Collaborative Research: EAGER: VisDict - Visual Dictionaries for Enhancing the Communication between Domain Scientists and Scientific Workflow Providers

在过去的20年里，研究课题、研究环境和实验室仪器的复杂性大大增加，并导致了计算方法（如计算工作流）的采用。成千上万的研究人员使用工作流来创建和分析来自不同研究领域的数据，对工作流的吸收也反映在大量成熟的工作流管理系统中，这些系统具有不同的优势和重点。工作流程在实现重大发现方面发挥了重要作用，例如黑洞碰撞产生的引力波，以及下一代测序技术对DNA的分析。虽然工作流以其自身的权利构成了一个研究领域，并导致诸如效率、特性增强和可用性等方面的改进，但工作流本质上是为服务于其他领域而设计的。创建支持研究主题的工作流需要理解目标问题，这可能是一个劳动密集型且容易出错的过程。错误的一个来源是领域研究者和工作流提供者之间的交流。成功的沟通要考虑到研究人员的科学背景、母语、母国和文化等多个方面。虽然就一种用于交流的自然语言达成一致——或涉及翻译——是典型的设置交流，但研究领域与计算机科学之间缺乏交流的工具或翻译。VisDict旨在通过在科学门户中提供一套词汇表来填补这一空白，以增强交流。目标是为不同的领域和工作流提供者提供定义，从而作为术语的来源。正如“一张图片胜过千言万语”这句话所说的那样，添加可视化将进一步降低沟通障碍。VisDict的主要目标是创建一个直观的视觉词典，翻译研究领域和计算机科学之间的术语和概念，特别是计算工作流程。所提议的工作的一个关键组成部分是开发一个可视化词典——VisDict——作为一个基于科学网关框架HUBzero的科学网关实例，旨在提供跨学科术语的知识地图。为了实现这一创新和变革的目标，该项目正在与工作流系统研究人员和开发人员以及来自科学和工程社区的研究人员进行一系列调查和交互。该项目正在应用语义表示来创建不同领域之间的知识，使其无缝地提供给研究人员，从而填补这一领域的空白。可视化旨在增强理解，用户可以对定义和图形进行投票，以便在不同的社区中广泛采用该词典。通过降低计算机科学家和领域科学家之间工作流程设计和开发活动的沟通障碍，该项目有可能显著提高和加速对社会发展和可持续发展至关重要的科学进步。虽然该项目从物理学和生态学两个领域开始，但这个概念可以应用于任何具有特定学科语言的研究领域。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The complexity of research topics, research environments, and lab instruments has majorly grown in the last 20 years and has led to an uptake of computational methods such as computational workflows. Thousands of researchers use workflows for creating and analyzing data from a diverse set of research domains and the uptake of workflows for research is also reflected in a high number of mature workflow management systems with different strengths and foci. Workflows have been instrumental in enabling significant discoveries such as the gravitational waves from colliding black holes and the analyses of DNA from Next-Generation Sequencing technologies. While workflows constitute a research domain in their own right and lead to improvements such as efficiency, feature enhancement, and usability, workflows are inherently designed to serve other domains. The creation of workflows supporting a research topic requires an understanding of the targeted problem and can be a labor-intensive and error-prone process. One source of errors is the communication between domain researchers and workflow providers. Successful communication considers diverse aspects such as the scientific background, native language, home country, and culture of the researchers. While the agreement on one natural language for communication - or involving a translator - is the typical set-up communication, there is a lack of tools or translators for communication between research domains and computer science. VisDict is intended to fill this gap by providing a set of vocabularies in a science gateway to enhance communication. The goal is to present a definition for different domains and workflow providers and, thus, serve as source for terms. Adding visualization will lower the communication barrier further following the saying, “A picture is worth a thousand words.”The main goal for VisDict is to create an intuitive visual dictionary that translates terms and concepts between research domains and computer science, specifically computational workflows. A key component of the proposed work is the development of a visual dictionary - VisDict - instantiated as a science gateway that is based on the science gateway framework HUBzero and aimed at providing a knowledge map of terms across disciplines. To accomplish this innovative and transformative goal, the project is conducting a series of surveys and interactions with workflow systems researchers and developers, and researchers from the science and engineering communities. The project is applying semantic representation to create knowledge between different domains to make it seamlessly available to researchers and thus fill the gap in this area. The visualization is intended to enhance understanding, and users are be able to vote on definitions and figures to allow for a wide adoption of the dictionary in diverse communities. By lowering the communication barrier for workflow design and development activities between computer scientists and domain scientists, this project has the potential to significantly enhance and accelerate scientific progress of critical importance for the development and sustainability of society. While the project starts with two communities - physics and ecology - the concept can be applied to any research domain with subject-specific language.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.