Collaborative Research: Conceptualizing An Institute for Empowering Long Tail Research

大多数由NSF资助的研究发生在中小型实验室(SML)，这些实验室通常由一个PI和几个学生和博士后组成。对于这些小型团队来说，网络基础设施及其应用在发现和创新方面的重要性与日俱增，这既是机会，也是问题。由于资源和专业知识有限，即使是简单的数据发现、收集、分析、管理和共享任务也很困难。一个不幸的后果是，在科学的这条“长尾”中，现代计算方法往往没有得到利用，许多有价值的数据得不到共享，太多的时间被日常任务所消耗。迄今为止，对科学网络基础设施的研究投资不成比例地强调了大型科学项目，提供了供IT员工和精通技术的研究人员使用的工具，而不是终端用户可使用的完整应用程序。该项目的目标是通过专门关注SML的需求，为更平衡的研究议程奠定基础。该软件研究所概念化项目旨在确定是否可以通过使用软件即服务(SaaS)方法来克服这些发现和创新的障碍。事实证明，这些方法对中小型企业非常有效，因为它们能够提供先进的功能，同时简化用户体验并实现规模经济。为了确定类似的好处是否适用于SML，项目组将与多个科学社区接触，以确定科学实践，将科学实践与候选SaaS产品进行匹配，并评估可能允许这些产品可持续发展的商业模式。这一进程的结果旨在为NSF软件创新和可持续发展研究所制定一个具有说服力和竞争力的战略计划，既满足初始科学界的迫切需求，又为解决NSF所有主管部门的网络基础设施需求的新的、更具成本效益的方法提供基础。

The majority of NSF-funded research occurs in small and medium-sized laboratories (SMLs) that often comprise a single PI and a few students and postdocs. For these small teams, the growing importance of cyberinfrastructure and its applications in discovery and innovation is as much problem as opportunity. With limited resources and expertise, even simple data discovery, collection, analysis, management, and sharing tasks are difficult. An unfortunate consequence is that in this "long tail" of science, modern computational methods often are not exploited, much valuable data goes unshared, and too much time is consumed by routine tasks. To date, research investments in science cyberinfrastructure have disproportionately emphasized big science projects, providing tools for use by IT staff and technology savvy researchers rather than complete applications consumable by end users. This projects' goal is to lay a foundation for a more balanced research agenda by focusing exclusively on the needs of SMLs.This Software Institute Conceptualization project aims to determine whether these obstacles to discovery and innovation can be overcome via the use of software as a service (SaaS) methods. Such methods have proven immensely effective for small and medium businesses due to their ability to deliver advanced capabilities while streamlining the user experience and achieving economies of scale. To determine whether similar benefits can apply for SMLs, the project team will engage with multiple science communities to identify science practices, match science practices against candidate SaaS offerings, and evaluate business models that could permit sustainable development of those offerings. The outcome of this process is intended to be a compelling and competitive strategic plan for an NSF Software Innovation and Sustainability Institute that both meets immediate needs of the initial science communities and provides a basis for a new, more cost-effective method of addressing cyberinfrastructure needs across all NSF directorates.