Conversations with University of Washington Research Leaders Janice Fournier, LST Tom Lewis, LST Erik Lundberg, eScience Institute eScience Institute
Dec 21, 2015
Conversations with University of Washington Research Leaders
Janice Fournier, LSTTom Lewis, LSTErik Lundberg, eScience Institute
eScience Institute
Project Goals
Learn about future directions of research
Understand role of technology in research
Identify resources and services that researchers need
eScience Institute
Project Overview
Partners: UW Technology and eScience Institute
First large-scale assessment of researchers’ technology needs conducted at UW
UW is first among its peer institutions to implement a project of this type
50+ technology professionals involved in project
eScience Institute
Selection Criteria
Number and monetary amount of current grants relative to others in similar disciplines
Prestigious recognition calibrated by age: Junior faculty: Sloan Research Fellowships, Packard
Fellowships, NSF CAREER Awards Senior faculty: National Academies membership
Peer recommendations
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eScience Institute
Participants
Phase I (July 2007 - July 2008) 38 researchers interviewed
Phase II (Summer 2008)89 researchers interviewed
Total:127 researchers interviewed264 UW researchers contacted48% response rate
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Data & Analysis
Phase II data: audio recordings, field notes, interview summaries
Identified unique categories of needs
Noted both unmet needs and solutions
Prioritized based on number of unmet needs
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Research Climate
Funding constraints
Voluminous data
Interdisciplinary and inter-institutional collaborations
eScience Institute
eScience Institute
IT Climate
Rely on UW’s advanced networking infrastructure
Leverage external resources
eScience Institute
eScience Institute
Researchers’ IT Needs:
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IT & Data Management Expertise
Data Management Infrastructure
Computing Power
Communication & Collaboration
Data Analysis & Collection
Additional Resources
IT and Data Management Expertise
Local technology support—inadequate access
Data management expertise—designing new systems, enhancing current practices
Information—technologies and expertise available at UW
eScience Institute
eScience Institute
Data Management Infrastructure
eScience Institute
Access to storage infrastructure—large quantities of data for current projects and data archives
Data backup—inconsistent systems among researchers, some unreliable practices
Data security—secure access needed for inter-institutional partners
eScience Institute
Computing Power
Computing power—ever-increasing need for more powerful machines
Managing and housing computing clusters—challenge to configure and house
Network access—need for high bandwidth
eScience Institute
eScience Institute
Communication and Collaboration
Real-time collaboration technologies—critical to some researchers
Videoconferencing, web conferencing, and advanced teleconferencing
Everyday technologies—basic tools are used by most researchers
Phone and email, wikis and Web sites, remote desktop access eScience Institute
eScience Institute
Data Collection and Analysis
Analysis—need for specialized expertise
Visualization—not yet widespread
Collection—Web access to data, mobile devices
eScience Institute
eScience Institute
Additional Resources
Labs & equipment—need for communal resources
Educational technology—strong link between research and education
Centralized information—support for research administration
Group pricing—negotiating discounts for products and services eScience Institute
eScience Institute
eScience Institute
Recommendations
For central institutional units—UW Technology, eScience Institute, Office of Research, Office of Information Management
For the UW research community
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Assumptions
Researchers depend heavily upon UW’s leadership in networking infrastructure, and the UW must continue to sustain and advance these resources.
The UW should also pursue cloud-sourced solutions whenever suitable.
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A New Data Management Paradigm
Integrate human expertise with the hardware
Data schema design, database design, parallel computing tasks, data analysis, data mining
Secure data management infrastructure options: back-ups, short- and long-term, high availability, cloud-sourced
eScience Institute
On-Demand IT Expertise & Consulting
Data management
Security
Network, cluster, and storage design and administration
General IT support
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Greater Availability of Computing Power
Sustained and on-demand
High performance networks
Sustained and dedicated
Pay-as-you and on-demand
eScience Institute
Communication & Collaboration Toolset
A few, basic enhancements…
Drop-in videoconferencing
Ubiquitous Web-conferencing
Cloud-sourced applications to ease access
OpenID and federated AuthN/AuthZ
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Research Commons
Bring together researchers, their support staff, and central units
Share information about what is already available
Provide episodic technology expertise and consulting
Identify collaborative opportunities wrt. Projects, technologies, facilities, support strategies
Mechanisms for group pricing
Questions/Discussion
Conversations report is available at: http://www.washington.edu/lst/
eScience Institute
eScience Institute