VOSS: Leveraging Development Expertise Across Cyberinfrastructures

分布式协作科学需要强大的新技术来支持通信、数据共享和聚合、远程仪器访问和大规模数据分析。支持这类科学所必需的基础设施被称为网络基础设施。人们日益认识到人力基础设施对网络基础设施的重要性，认识到必须协调各组织和行为体的安排，以便完成工作。可持续发展结构是一个复杂的系统，它提出的挑战不能仅靠技术或社会发展来解决。必须采取社会技术系统方法，了解如何建立长期、可持续的网络基础设施，以促进科学知识和实践。该项目将通过对两个大型网络基础设施建设和研究学习组织进行比较人种学研究来应对这些挑战。这些组织中的每一个都主持和参与了不同规模和复杂性的多个网络基础设施项目。定性研究方法将包括参与者观察和半结构化访谈，以了解工作实践如何随着时间的推移而变化和发展。拟议的研究将：1）描述人力和技术资源如何在网络基础设施项目、团体、个人网络和组织中协同重用; 2）描述特定的社会或技术安排如何鼓励或阻止重用; 3）描述和分析这些组织如何管理其身份、结构和边界，以支持组织学习和创新;（4）发展新的概念模型，以构建组织级结构、人际网络和网络基础设施生产之间的关系。从经验上讲，该项目将提供对网络基础设施中心如何应对紧急，分布式和长期设计挑战的理解。从概念上讲，该项目将开发一个框架，以理解：1）人员，流程和工具的增量对齐和重新对齐;以及2）这些对齐如何发挥作用：在网络基础设施建设组织内部，网络基础设施建设组织之间，以及组织（或组织子组），特定项目及其域社区之间的合作。在更广泛的影响方面，通过促进对网络基础设施发展的更深入理解，这项研究将促进和支持未来网络基础设施的发展。将在从事网络基础设施社会方面工作的机构之间建立协作，以更有效地确定共同关切的问题。该项目将提供机会，培养新一代的跨学科研究人员，涉及本科生，研究生和博士后学生。为了使创新更广泛地发挥作用，将在多学科和跨学科会议和讲习班上介绍研究结果，并以对决策者有用的格式发表。

Distributed collaborative science requires new and powerful technologies to support communication, data sharing and aggregation, access to remote instruments, and large-scale data analysis. The infrastructure necessary to support this kind of science is called cyberinfrastructure. There has been increasing recognition of the importance of the human infrastructure to cyberinfrastructure, the arrangements of organizations and actors that must be brought into alignment in order for work to be accomplished. Infrastructures are complex systems that present challenges that cannot be addressed by either technological or social development alone. A sociotechnical systems approach is necessary to understand how to create long-term, sustainable cyberinfrastructures in order to advance scientific knowledge and practice. This project will address these challenges by undertaking a comparative ethnographic study of two large cyberinfrastructure building and research and learning organizations. Each of these organizations hosts and participates in multiple cyberinfrastructure projects of varying size and complexity. Qualitative research methods will include participant-observation and semi-structured interviews to understand how work practices change and develop over time. The proposed research will: 1) describe how human and technical resources are synergistically re-used across cyberinfrastructure projects, groups, personal networks, and organizations; 2) describe how reuse is encouraged or discouraged by particular social or technical arrangements; 3) describe and analyze how these organizations manage their identities, structures, and boundaries to support organizational learning and innovation; and 4) develop new conceptual models that frame the relationships among organizational-level structures, interpersonal networks, and the production of cyberinfrastructure. Empirically this project will provide an understanding of how cyberinfrastructure centers are approaching the challenges of designing for the emergent, distributed, and long-term. Conceptually this project will develop a framework for understanding: 1) the incremental alignment and realignment of people, processes, and tools; and 2) how these alignments play out: within cyberinfrastructure building organizations, between cyberinfrastructure building organizations, and in collaborations between organizations (or organizational sub-groups), specific projects and their domain communities. In regards to broader impacts, by contributing to a more sophisticated understanding of cyberinfrastructure development, this research will stimulate and support the development of future cyberinfrastructure. Collaborations among institutions conducting work on social aspects of cyberinfrastructure will be established to more efficiently define common concerns. This project will provide opportunities to train a new generation of interdisciplinary researchers by involving undergraduate, graduate, and post-doctoral students. To make innovations more broadly useful, findings will be presented at multi- and interdisciplinary conferences and workshops and published in formats that will be useful to policy-makers.