David De Roure

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• David De Roure

How Repositories can avoid Failing like the Grid
2.0
Repository Fringe
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But the Grid is successful!
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So why are there three projects addressing lack
of uptake?
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...and a theme in the e-Science Institute?
Adoption of e-Research Technologies
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View from Alcove
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How did we get here?! Early adopter success Then
rollout of infrastructure services And then
wondering where the users are Heard at this
event...
How do we persuade researchers to populate our
repositories?
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e-Science is about global collaboration in key
areas of science, and the next generation of
infrastructure that will enable it.

• Due to the complexity of the software and the
  backend infrastructural requirements, e-Science
  projects usually involve large teams managed and
  developed by research laboratories, large
  universities or governments.

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What are we really trying to achieve here?
A. Everyone using the Grid/Repositories?
B. Research advances on an everyday basis that
would not have happened otherwise?
Not just accelerated but new
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How do we move from heroic scientists doing
heroic science with heroic infrastructure to
everyday scientists doing science they couldnt
do before?
research
humanists archaeologists geographers musicologists
... researchers!
Its the democratisation of e-Research ?
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Jim Downing came up with the idea of Long Tail
Science... So we are exploring how big science
and long-tail science work together to
communicate their knowledge. Long-tail science
needs its domain repositories - I am not sanguine
that IRs can provide the metalayers (search,
metadata, domain-specific knowledge, domain data)
that are needed for effective discovery and
re-use.
Peter Murray-Rust
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The social process of science
2.0
Undergraduate Students
Digital Libraries
researchers
Graduate Students
experimentation
Data, Metadata Provenance WorkflowsOntologies
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Everyday researchers doing everyday research

• Not just a specialist few doing heroic science
  with heroic infrastructure
• Chemists are blogging the lab
• Everyone is mashing up
• Everday hardware multicore machines and mobile
  devices

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2
A data-centric perspective, like researchers

• Data is large, rich, complex and real-time
• There is new value in data, through new digital
  artefacts and through metadata e.g. context,
  provenance, workflows
• This isnt anti-computation design interaction
  around data

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3
Collaborative and participatory

• The social process of science revisited in the
  digital age
• Collaborative tools blogsand Wikis
• e-Science now focuseson publishing as well as
  consuming
• Scholarly lifecycle perspective

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Benefitting from the scale of digital science
activity to support science

• This is new and powerful!
• Community intelligence
• Review
• Usage informing recommendation
• e.g. OpenWetWare
• e.g. myExperiment

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Increasingly open

• Preprints servers and institutional repositories
• Open journals
• Open access to data
• Science Commons
• Object Reuse Exchange

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Better not Perfect

• The technologies people are using are not perfect
• They are better
• They are easy to use
• They are chosen by scientists

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Empowering researchers

• The success stories come from the researchers who
  have learned to use ICT
• Domain ICT experts are delivering the solutions
• Anything that takes away autonomy will be resisted

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About pervasive computing

• e-Science is about the intersection of the
  digital and physical worlds
• Sensor networks
• Mobile handheld devices

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Onward and Upward

• e-Research is now enabling researchers to do some
  completely new stuff!
• As the individual pieces become easy to use,
  researchers can bring them together in new ways
  and ask new questions
• The next level

Standing on theshoulders of giants
(Everyday researchers are giants too)
www.w3.org/2007/Talks/www2007-AnsweringScientificQ
uestions-Ruttenberg.pdf
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Repositories
Repositories

• Absolutely key role in future research. So think
  of a better word!
• Think of a park / reserve / gardens / zoo
• Visitors, rangers, wardens, gardeners, experts,
  security, volunteers, ...
• Actively curation
• Dancing bears
• Datacentre might be better ?

Tim Minchin and Dancing Bear photo on
http//www.flickr.com/photos/davemorris/2724821470
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www.oreilly.com/pub/a/oreilly/tim/news/2005/09/30/
what-is-web-20.html
Those 8 Repository points

• Not just a specialist few doing heroic science
  with heroic infrastructure repositories for
  all!
• There is new value in data, through new digital
  artefacts and through metadata e.g. context,
  provenance, workflows
• e-Science now focuses on publishing as well as
  consuming
• Usage informing recommendation
• Researchers work with collections - Object Reuse
  Exchange
• They are easy to use
• Anything that takes away autonomy will be
  resisted
• e-Science is about the intersection of the
  digital and physical worlds (not 1970s library
  catalogue interfaces)

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Curation of process
And we need to curate processes too!

• Find a process based on what it and find copies
  or similar services usable as alternates.
• Understand how and when it works, how to operate
  it correctly and predict its performance.
• Know the conditions for use permissions,
  licenses, platforms, and costs.
• Judge the benefits of adoption based on its
  reputation, provenance and validation by peers.
• Estimate the risk of adoption based on its
  reliability and stability.
• Get assistance for its incorporation into
  applications and workflows.

Goble De Roure Educause Review Sep/Oct 2008
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Transformation is already underway

• To understand where were going, look at
  communities which have been early to embrace new
  technology.
• e-Science is one. What can we learn?
• Incidentally, so is music and broadcast!
• Vinyl was like books
• Now the process is digital from the studio
  through to playback on an iPod
• People create content
• People publish content
• Has the business adapted?

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Note to Reader. The next slides are not intended
to be anti-grid. Everyone working on Grid is
doing great work.
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• Dont think rollout of technologies...

Think roll-in of researchers...
Mass Use by Researchers
Knowledge co-production vs Service Delivery!
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N
N2
N
Without middleware we need lots of bits of
software to join things together
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N
One Middleware
2N
N
With middleware there are fewer arrows!
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N
Middleware
Middleware
Middleware
?
Middleware
Polynomial involving N1,N2 and M
Middleware
Middleware
N
But this is what happened. Now the picture with
lots of thin arrows isnt quite so scary!
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use Web 2.0 here
Web is being embraced for usability and
programmability e.g. mashups
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And Grid is trying to come to terms with
multicore and clouds!
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A Thought Experiment
Imagine EPrints isnt something you download and
run on a local server
Imagine instead that you just go to the cloud and
make one
How would this repository ecosystemself-organise
to support Research 2.0?
Would there be institutional repositories?
(Actually you can!)
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How Repositories can avoid Failing like the Grid

• Understand what the users will need by going on
  the journey together
• Be open-minded are we solving the right problem?
  (Dont forget curation of process!)
• Dont create artificial distinctions from Web
• Beware standards as a barrier to adoption
• Think cloud, outside the institutional box
  imagine the repository factory
• Think of a new name for repositories!

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• Contact
• David De Roure
• dder_at_ecs.soton.ac.uk
• Thanks
• Carole Goble
• Jeremy Frey
• Simon Coles
• Peter Murray-Rust

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Principles for adoption

• Fit in, Dont Force Change
• Jam today and more jam tomorrow
• Just in Time and Just Enough
• Act Local, think Global
• Enable Users to Add Value
• Design for Network Effects

• Keep your Friends Close
• Embed
• Keep Sight of the Bigger Picture
• Favours will be in your Favour
• Know your users
• Expect and Anticipate Change

Six Principles of Software Design to Empower
Scientists http//eprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/15032/