Web: www.omii.ac.uk
Email: info@omii.ac.uk
Why are we doing this?
• Sustainability!
• OMII-UK’s mission is to ensure a
sustained environment for the e-Research
software used by the research community
• NGS’s mission is to provide coherent
electronic access for UK researchers to
computational and data based resources
and facilities required to carry out their
research
Web: www.omii.ac.uk
Email: info@omii.ac.uk
The ENGAGE philosophy
• What do people want to do?
o
not how can they use what we’ve got to do it
• Trivial barriers are sometimes
insurmountable
o
o
o
what’s easy for us is often frustrating for others
don’t assume the last step’s easy for everyone
let’s celebrate success in the community
• Try to extend beyond the “usual suspects”
• Solve specific technical issues for specific
users
Web: www.omii.ac.uk
Email: info@omii.ac.uk
Methodology
• Identification of interviewees through lists,
workshops and word of mouth
• Semi-structured initial interviews (in
person or by telephone)
• Analysis and assessment of interview
• Follow-up interviews to establish detail
• Investment of effort to fix specific
problems
• Dissemination of successes
Web: www.omii.ac.uk
Email: info@omii.ac.uk
Some quotes
• “If I run it on my own machine then it’s always
going to be available”
• “Current tools and methodologies work well if
you have the right people”
• “I feel ignorant of the benefits of e-Science”
• “No documentation above the basic level”
• “My jobs terminate after 48 hours”
• “I can run it on my PC, what do I need eInfrastructure for?”
• “Securing my services is now fairly easy”
Web: www.omii.ac.uk
Email: info@omii.ac.uk
Some more quotes
• “Sustainability is not an issue for CS
researchers, we want others to take the
software over subject to IP issues”
• “Sustainability is a big issue, we are
producing complex tools we want to use
but it’s not clear how they’ll be sustained”
Web: www.omii.ac.uk
Email: info@omii.ac.uk
The ENGAGE interviews
Web: www.omii.ac.uk
Email: info@omii.ac.uk
Interviews split by research funder
Web: www.omii.ac.uk
Email: info@omii.ac.uk
What happens after initial interview
Web: www.omii.ac.uk
Email: info@omii.ac.uk
One particular follow-up
• Technical team analysed interview
• Follow-up meeting with interviewee
• Identified two particular issues where effort could
provide benefit
o
o
making custom python scripts available to a
workflow system
linking datasets with algorithms currently expressed
in python
• Attempted a feasibility prototype
o
issues to do with poor documentation and difficulties
with installation
Web: www.omii.ac.uk
Email: info@omii.ac.uk
Questions raised
• Can users/funders consider national e-Infrastructure
secure for processing confidential data?
• Do we show the benefits of moving from desktop ->
department server -> high throughput -> capacity ->
capability?
• How do people interface with the NGS resources?
• How do we persuade people that developing their own
versions of existing components is only good in the
short term and in the long term fails if they lose
developers?
o
sustainability of software issue
• Should we be investing effort in restful interfaces for
common services
Web: www.omii.ac.uk
Email: info@omii.ac.uk
Common Issues seen
• Sustainability of software and infrastructure
• Training
• Dissemination of information
o
this is the community engagement portal!
• Quite a few groups are just trying to do
parameter sweeps – why isn’t this easy to do?
• Often problems to do with constraints on
existing clusters or using local resources
o
e.g. 48 hr wallclock limits
Web: www.omii.ac.uk
Email: info@omii.ac.uk
Analysis so far
• Results broadly match those found by SUPER
two years ago
o
o
may indicate a bias in interviewees towards existing
users of e-Infrastructure
may indicate that there has been insufficient
investment in certain areas such as user
engagement
• groups like OMII-UK and NGS have tried to pick up slack
but now out of phase with funding
o
may also just indicate that activities based on
SUPER are only just coming to fruition
• OMII-UK Commissioned Software Projects that were from
calls based on SUPER are only now coming to completion
and are thus not featured in interviews
Web: www.omii.ac.uk
Email: info@omii.ac.uk