HCC: Collaboration in the Development of Cyberinfrastructure

近年来，大型分布式科学企业的新形式兴起，这些企业主要由超级计算机和高速网络等先进技术基础设施提供支持。这种“网络基础设施”正在吸引主要资助机构的大量投资和领域科学家的大量参与。虽然它的主要目标是改变和加速科学和工程实践，但相对较少的研究集中在系统地研究网络基础设施开发和使用的实际实践，或者研究它所产生的变革。该项目将为计算机支持的协同工作、科学技术研究和网络基础设施研究等领域的持续研究做出实证和概念贡献。从经验上讲，它将详细介绍网络基础设施发展方面的合作，特别是与当地关注的问题有关的合作。从概念上讲，这个项目建立在作者的基础上？S以前对网络基础设施协作的研究，以创建一个理解框架：1)人员、流程和工具的增量对齐和重新调整；2)以及这些一致性如何在分布机构之间的合作中发挥作用；学科间的合作；项目本身与科学界之间的合作；以及工作组内部和工作组之间的协作。鉴于网络基础设施不仅由先进的计算技术组成，而且由既是开发人员又是最终用户的科学家和工程师组成，本研究将：-调查现有的科学和工程实践；-调查科学和工程实践是如何协同转化的；-识别协作模式（如社会网络、沟通和管理策略），并将这些模式与组织和科学成果联系起来。将使用人种学方法，包括参与者观察和半结构化访谈。定性的社会科学方法对于理解实践和工作流程如何随时间变化和发展是有用的。一个新兴的宏基因组网络基础设施项目将作为现场站点。更广泛的影响：通过促进对网络基础设施发展如何依赖于技术和社会变革的更复杂的理解，本研究将刺激和支持此类努力的未来发展。为进一步加强网络基础设施，从事网络基础设施社会方面工作的机构将建立合作关系，以更有效地确定共同关注的问题。为了使创新更广泛地有用，研究将在多学科和跨学科会议上提出，并以对决策者有用的形式发表。

Recent years have seen the rise of new forms of large-scale distributed scientific enterprises supported primarily through advanced technological infrastructures such as supercomputers and high speed networks. This "cyberinfrastructure" is attracting significant investment from major funding agencies and substantial participation from domain scientists. Although its primary aims are to transform and accelerate scientific and engineering practice, relatively little research has focused on systematically studying the actual practices of cyberinfrastructure development and use or on examining the transformations that it is created to engender.This project will make empirical and conceptual contributions to ongoing research in areas such as computer supported cooperative work, science and technology studies, and the study of cyberinfrastructure. Empirically, it will detail collaboration in cyberinfrastructure development, especially in relation to local concerns. Conceptually this project builds on the author?s previous research on collaboration in cyberinfrastructure in order to create a framework for understanding: 1) the incremental alignment and realignment of people, processes, and tools; 2) and how these alignments play out in: collaboration between distributed institutions; collaboration between disciplines; collaboration between the project itself and the scientific community; and collaboration within and between work groups.Given that cyberinfrastructure is comprised not only of advanced computational technologies, but also of scientists and engineers, who are both developers and end users, this study will: - Investigate existing scientific and engineering practices;- Investigate how scientific and engineering practices are collaboratively transformed;- Identify patterns of collaboration (e.g., social networks, communication and management strategies) and relate those patterns to organizational and scientific outcomes.Ethnographic methods will be used including participant-observation and semi-structured interviews. Qualitative social science methods are useful for understanding practice and how work processes change and develop over time. A nascent metagenomic cyberinfrastructure project will serve as the field site.Broader Impacts:By contributing to a more sophisticated understanding of how cyberinfrastructure development is dependent on both technical and social transformation, this research will stimulate and support the future development of such efforts. To further enhance cyberinfrastructure, collaborations amongst institutions conducting work on social aspects of cyberinfrastructure will be established to more efficiently define common concerns. To make innovations more broadly useful, research will be presented at multi- and interdisciplinary conferences and published in formats that will be useful to policy-makers.