David De Roure

Between 19 th October and 23 rd November 2007 I attended six international meetings related to e-Science Grid 2007 Scientific and Scholarly Workflows e-Social Science 2007 W3C Open Grid Forum Microsoft e-Science This is what I found

Everyday researchers doing everyday research Not just a specialist few doing heroic science with heroic infrastructure Everyone is mashing up Chemists are blogging the lab People are buying multicore machines and mobile devices The cloud and the long tail 1

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 – just design around data 2

Collaborative and participatory The social process of science revisited in the digital age Users add value is the very nature of research e-Science now focuses on publishing as well as consuming Scholarly lifecycle perspective 3

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 4

Increasingly open...in terms of scholarly outputs and their reuse Preprints servers and institutional repositories Open journals Open access to data Science Commons Object Reuse & Exchange 5

Better not Perfect The technologies people are using are not perfect They are better They are easy to use They are chosen by scientists 6

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 7

About pervasive computing e-Science is about the intersection of the digital and physical worlds Sensor networks Mobile handheld devices 8

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 to support science 5.Increasingly open 6.Better not Perfect 7.Empowering researchers 8.About pervasive computing Signs of the Times

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 Onward and Upward

1.Everyday researchers doing everyday research BUT heroic infrastructure not being adopted 2.A data-centric perspective, like researchers BUT Grid gives APIs to computation not data 3.Collaborative and participatory BUT deeply rooted service provider mindset 6.Better not Perfect BUT aims to provide well-engineered perfect solution 7.Giving autonomy to researchers BUT imposes institutional control (at this time) 8.About pervasive computing BUT about portals and not the next generation of users The Grid Problem

e-Science Technology Creators & Integrators Applications Research EE Research Socio-economic & Commercial Innovation e-Science bespoke tailoring Mass Use by Researchers 5 years CS Research e-Science 10s of integrators 100s of embedded consultants 1000s of research users The Arrow Problem e-Science Pipeline

Web ServicesRESTful APIscmd linessshhttp Web BrowserMobile phoneiPodCarEquipmentPDA P2P mashups workflows services applications Subject ICT experts Computer Scientists Software Companies Workflow tools Ruby on Rails ecosystem Scientists open source Software Engineers nesc

Its about empowerment as well as provision People power Hence usability: – Simple interfaces for users – Simple interfaces for developers – No need for a summer school! Step into user space and look back Computer Scientists as facilitators and problem solvers(?) For a flourishing ecosystem...

Tony Hey Others are saying this too...

Carole Goble

Geoffrey Fox

Contact David De Roure Thanks to Malcolm Atkinson Geoffrey Fox Carole Goble Tony Hey

The Long Tail Small sites make up the bulk of the internet's content; narrow niches make up the bulk of internet's the possible applications. Therefore: Leverage customer-self service and algorithmic data management to reach out to the entire web, to the edges and not just the center, to the long tail and not just the head. Data is the Next Intel Inside Applications are increasingly data-driven. Therefore: For competitive advantage, seek to own a unique, hard-to-recreate source of data. Users Add Value The key to competitive advantage in internet applications is the extent to which users add their own data to that which you provide. Therefore: Don't restrict your "architecture of participation" to software development. Involve your users both implicitly and explicitly in adding value to your application. Network Effects by Default Only a small percentage of users will go to the trouble of adding value to your application. Therefore: Set inclusive defaults for aggregating user data as a side-effect of their use of the application. Some Rights Reserved. Intellectual property protection limits re-use and prevents experimentation. Therefore: When benefits come from collective adoption, not private restriction, make sure that barriers to adoption are low. Follow existing standards, and use licenses with as few restrictions as possible. Design for "hackability" and "remixability." The Perpetual Beta When devices and programs are connected to the internet, applications are no longer software artifacts, they are ongoing services. Therefore: Don't package up new features into monolithic releases, but instead add them on a regular basis as part of the normal user experience. Engage your users as real-time testers, and instrument the service so that you know how people use the new features. Cooperate, Don't Control Web 2.0 applications are built of a network of cooperating data services. Therefore: Offer web services interfaces and content syndication, and re- use the data services of others. Support lightweight programming models that allow for loosely-coupled systems. Software Above the Level of a Single Device The PC is no longer the only access device for internet applications, and applications that are limited to a single device are less valuable than those that are connected. Therefore: Design your application from the get-go to integrate services across handheld devices, PCs, and internet servers.