Women and Minority Astronomers Strategic Engagement with Distributed, Multi-Disciplinary Collaborations and Large Scale Databases

越来越多的科学和工程方面的研究是在多学科的分布式团队中进行的，从而能够更容易地访问各种资源。随着网络基础设施融入研究，工作实践、必备技能、组织结构和职业轨迹也随之发生变化。对这些伴随变化的研究还处于早期阶段，因此主要集中在大多数科学家的共性上。然而，先前的文献已经确定，在一个领域内，多数群体和少数群体体验科学工作的方式往往存在相当大的差异。很少有人知道少数群体成员在多学科、分布式合作研究团队中工作的不同经历，也很少有人知道他们在这些合作项目中的独特工作实践。随着科学和工程研究向这种新的网络协作模式发展，了解多数和少数成员的经验对于设计、开发和部署适当的网络基础设施支持工具至关重要，并将对增加代表性不足群体成员的参与具有重要意义。这项研究是确定正在使用的最佳实践的第一步，以便在科学和工程研究合作中充分支持所有小组。该项目调查了从事协作、多学科研究的女科学家如何建立和利用人际关系，以及这些关系对她们职业生涯的影响。研究小组将利用民族志方法和叙事分析，对研究人员进行一项试点研究，利用天文学的大规模数据库，确定日常研究实践、工作组织、规划、职业轨迹，以及向下一代学者传授知识。他们将集中于协作工作实践，大型数据库的设计、维护、修订和解释，他们的职业战略，以及指导活动。此外，它将阐明代表性不足的群体是否更有可能在新领域或使用新方法取得成功，并更有可能参与跨学科研究。如果是这样，它们可能是创新和变革科学的关键资产。本研究具有重要的理论和实践意义。它调查了一个与网络基础设施使用和团队科学与工程相关的领域，该领域目前尚未得到充分研究：少数群体成员如何使用网络基础设施和新兴的团队科学结构来取得成功？这些信息如何为下一代网络基础设施的发展和完善提供信息？可以采取哪些步骤来改善代表性不足群体成员的参与？新的网络基础设施工具已经为科学和工程的一些领域带来了变革，但对于不同群体的这些变化有哪些不同，以及每种变化如何取得成功，人们知之甚少。该项目的结果可以使我们能够设计协作科学和工程项目，以增加代表性不足的群体的参与，并为开发适当的网络基础设施提供有价值的信息，以支持各种工作实践。确定少数群体成员的经验将使资助机构能够更好地了解如何支持和培育满足未来科学和工程挑战以及提高国家竞争力所需的工作。

Increasingly, research in science and engineering is conducted in multidisciplinary distributed teams enabling greater access to a variety of resources. As cyberinfrastructure becomes integrated into research, there are accompanying changes in work practices, requisite skill sets, organizing structures and career trajectories. Research on these concomitant changes is in its earliest stages so it has focused predominantly on commonalities among the majority of scientists. However, previous literature has determined that there is often considerable variation in the ways that majority and minority groups within a field experience scientific work. Very little is know about the different experiences of minority group members working in multi-disciplinary, distributed collaborative research teams or about their distinctive work practices within those collaborative projects. As scientific and engineering research moves toward this new cyber-enabled collaborative model, understanding both majority and minority member experiences will be crucial to the design, development and deployment of appropriate cyberinfrastructure support tools and will have important implications for increasing participation among members of underrepresented groups. This research is a first step in identifying best practices in use so that all groups can be fully supported in scientific and engineering research collaborations.This project investigates how women scientists engaged in collaborative, multidisciplinary research build and use interpersonal relationships and the effects of these relationships on their careers. Using ethnographic methods and narrative analysis, the research team will conduct a pilot study of researchers using large-scale databases in astronomy to identify everyday research practices, the organization of work, planning, career trajectories, and the transmission of knowledge to the next generation of scholars. They will focus on collaborative work practices, the design, maintenance, revision and interpretation of large-scale databases, their career strategies, and on mentoring activities. Further, it will shed light on whether underrepresented groups are more likely to succeed in new fields or using new methods and are more likely to engage in interdisciplinary research. If so, they may be a crucial asset in innovation and transformative science. This research has important implications for both theory and practice. It investigates an area related to cyberinfrastructure use and team science and engineering that is currently understudied: How do minority group members use cyberinfrastructure and the emergent team science structure to achieve success? How can this information inform the development and refinement of the next generation of cyberinfrastructure? What steps can be taken to improve participation by members of underrepresented groups? New cyberinfrastructure tools have enabled transformative changes for some areas of science and engineering, but little is known about which of these changes differ for various groups and how each achieves success. Results of this project could enable us to design collaborative science and engineering projects that increase the participation of underrepresented groups and provide valuable information for the development of appropriate cyberinfrastructure to support a variety of work practices. Identifying the experiences of minority group members will enable funding agencies to better understand how to support and nurture the work required to meet future scientific and engineering challenges and improve national competitiveness.