Sustaining: A Bridge to Sustainability for the CIPRES Science Gateway

授予加州大学圣地亚哥分校的这一奖项将维持网络系统发育研究基础设施(CIPRES)科学门户的在线存在，该网站允许来自世界各地的科学家通过访问在NSF资助的大型计算集群上运行的社区软件来分析复杂的系统发育问题，从而更容易地进行发现。目前，至少有12000名科学家每年使用CIPRES Gateway进行数万项工作；这些工作是对自然界和地球生命起源进行新的科学发现的重要组成部分。在过去的一年里，至少发表了1800项科学研究，使用了CIPRES提供的成果。如果没有CIPRES提供的资源，所有这些研究都将更加困难，甚至不可能。CIPRES使无法访问大型本地/校园计算资源的研究人员能够提出大问题并进行困难的调查。它还使每年有100多名教师使用世界上最好的工具培训下一代系统发育研究人员成为可能。CIPRES对基础生物学研究的影响是巨大的。假设目前的趋势继续下去，CIPRES将在获奖期间支持6000项研究。CIPRES提供的访问使科学家能够快速调查SARS-CoV-2病毒的来源和分布，当科学家需要对不可预见的、时间敏感的研究问题做出快速反应时，强调像CIPRES这样的资源的价值。在这次颁奖期间，研究人员将专注于将CIPRES科学门户从NSF资助的资源改为用户资助的资源。该项目的目标是开发工具和战略，使CIPRES科学门户能够通过项目用户和赞助商产生的收入无限期地维持下去。目前，每年有数以千计的用户访问和运行CIPRES的工作，作为他们对地球上生命进化的科学调查的一部分。鉴于这种资源对其社区具有持久的价值，研究人员将开发收入流，允许永久维护和保存资源，而不需要NSF或其他联邦机构的额外资金。拟议活动包括软件维护和系统管理任务，通过支持个人用户提交的基于网络的图形用户界面，以及通过支持其他科学门户和需要进行系统发展分析的桌面应用程序提交的REST式应用程序编程接口，维护作业提交、结果存储和结果检索的操作完整性。其他活动将包括例行更新、基准和发布当前和新的社区代码；使用情况监测，以确保用户社区高效和谨慎地使用NSF资源；用户支持；基于用户反馈的调整和错误修复；以及报告进度。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This award to the University of California - San Diego will sustain the online presence of the Cyberinfrastructure for Phylogenetic Research (CIPRES) Science Gateway, an internet site that allows scientists from around the world to make discoveries more easily through access to community software for analyzing complex phylogenetic questions run on large NSF-funded compute clusters. Currently at least 12,000 scientists run tens of thousands of jobs each year using the CIPRES Gateway; these jobs are an essential part of making new scientific discoveries about the natural world and the origin of life on Earth. In the past year at least 1,800 scientific studies were published using results made possible by CIPRES. All of these studies would have been more difficult or even impossible without the access to resources that CIPRES provides. CIPRES makes it possible for researchers who do not have access to large local/campus computing resources to ask large questions and conduct difficult investigations. It also makes it possible for more than 100 instructors each year to train the next generation of phylogenetics researchers, using the finest tools available in the world. The impact of CIPRES on basic biological research is significant. Assuming current trends continue, CIPRES will support 6,000+ studies during the award period. The access provided by CIPRES allowed scientists to quickly investigate the origin and distribution of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, emphasizing the value of a resource like CIPRES when scientists need to respond rapidly to an unforeseen, time-sensitive research problem.During this award, the researchers will focus on changing the CIPRES Science Gateway from an NSF-funded resource to a user-funded resource. The goal of the project is to develop tools and strategies that make it possible to sustain the CIPRES Science Gateway indefinitely via revenues generated from the project’s users and sponsors. At present thousands of users access and run jobs at CIPRES each year as part of their scientific investigations into the evolution of life on Earth. Given that the resource has enduring value to its community, the researchers will develop revenue streams that will allow maintenance and preservation of the resource in perpetuity without additional funding from NSF or other federal agencies. The proposed activities include software maintenance and systems administration tasks that preserve the operational integrity of job submissions, results storage, and results retrieval via a web-based graphical user interface that supports submissions by individual users, and via a RESTful application programming interface that supports submissions by other science gateways and desktop applications that require phylogenetic analyses. Additional activities will include routine updating, benchmarking, and release of current and new community codes; usage monitoring to ensure efficient and prudent use of NSF resources by the user community; user support; adjustments and bug fixes based on feedback from users; and reporting progress.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.