Participative Web : e-science

Research 2.0 - from scientists to citizens

Richard Akerman — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 17:15:00 GMT

Bill St. Arnaud from CANARIE gave a presentation about "Participative Science", quite an exciting idea of using the participative web to go from traditional closed science grid networks to providing citizens the ability to access and analyse datasets themselves.

Earlier in the day, in response to a question about "what is the participative web beyond social networking" we had heard from Cyrus Beagley about the NetFlix Prize, in which the DVD-by-mail service is offering up some of its data for analysis, with a US $1 million prize for the best DVD recommender algorithm.

In his presentation, Bill pointed to Intel® Mash Maker: Mashups for the Masses, as an example of how tools for working with online data are becoming easier to use and more widely available.

In "ICT for Science - experiencing the future Internet", Mario Campolargo of GÉANT talked about the empowerment of users, the need to think about the interface between formal e-science grids and more informal networks for citizen access ("citizen grids").

It is clear that the rapid pace of change is pushing those involved with science infrastructure to think about ways to interact with a broader public, to take advantage of the energy and creativity of the general population, promoting greater understanding of and participation in science. The rapid progress of these technologies has opened new horizons of research, making powerful research tools available. As Diana Rhoten from the US NSF Office of Cyberinfrastructure said in her presentation, "we are living in exponential times", which is enabling more computing power and data to be distributed more widely and used by more people than ever before.

computer science transforming scientific research - Andrew Herbert

Richard Akerman — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 15:43:00 GMT

Andrew Herbert is Managing Director of Microsoft Research, Cambridge

I would summarise the underlying theme of his presentation as the application of thinking, methodologies, and tools from the realm of computer science to other scientific fields.

Here are some fairly raw notes on his presentation:

The sciences are all increasingly relying on computer science to reduce the time to insight.

Computational science - simulation, data mining, pattern recognition and many other techniques.

How will we produce researchers who have the the right balance of scientific background and computer skills.

"Computer science ideas are creating new ways of doing traditional science"

networks are also being used to create virtual scientific organisations

if science is ongoing on the network, why do we need conferences and printed journals -
a revolutionary challenge to scientific publication

sensor networks enable real-world data to be used in simulations

using computers to automate scientific workflow... could we even automate some auspects of
generating scientific results

Where Is This Taking Us?

* ability to model drugs on personal gene machine [i.e. individual, unique people]
* monitor changes in personal gene machine

... personalised healthcare, customised for your body and genome

* sustainable bio-energy

Other Areas Being Explored from a CS perspective

* understanding the human brain
* confronting global epidemics
* understanding the origins, workings and ultimate demise of the universe

http://research.microsoft.com/towards2020science/

backgrounder: e-Science

Richard Akerman — Sun, 30 Sep 2007 22:45:00 GMT

e-Science, also called e-Research or cyberinfrastructure, will be the topic of Session 2, Stream B "Research 2.0: e-Science and new ways of interaction in the science community".

Originally the term encompassed mainly large science projects, using grid computing in order to provide a powerful technology platform for distributed science.

However, with the rise of the participative web, and more widely-available computing and more participants in science networks, including students and science libraries, the scope of discussion is expanding to cover many network-enabled science activities on the Internet. Part of the promise of e-Science is the idea of a unified science workflow system, that can connect instruments with computation, data with visualisation, and allow powerful analysis. One can imagine the capabilities of such an e-Science infrastructure extending beyond just researchers to decisionmakers and citizens as well.

Some nations have national programs in this area. While by no means an exhaustive list, these include

US National Science Foundation (NSF) Office of Cyberinfrastructure
UK e-Science Programme
Australian e-Research

One of the most active areas of investigation is related to the tremendous amounts of data that can be produced by new experiments or new simulations, and how to manage, distribute, and archive those data.

The efforts of various study groups have provided a number of very informative reports in different areas of e-Science. These include:

Canadian National Consultation on Access to Scientific Research Data (NCASRD) (aussi disponible en français)
Report of the American Council of Learned Societies Commission on Cyberinfrastructure for the Humanities and Social Sciences
NSF 07-28, Cyberinfrastructure Vision for 21st Century Discovery
An Australian e-Research Strategy and Implementation Framework
Association of Research Libraries (ARL) - ARL/NSF Workshop on Long-Term Stewardship of Digital Data Collections

There are also ongoing studies, including:

e-SciDR - Towards a European e-Infrastructure for e-Science Digital Repositories