The Future of Virtual Research Environments

JISC Conference 2008 1 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 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 isn’t “anti‐computation” – design interaction around data 3 Collaborative and participatory • The social process of science  revisited in the digital age • Collaborative tools – blogs and Wikis • e‐Science now focuses on publishing as well as  consuming • Scholarly lifecycle perspective 4 • • • • 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 5 Increasingly open • Preprints servers and  institutional repositories • Open journals • Open access to data • Science Commons • Object Reuse & Exchange 6 Better not Perfect • The technologies people  are using are not perfect • They are better • They are easy to use • They are chosen by  scientists 7 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 8 About pervasive computing • e‐Science is about  the intersection of  the digital and  physical worlds  • Sensor networks • Mobile handheld  devices Onward and Upward e‐Science 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 the shoulders of giants” (Everyday researchers are giants too) www.w3.org/2007/Talks/www2007-AnsweringScientificQuestions-Ruttenberg.pdf www.oreilly.com/pub/a/oreilly/tim/news/2005/09/30/what-is-web-20.html Signs of the Times 1. Everyday researchers doing  everyday research 2. A data‐centric perspective,  like researchers 3. Collaborative and  participatory 4. Benefitting from the scale of  digital science activity 5. Increasingly open 6. Better not Perfect 7. Empowering researchers 8. About pervasive computing Web 2.0 patterns The Long Tail Data is the Next Intel Inside Users add value Network effects by default Some Rights Reserved The Perpetual Beta Cooperate, don’t Control Software above the level  of the single device Don’t think rollout of technologies... Mass Use by Researchers Think roll‐in of researchers... Mass Use by Researchers Knowledge co‐production vs Service Delivery! Contact David De Roure dder@ecs.soton.ac.uk Carole Goble carole.goble@manchester.ac.uk www.myexperiment.org slideshare.net/dder eprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/15032/ The future of VREs An eReSS (and slightly personal) perspective eReSS • eResearch Specifications and Standards • Capturing VRE Programme use of standards and advising projects on standards usage • eReSS wiki • http://www.hull.ac.uk/esig/eress.html • Community input welcome eReSS partnership • University of Hull • University of Reading • Lancaster University • STFC, Daresbury • Edexcel • EDINA • University of Michigan, Nagoya University Standards • Technical standards • As promoted by standards bodies • Community standards • As agreed by defined communities • Can also be useful outside immediate community • Open / closed standards • Who is in control and what restrictions are there? Standards and VREs • A Virtual Research Community (VRC) is a group of researchers, possibly widely dispersed, working together and facilitated by a set of online tools, systems and processes interoperating to support collaborative research within or across institutional boundaries, typically described as a Virtual Research Environment, or VRE. VRCs will need to be strongly standards standards-based to enable interoperation between systems. Without interoperation there will be significant difficulties in applying the technology to improve interdisciplinary research or to enable knowledge transfer OSI e-Infrastructure Working Group report Infrastructure ‘Developing the UK’s e e-Infrastructure for Science and innovation’ • Standards and research practice • Virtual Research Communities are, by their nature, innovative • Standards can be used to underpin research and support innovation • Standards may also emerge from research for others to use • The balance between these emphases can influence technical choices and direction Web 2.0 • Web 2.0 standards are rapidly evolving • Flexible, light touch, iterative • Designed around openness and ease of community re-use • Approach can lead to multiple ‘standards’ Frameworks • E.g., uPortal, Sakai, GridSphere • A core, standards-based system which based can be added to over time • Less flexibility (?), greater stability The best of both worlds? • A combination of both approaches would seem appropriate • And is being seen more and more Sharing data • Data is at the heart of much research • Access to data is key to enabling research and fostering research collaboration • Data curation is a vital component of VREs and VRCs • Communities need to agree on standards • Standards used need to be clearly communicated Embedding the library • Resources to support research are often sourced via the Library • Increasing trends to make these resources accessible where required (e.g., in VREs) • Libraries should be involved in the assessment of requirements for VRCs to identify resource needs Virtual environments for…? • Research should not be developed in isolation, as an institutional silo • Standards may also support teaching, learning, and possibly even admin • Cross-silo approach to using standards silo prevents duplication of effort and adds value The future of VREs these • Identification of community needs • Identification of standards to assist with • Clear reporting of all standards used or developed as part of research dissemination • Increased consideration of data curation and resource management to inform research • Cross-silo communication and silo implementation of technologies used Thank you Chris Awre c.awre@hull.ac.uk Virtual Research Environments: Into the Future Dr Liz Lyon Director, UKOLN, University of Bath, UK JISC Conference, Birmingham, April 2008 UKOLN is supported by: This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Licence Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 www.ukoln.ac.uk A centre of expertise in digital information management Four themes 1. 2. 3. 