CAREER: Interacting with Cyberinfrastructure in the Face of Changing Science

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This research will develop a framework to understand the set of sociotechnical relationships that comprise cyberinfrastructure (CI). Cyberinfrastructures are distributed organizations supported by such technologies as supercomputers and high-speed networks. Scientific cyberinfrastructures, or eScience projects, are multiplying rapidly because they can be brought to bear on some of the world's most important problems in energy, the environment, health, and security. The technical challenges of cyberinfrastructure are already so demanding that projects often have little time to engage reflexively on how cyberinfrastructures are used and created in the current state of rapid scientific change in which the necessity of data sharing and multidisciplinary approaches is putting pressure on disciplinary boundaries. While the ability to pool data can enable scientists to answer questions that no single investigator or laboratory could answer individually, large-scale databases also bear the significant burden of supporting scientific sub-domains with different priorities and requirements. This project will use ethnographic methods, including participant-observation and semi-structured interviews, to investigate: How scientists and engineers decide which cyberinfrastructure resources (e.g. databases and tools) to use and under what circumstances; Under what circumstances do scientists and engineers decide to create their own resources; How are scientists and engineers mixing disciplinary practices within their own laboratories; When do scientists and engineers adopt hybrid identities (e.g. computational biologists and bioinformaticists). This project will make empirical and conceptual contributions to research in areas such as computer supported cooperative work, science and technology studies, and the study of CI. It will provide a corpus of material describing how local concerns shape the use of CIs and the development and use of alternative local resources. By contributing to a more sophisticated understanding of how eScience is dependent on both technical and social transformation, this research will stimulate and support the development of future eScience research. This project will benefit cyberinfrastructure users and developers, funding bodies and policy makers, by creating a typology of change related to scientific practice, training, and technological change. The education components will give students hands-on involvement in research including developing research instruments, collecting and analyzing data, and writing papers. Diverse students from undergraduate to postdoctoral level, including women and minorities, will emerge with practical skills as well as exposure to theoretical issues related to collaboration and eScience.