VOSS: Flexible Research Infrastructure: A Comparative Study

本研究将使用人种学和档案学方法，对两个成功的长期网络基础设施进行案例比较分析，这两个网络基础设施近30年来一直在支持生态学和医学领域的科学研究：长期生态研究网络(LTER)和多中心艾滋病队列研究(MACS)。档案研究将提供当前事件的背景，并将进行人种学调查。该项目解决了基础设施比较研究中的一个重大空白，将注意力重新集中在构成当代研究基础设施的不断变化的技术、社会技术组织和机构环境的影响上。中心研究问题是：“旧组织”如何更新自己，以维持“新科学”的价值？通过调查经受住了许多变革的网络基础设施的过去和现在，这项研究试图为未来的网络基础设施发展努力提供信息。调查结果将确定成功的“长期战略”--组织形式和设计方法，以及促进对变化作出反应的记录。这些见解将对科学和技术研究(STS)、科学政策、组织科学和研究基础设施的社会技术设计领域做出贡献。这项研究的目的是了解长期科学组织面临的挑战，以及他们采取的应对这些挑战的策略。科学研究基础设施的发展是国家科学基金会S的科学愿景的核心；然而，面对不断变化的社会组织、信息技术(IT)和科学利益，迄今很少或零星地关注灵活的长期基础设施的动态变化。这项研究将填补这一空白，有助于对正在形成和长期存在的基础设施的特征提供新的、实用的和跨国界的知识。该项目将为在科学领域建立更开放、更有效和更可持续的网络基础设施的努力提供信息，使网络基础设施项目负责人、参与者、工具制造商和资助者做出更明智、更可持续的投资和设计选择。这项研究还将为科学政策和监管环境提供信息，以帮助促进跨多个研究领域的可持续和富有成效的研究基础设施。

Using ethnographic and archival methods, this study will develop a comparative case analysis of two successful long-term cyberinfrastructures that have been supporting scientific research for nearly thirty years, in ecology and medical science: the Long-term Ecological Research Network (LTER) and the Multi-Center AIDS Cohort Study (MACS). Archival research will provide a backdrop to current events that will be investigated ethnographically. The project addresses a significant gap in comparative studies of infrastructure, refocusing attention on the implications of the always-changing technologies, sociotechnical-organization, and institutional environments that make up contemporary research infrastructures. The central research questions is: How are "old organizations" renewing themselves to sustain value for "new science"? By investigating the past and present of cyberinfrastructures that have weathered many transformations, this research seeks to inform future cyberinfrastructure development efforts. The findings will identify successful "strategies of the long-term" -- organizational forms and methods of design with a track-record of facilitating responsiveness to change. These insights will be a contribution to the fields of Science and Technology Studies (STS), science policy, organization science, and the sociotechnical design of research infrastructure.The purpose of this research is to understand the challenges that long-term scientific organizations face over time, and the strategies they employ to manage these challenges. The development of scientific research infrastructure is central to the NSF?s vision of science; however there has as yet been little or sporadic empirical attention to the dynamics of flexible long-term infrastructure in the face of changing social organization, information technology (IT) and scientific interests. This research will fill that gap, contributing to new, practical, and boundary-spanning knowledge about the characteristics of infrastructure in the making and over the long-term. This project will inform efforts to build more open, effective, and sustainable cyberinfrastructure in the sciences, leading to smarter and more sustainable investment and design choices on the part of cyberinfrastructure project leaders, participants, tool builders, and funders. This research will also inform science policy and regulatory environments, to help foster a sustainable and productive research infrastructure across multiple fields of inquiry.