if we build it will they come? creating the right cyberinfrastructure for dispersed collaboration

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If we build it will they come? Creating the right cyberinfrastructure for

dispersed collaboration

Thomas A. FinholtSchool of InformationUniversity of Michigan

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Outline The field of dreams Recommendations of the

NSF panel Challenges

– Group– Cultural

Prospects

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If we build it, they will collaborate

Data and access to data represent fundamental barriers to dispersed collaboration

Efficient movement of vast amounts of data is a prime rationale for cyberinfrastructure

Federating, visualizing and mining data are principle challenges

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Researchers

DataFacilities

Synchronized dataSynchronized data and imagesData discovery

Automatic archivingSimulation codesHybrid experiments

TeleoperationTeleobservation

Synchronous communicationAsynchronous communication

The collaboratory concept

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NEESgrid

The collaboratory component of the George E. Brown, Jr. Network

for Earthquake Engineering Simulation (NEES)

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Bhuj, India. One of the towers of this apartment complex totally collapsed,and the central stairway leaned on another building of the complex.

Photo courtesy of Dr. J.P. Bardet, University of Southern Californiahttp://geoinfo.usc.edu/gees/RecentEQ/India_Gujarat/Report/Damage/Bhuj/Bardet_Feb18.html

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Shake table: Nevada, Reno

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Reaction wall: Minnesota

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Centrifuge: UC Davis

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Wave basin: Oregon State

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Field structural: UCLA

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Field geotechnical: Texas

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NEESgird interface

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NEESgrid: Simulation and observational data

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NEESgrid: Simulation

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Cultural challenges

NEES– “earthquake engineers” vs. “IT specialists”

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Earthquake engineers – in Hofstede’s scheme Power distance

– Hierarchical– Bias toward seniority

Individualist– “My lab is my empire”– Solo PI model

Masculine– Adversarial– Competitive

Uncertainty avoidance– Highly skeptical of new technologies– Extremely risk adverse

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IT specialists – in Hofstede’s scheme Power distance

– Egalitarian– Bias toward talent

Collectivist– Use the Internet to create worldwide communities– Project model

Masculine– Adversarial– Competitive

Uncertainty avoidance– Extremely open to new technologies– Extremely risk seeking

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Agreeing on termsTerm What grid specialists

heard What earthquake engineers heard

“user” HPC users

earthquake engineers

“community” NEES awardees broad array of earthquake engineers, including researchers and practitioners, in the diverse settings where earthquake engineering occurs (centers, under-represented institutions, under-resourced institutions)

“requirements” Description of high level system architecture

Description of detailed user requirements and their relationship to functional specifications

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Building it so they will come…

Dispersed teams performed poorly relative to collocated teams

Performance suffered due to coordination overhead

More successful dispersed teams adopted explicit coordination mechanisms

The ideas on this slide are from an NSF report by Cummings and Kiesler (2003), available at:

http://netvis.mit.edu/papers/NSF_KDI_report.pdf

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NEES MCU Usage

0

100

200

300

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Michigan / USC

Total

Use of H.323 videoconferencing

UNR Demob c d

a = initial ES-TF meeting; b = ES-TF meeting time changed; c = succession to new ES-TF chair; d = change to biweekly ES-TF meetings

a NSF LAN meetings

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Prospects How important is data federation?

– Some earthquake engineers use data from others…but they all have remote collaborators

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Some use data from others…

0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%

Do you use data you collect? (2001)

Do you use data you collect? (2002)

Do you use data collected by othersworking with you? (2001)

Do you use data collected by othersworking with you? (2002)

Do you use data collected by othersindependent of you? (2001)

Do you use data collected by othersindependent of you? (2002)

Not usually or never

sometimes

usually or always

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…but everyone has remote collaborators

2001 2002

Item Mean SD Mean SD

Number of collaborations you are currently involved with

2.5 6.1 2.3 4.7

Number of collaborations with remote participants

1.4 3.2 1.3 3.6

Number of collaborators on your primary collaboration

5.7 7.1 6.1 7.3

Number of collaborators from prior collaborations in primary collaboration

1.6 3.1 1.7 3.0

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Conclusions The cyberinfrastructure vision places great emphasis

on collaboration primed by access to data Evidence suggests that communication and

coordination may be stronger determinants of collaboration success

Observation of dispersed teams shows great energy expended on ad hoc coordination

Transformation of scientific and engineering work via cyberinfrastructure may be more easily achieved by solving problems of coordination and communication