EAGER-ESOCS: Exploring Sustainability Options for Cyberinfrastructure Services

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The objective of this EArly concept Grant for Exploratory Research (EAGER) project is to investigate whether the software-as-a-service model is a viable option for creating sustainable cyberinfrastructure. While NSF-sponsored research projects increasingly create innovative software, few, if any, mechanisms exist to support the ongoing use, adaptation, and maintenance of such software. The ESOCS project will explore the sociological, technical, and institutional perspectives of sustainability. It aims to provide insight into: researcher buying behavior and preferences; the challenges of integrating payment mechanisms into software and university back office systems; and the legal and policy implications of operating a non-profit, for-fee service from within a university. The project will use the Globus system as an exemplar of providing IT infrastructure to the research community, tapping into the system's more than 4,000 users as a representative sample of the scientific research community.The results should be of interest to the many NSF constituencies who struggle with issues of software sustainability. The project will shed light on how for-fee software delivery methods can be provided in a way that is consistent with university and NSF policies, while providing a frictionless purchasing experience for researchers. Experiments with for-fee service models will address questions relating to acceptability and adoption patterns within various research communities. The for-fee service models deployed will provide valuable data and insights that may be applied to other large-scale cyberinfrastructure resource providers that face sustainability challenges when federal agency funding for these projects ends.