CAREER: Sustaining Scientific Infrastructure: Researching Transition from Grants to Peer Production

职业：维持科学基础设施：研究从资助到同行生产的转变

• 批准号: 1453548
• 负责人: James Howison
• 金额: $ 53.53万
• 依托单位: University of Texas at Austin
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2015
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2015-07-01 至 2021-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1453548&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: CAREER; Sustaining; Scientific; Infrastructure; Researching

Software is becoming increasingly critical to the activities of science, yet securing long term support for this infrastructure is becoming more challenging. Given constrained budgets, the options for effectively and efficiently supporting sustainable software infrastructure are of growing importance. This project examines the transition of research infrastructure from grant-based funding to long term sustainable models, by examining scientific software projects as they transition to an open source peer production model. The project tracks software packages as they attempt to transition, and develops a theoretical framework for understanding this process and for explaining their success or failure. The outcome of this research will inform science policy by shaping how the community funds software infrastructure projects in their initial phases, and how to encourage the transition to long-term models thereafter. Inspired by the success of open source software, funding agencies are encouraging transitions to forms of organization that organizational researchers call 'peer production.' Yet peer production research has shown that simply making code available under an open source license is insufficient to build a motivated and productive community. Successful transition includes changes in team structure (from local to distributed), collaboration technologies (from controlled to open), governance (from hierarchical to shared), and management of participants (from predictable to unpredictable commitment). This project examines successful and unsuccessful transitions from initial grant funding to peer production in scientific software development. Detailed case study histories are developed, by interviewing project participants, funders, and users of scientific software, and by analyzing project archives and software repositories. The research includes six transitioning projects: yt, Enzo, Eclipse PTP, IRODs, Apache OODT and Airavata. In addition, a panel of projects funded by the NSF Software Infrastructure for Sustained Innovation program (which requires plans for sustainability) will be tracked over time to study successful transitions, unsuccessful attempts, and cases where transition was judged inappropriate. The research is combined with an integrated education plan designed to build organizational skills in the scientific community to enable successful transitions to peer production.

软件对科学活动越来越重要，但确保对这一基础设施的长期支持正变得越来越具有挑战性。在预算有限的情况下，有效和高效地支持可持续软件基础设施的选择越来越重要。该项目通过研究科学软件项目向开源同行生产模式的过渡，探讨研究基础设施从基于赠款的资助向长期可持续模式的过渡。 该项目跟踪软件包，因为他们试图过渡，并制定了一个理论框架来理解这个过程，并解释他们的成功或失败。这项研究的结果将通过塑造社区如何在初始阶段为软件基础设施项目提供资金，以及如何鼓励此后向长期模式过渡，为科学政策提供信息。受开源软件成功的启发，资助机构正在鼓励向组织研究人员称之为“同行生产”的组织形式过渡。然而，同行生产研究表明，仅仅在开源许可证下提供代码不足以建立一个积极和富有成效的社区。成功的过渡包括团队结构的变化（从本地到分布式），协作技术（从受控到开放），治理（从分层到共享），以及参与者的管理（从可预测到不可预测的承诺）。该项目研究了科学软件开发中从初始赠款资金到同行生产的成功和不成功的过渡。详细的案例研究历史，通过采访项目参与者，资助者和科学软件的用户，并通过分析项目档案和软件存储库。该研究包括六个过渡项目：yt，恩佐，Eclipse PTP，IRODs，Apache OODT和Airavata。此外，由NSF软件基础设施持续创新计划（需要可持续性计划）资助的一组项目将随着时间的推移进行跟踪，以研究成功的过渡，不成功的尝试以及过渡被认为不合适的情况。 这项研究与一项综合教育计划相结合，旨在建立科学界的组织技能，使成功过渡到同行生产。