4. Citizen science Collective intelligence Predictive data-centric science Mixed reality environments (Multi-disciplinary and cross-sectoral activity is assumed……) Collaboration: with other scientists and the public….. Citizen science • • • • Collaborative activity not just with peers Interaction with the public Citizen science Crowd-sourcing? Capacity-building? • We need dedicated interfaces to exploit this under-used workforce Collective intelligence • Today: aggregations, comments, tags, annotations, ratings, reviews, opinions… • Tomorrow: “collective intelligence” to analyse, assess, mine, extract, evaluate…. • We need tools to leverage this resource “National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) announces 5 new Centers of Excellence focussing on the emerging field of Predictive Science.” US DoE $17million grant to each Center Simulations of hypersonic flight, supernovae…. 7th March, 2008 Predictive science • Content is infrastructure e.g. Protein Data Bank • Today: primary data, images, text • Tomorrow: digests, simulations, models • Today: discovery to delivery • Tomorrow: mine & model, simulate & synthesise • Today: statistics • Tomorrow: Predictive science We need verification & validation methodologies…. “London Polyclinic” Imperial College / Nat Phys Lab Mixed reality environments • • • • • Opportunities for participative exploration Rich test-bed for experimentation Mimic, innovate and extend Immerse and experience Ubiquitous? Pervasive? Persistent? • We need to achieve seamless transition, integration, linking between worlds….. Slides will be available at : http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/ukoln/staff/e.j.lyon/presentations.html www.ukoln.ac.uk A centre of expertise in digital information management The Future of VREs Presented by: Prof Mark Baker ACET, University of Reading Tel: +44 118 378 8615 E-mail: Mark.Baker@computer.org Web: http://acet.rdg.ac.uk/~mab 15th April 2008 mark.baker@computer.org Outline • • • • • • What VREs? What a VRE offers. Some current VREs. Pros and Cons. Recycle Bridge… The Future of VREs. 31st January 2008 mark.baker@computer.org What is a VRE? • A VRE is best viewed as a framework into which tools, services and resources can be plugged. • A VRE is the result of joining together new and existing components to support as much of the research process as appropriate for any given activity or role. • Normally a scientist will have a bunch of icons on their desktops that are links to the applications that help their research processes: – In a VRE, all these services are embedded within a Webportal. 15th April 2008 mark.baker@computer.org What VREs Offer Users • Customised user interfaces, • A focussed entry-point for users in particular disciplines. • Personalised services. • Role-based security. • Access to information and services – hiding the underlying complexity. • Provides a supported working environment. • Used for finding, sharing and disseminating information. • Facilitates collaboration across institutional boundaries. 15th April 2008 mark.baker@computer.org Current VREs • User portals can use a variety of technologies … 15th April 2008 mark.baker@computer.org The Pros and Cons of Current Portals • A VRE provides a Web-based portal where scientists/engineers can login and access the various tools, utilities and services they need to do their science. • If using a Portal Framework - potentially applications and services have to be ported to the system: – Standard Web-based portal components – JSR-168 and emerging JSR-286. – No standard for back-end services – JavaBeans, Servlets, Web Services,… – Need to login to desktop and then the portal • If not using a normal Portal Framework – then more or less all the infrastructure, services and utilities need to be designed and implemented from scratch: – Probably a quicker way to create a user portal! –15th April 2008 BUT, probably reinventing the wheel time and time again. mark.baker@computer.org The Pros and Cons of Current Portals • Duplicating Web-based applications – forking software to push them into a portlet, then having to maintain the software:. – Should not be reinventing wheel, should be reusing webapplications (Wordpress/MediaWiki/…) • Bridges are a way around this problem: – Lets you consume a normal Web application, – In the VERA project we have developed the Recycle Bridge (http://vera.rdg.ac.uk/software/): – RB is being used to consume the VERA portal, and has been tested with Wordpress/MediaWiki/… • Should be focusing on new services, tools and utilities within a portal, rather than reinventing the wheel. 15th April 2008 mark.baker@computer.org Development Technologies Range of technologies are being used to design VREs. Ruby-on-Rails, Java, C#, PHP… Development frameworks – Structs, Spring, JSF… Formal standards based systems and informal ad hoc ones. • Web 2.0 has opened up the field a lot: – Mashups, simple APIs, AJAX, tagging, social networking sites, – Simple to development interfaces, but has opened huge security holes – e.g. SQL injection! • • • • 15th April 2008 mark.baker@computer.org VREs in the Future • Prof Mike Fulford’s (Archaeology) view: – “If I think of VERA and Silchester, I feel we have hardly begun to develop the VRE and its potential; the main constraint being resources, rather than the technology/software - so we are still at the infant stage”. – “Where technology is concerned, it is also clear to me that this is a field which is evolving so rapidly, there is scope for continual development and enhancement”. – “Hence we develop the notion of a boundless VRE in terms of both domain scope and the exploitation of the technology”. 15th April 2008 mark.baker@computer.org VREs in the Future • A Computer Science view… – Currently VREs, which are presented via a Webportal, are at an intermediate phase in their development. – It is natural to have a bunch of icons embedded in ones desktop that are used for undertaking ones research. – So, instead of logging into a Portal, you login to your normal PC/Laptop, and use the icons on your desktop: • The icons will effectively provide the same services as those used via the portal, but the portal itself will be hidden from the user. 15th April 2008 mark.baker@computer.org Questions? 15th April 2008 mark.baker@computer.org