Dissertation Research: The Standardized Revolution of Science: Building Cyberinfrastructure for the Geosciences

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Epstein / Ribes - NSF Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant (prop #6457371, Feb 2005)Project SummaryThis project takes the development and deployment of GEON as its object.GEON, the 'geo-sciences network,' is an American cyberinfrastructure for the solidearth sciences - a five year National Science Foundation (NSF) project with the goal ofproviding computing, data interoperability and visualization resources for the broadergeo-sciences. To date GEON is the most ambitious project of its kind, drawing togethersuch diverse disciplines within the earth-sciences as geophysics, paleobotany,seismology, and geochemistry to name only a few. GEON is only one of many alreadyinitiated or planned cyberinfrastructure under the Advanced Cyberinfrastructure Program(ACP) . Through shared infrastructure, computer science expertise, and informationtechnologies the impact of GEON stretches beyond the geo-sciences to the larger goal ofscience informatization. Cyberinfrastructure generally, and GEON specifically, is as much a bottom-upactivity as top-down. In the case of GEON the NSF provides the encouragement andmulti-million dollar funding 'from above', but the socio-technical structure of GEONitself was proposed, designed and enacted by practicing scientists 'from below'. Howcan we understand the conjunction and enaction of these two trajectories: state funding,and geo-science/IT construction and deployment? This project seeks to follow thepractices of information technologists and geo-scientists from below and the policyaction from above in order to understand the resulting transformations in the organizationand practice of science. What are the consequences of mobilizing the geo-scientificcommunity in its own technological transformation to meet the larger goals of the ACP?From GEON's inception in 2002, Ribes (co-PI) has been an ethnographicparticipant observer of the negotiations between geo-scientists and informationtechnologists. This research proposal requests the resources to complement the alreadyproceeding research by tracing GEON's development 'from above': NSF funding andsupport, and geoscience's vision of an informaticized science of the earth. Funds will beused to support travel for archival research on the ACP and to conduct interviews withsignificant 'macro-scale' actors which have provided political and financial support forthe GEON cyberinfrastructure.Intellectual MeritWithin the field of science and technology studies this researchproject seeks to address the intersection of four themes of growing importance whichhave thus far been taken separately within the field, and which cross traditional notions of'scale,' but which in GEON appear simultaneously: i- standardization and classification,ii- users and design, iii - the organization of science and changes of practice in relation toinformation technologies; and iv- science and the state.Broader Impact In a broader sense this study contributes to the successfuldevelopment and unfolding of contemporary information infrastructures. Calls fromwithin computer science itself have pointed to the need for a greater researchinvolvement of social science in the production of these large-scale infrastructures.'Cyberinfrastructure' is already framed as an organizational and institutional endeavorand offers an inviting site for building relationships with science studies. Finally thisstudy will seek to offer practical, conceptual and analytic resources for practicingscientists themselves who are currently facing greater transformation throughinformatization.