CI-Facilitators: Information Architects across the STEM Disciplines

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The goal of this project is to develop a program of education, training, and core principles for advancing the adoption of cyberinfrastructure throughout the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) disciplines. Advances in cyberinfrastructure have frequently outstripped the scientific community?s capability for taking advantage of them. The challenges of mastering ones own discipline generally preclude also becoming an expert in advanced cyberinfrastructure, and this situation creates the need for the education and training of a new breed of information processionals called Cyberinfrastructure Facilitators or CI-facilitators. These CI-facilitators will possess both the capabilities to innovate with current information infrastructure and the metacognitive skills to master new information infrastructure as it emerges. In this world, a CI-facilitator would become a vital member of the research enterprise who works closely with STEM researchers to identify extant tools, data sets, and other resources that can be integrated to pursue shared research objectives involving colleagues wherever they might be geographically located. The scientific merit of this proposal lies in the systematic strategy that will establish the matrix of knowledge, skills, and tools comprising the CI-facilitator role, as well as a thorough approach to formative and summative evaluation of the programs features and processes. The result of the project will be used to create a transferable system of expertise for advancing the adoption of cyberinfrastructure.