SGER: A Cyberinfrastructure Evaluation of the George E. Brown, Jr. Network for Earthquake Engineering Simulation (NEES)

该奖项为探索性研究（SGER）小额赠款。许多科学和工程研究团体正在开展大型多学科合作，以开发网络基础设施（CI）。CI的目标是创建虚拟环境，研究人员和教育工作者可以访问分布式资源（例如，计算工具和服务、仪器、实验和数据）。尽管CI计划预计将对研究生产力产生重大影响，并且围绕CI的承诺有相当大的热情，但迄今为止对CI计划的系统评估很少。本项目是对小乔治·e·布朗地震工程模拟网络（NEES） CI进行评估的试点研究。NEES于2004年开始运行，作为地震工程和相关社区共享使用的实验和网络基础设施。NEES的核心是“NEESit”，NEES网络基础设施中心开发、部署和操作一套CI系统和应用程序，用于将美国各地的地震工程师与领先的计算资源、研究设备（即15个NEES设备站点）、模拟和可视化工具以及合作者联系起来，以计划、执行和发布实验。NEES由NEES Consortium， Inc （NEESinc）通过NSF合作协议CMMI-0402490进行管理，该协议监督NEES设备站点和NEESit。NEES CI评估有两个目标：(1)检查NEES CI如何促进研究人员访问分布式资源以及这种访问对研究生产力的影响，(2)为正在进行和未来的基于CI的举措提供信息。为了实现这两个目标，评估的目的不仅是评估NEES CI，而且还提供评估数据，以基准NEES CI与其他nsf资助的基于CI的环境（例如TeraGrid， LEAD和WATERS Network）。评估方法包括访谈、对工作中的科学家和工程师的观察、调查和文献计量学。该项目包括检查和评估NEES中支持CI使用的机制，特别是知识来源和多站点研究人员协作活动。这项工作的贡献包括提高对CI如何发挥作用以加强这些活动的理论理解，关于CI设计以促进这些活动的实用建议，以及关于NEES CI如何在地震工程界帮助他们的具体反馈。CI是NSF在许多方面的主要投资。这个项目的评估方法将遵循在不同的nsf资助的基于ci的环境中调查相同现象所使用的方法。这种方法将有助于吸收其他CI研究社区的发现，这意味着在具体评估过程中获得的经验教训和确定的有前途的实践可以更普遍地为基于CI的环境的设计提供信息。研究结果将通过在会议和讲习班上的演讲以及与学者、决策者和新环境环境利益攸关方相关的出版物进行传播。该奖项是国家减少地震灾害计划的一部分。

This award is a Small Grant for Exploratory Research (SGER). Many scientific and engineering research communities are developing large multidisciplinary collaborations to develop cyberinfrastructure (CI). The goal of CI is to create virtual environments, where researchers and educators can access distributed resources (e.g., computational tools and services, instruments, experiments, and data). Although CI initiatives are expected to have a significant impact on research productivity and there is considerable enthusiasm around the promise of CI, there has been little systematic evaluation of CI initiatives to date. This project is a pilot study to conduct an evaluation of the George E. Brown, Jr. Network for Earthquake Engineering Simulation (NEES) CI. NEES became operational in 2004 as a shared use experimental and cyber infrastructure for the earthquake engineering and related communities. At the heart of NEES is "NEESit," the NEES cyberinfrastructure center that develops, deploys, and operates the set of CI systems and applications used to link earthquake engineers across the United States with leading-edge computational resources, research equipment (i.e., the fifteen NEES equipment sites), simulation and visualization tools, and collaborators to plan, perform, and publish experiments. NEES is managed by NEES Consortium, Inc. (NEESinc), through NSF cooperative agreement CMMI-0402490, who oversees both NEES equipment sites and NEESit. The NEES CI evaluation has two objectives: (1) to examine how NEES CI facilitates researcher access to distributed resources and the impact such access has on research productivity, and (2) to inform ongoing and future CI-based initiatives. In order to accomplish both objectives, the evaluation is designed to not only assess NEES CI, but also provide assessment data to benchmark NEES CI against other NSF-funded CI-based environments (e.g. TeraGrid, LEAD, and WATERS Network). Evaluation methods include interviews, observations of scientists and engineers at work, surveys, and bibliometrics.This project includes an examination and evaluation of mechanisms within NEES that support CI use in general, and knowledge sourcing and multi-site researcher collaboration activities, specifically. Contributions of this work include improved theoretical understanding of how CI can function to enhance these activities, practical suggestions about the design of CI to facilitate them, and specific feedback about how NEES CI is aiding them within the earthquake engineering community. CI is a major NSF investment on many fronts. This project's evaluation methodology will follow those used to investigate the same phenomena in different NSF-funded CI-based environments. This approach will help assimilate findings with other CI research communities, which means the lessons learned and promising practices identified in the course of specific evaluations can inform the design of CI-based environments more generally. Results will be disseminated through presentations at conferences and workshops as well as publications that are relevant to scholars, policy makers, and NEES stakeholders. This award is part of the National Earthquake Hazards Reduction Program.