Designing Cyberinfrastructure to Support ScienceWorkshop at the 2008 ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) | ||
ORGANIZERS | Charlotte P. Lee, University of California, Irvine Matthew Bietz, University of California, Irvine David Ribes, University of Michigan | |
| CONTACT | Matthew Bietz: mbietz [at] uci.edu | |
| ABSTRACT | The aim of this workshop is to discuss current and future directions for CSCW research pertaining to cyberinfrastructure (CI). CSCW and CI intersect in their aims to support collaboration within heterogeneous groups and across physical distribution. Furthermore the development of CI – or large-scale informational resources, -- is itself a form of collaborative work worthy of CSCW research. | |
| INTENDED PARTICIPANTS | People who are involved currently in efforts to research and develop cyberinfrastructure to support science. Individuals with a strong interest in getting involved in this area will be considered space permitting. | |
| HOW TO PARTICIPATE | Submit a 2 to 4 page position paper that addresses or is related to the themes of the workshop. Please use the CHI paper format. We will provide the papers to workshop participants on our workshop wiki shortly before the workshop: http://cscw2008w4.org. | |
| DATES | NEW Wednesday, September 24. Position Paper Submissions Due NEW October 3. Notification of Acceptance September 30. Early CSCW Registration Deadline Saturday, November 8, 2008. Workshop | |
| THEMES | The workshop will address four related themes: • Designing for Emerging Groups • Designing for the Long-Term • Designing for Interoperability • The Role of CSCW Practitioners in CI Research and Development Designing for Emerging Groups. Understanding user requirements is particularly difficult when creating systems for future science. Scientists have a hard time articulating their needs when they don’t necessarily know what could be possible. Furthermore in trying to build a system for the long term, user needs, and even notions of the “the user” or “the community” are a moving target. First, even with the theoretical issues surrounding the concept of “users,” developers must still ask: for whom? How can we characterize a “scientific community” in a way that recognizes its amorphous and shifting nature while still providing structure for development efforts? The second related challenge is to develop CI systems that can change and evolve over time. As science progresses, people, organizations, communities, and technologies will change. Collaboration tools are needed that interoperate while supporting work activities within larger and dynamic contexts. Designing for the Long-Term. Infrastructures are meant to last not just for years, but for decades or longer. Data should be meaningfully preserved for as long as it remains useful, and past work should not be lost at each upgrade or update of software. Designing systems that can continue to function and remain relevant is a challenge. We often think of computing resources as being in continuous flux, but increasingly it is clear we must design for system sustainability. Tools should be modular and backwards compatible to facilitate future upgrades; data should be carefully archived with its metadata and contextual information. Infrastructures must become institutions, and their technologies must be flexible enough to allow for long-term change. Designing for interoperability. Many CI projects are conceived to support the aggregation and reuse of tools and data. Data may be aggregated to provide greater analytic power or to answer “big” questions that no single investigator or data set could alone. Data may also have broad applicability across disciplines. For example, historical weather data may be used to predict future weather, but could also help understand human migration patterns or explore the evolutionary development of microorganisms. Similarly, computational tools may have broad applicability across scientific domains e.g., visualization tools can serve to render many kinds of data. A tension arises, however, in that while infrastructures tend to emerge over long time periods and seek to create interoperability, they are also the products of local, short-term, planned decisions. A key challenge in infrastructure development is to make something broadly useful while allowing for local optimization. The Role of CSCW Practioners in CI research and development. How do we as CSCW practitioners and researchers design tools and systems to contribute to the development of infrastructure? A key contribution of CSCW to CI is that our community can act as “boundary workers” who bridge the divide between system building and social analysis. We will discuss: • Professional interests in relation to CI • Roles and responsibilities of CSCW practitioners in CI • Available methods for study and participation in CI • Comparative analysis of individual CI projects We will identify commonalities, potential collaborators, and to learn from the challenges faced and overcome by others. By understanding the state of CSCW CI research, we lay the groundwork for thinking strategically about future directions. | |
| SCHEDULE | TBD | |
| LINKS | Workshop Proposal Paper (PDF) Workshop Wiki CSCW Conference Workshop Page CSCW Conference Website | |
| OTHER | Material based in part upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 0712994. | |