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

软件对科学活动正变得越来越重要，但确保对这一基础设施的长期支持正变得更加具有挑战性。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。该项目通过审查科学软件项目向开源同行生产模式的过渡，审查了研究基础设施从基于赠款的资金向长期可持续模式的转变。该项目跟踪试图过渡的软件包，并为理解这一过程和解释它们的成功或失败开发了一个理论框架。这项研究的结果将通过塑造社区如何在软件基础设施项目的初始阶段为其提供资金，以及如何在此后鼓励过渡到长期模式来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被组织研究人员称为“同行生产”的组织形式过渡。然而，同行生产研究表明，简单地在开放源码许可下提供代码不足以构建一个有动力和生产力的社区。成功的过渡包括团队结构(从本地到分布式)、协作技术(从受控到开放)、治理(从层级到共享)和对参与者的管理(从可预测的承诺到不可预测的承诺)的变化。这个项目考察了科学软件开发中从最初的赠款资助到同行生产的成功和不成功的过渡。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，开发了详细的案例研究历史。研究包括六个过渡项目：YT、Enzo、Eclipse PTP、IRODs、ApacheOODT和Airavata。此外，NSF软件基础设施持续创新计划(需要可持续性计划)资助的一个项目小组将随着时间的推移进行跟踪，以研究成功的过渡、不成功的尝试以及被认为不适合过渡的情况。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，使之能够成功地过渡到同行生产。

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.