Conversations with University of Washington Research Leaders Janice Fournier, LST Tom Lewis, LST Erik Lundberg, eScience Institute eScience Institute

Project Goals  Learn about future directions of research  Understand role of technology in research  Identify resources and services that researchers need eScience Institute

Project Overview  Partners: UW Technology and eScience Institute  First large-scale assessment of researchers’ technology needs conducted at UW  UW is first among its peer institutions to implement a project of this type  50+ technology professionals involved in project eScience Institute

Selection Criteria  Number and monetary amount of current grants relative to others in similar disciplines  Prestigious recognition calibrated by age:  Junior faculty: Sloan Research Fellowships, Packard Fellowships, NSF CAREER Awards  Senior faculty: National Academies membership  Peer recommendations eScience Institute

Participants  Phase I (July July 2008)  38 researchers interviewed  Phase II (Summer 2008)  89 researchers interviewed  Total:  127 researchers interviewed  264 UW researchers contacted  48% response rate eScience Institute

Data & Analysis  Phase II data: audio recordings, field notes, interview summaries  Identified unique categories of needs  Noted both unmet needs and solutions  Prioritized based on number of unmet needs eScience Institute

Findings eScience Institute

Research Climate  Funding constraints  Voluminous data  Interdisciplinary and inter-institutional collaborations eScience Institute

IT Climate  Rely on UW’s advanced networking infrastructure  Leverage external resources eScience Institute

Researchers’ IT Needs: eScience Institute  IT & Data Management Expertise  Data Management Infrastructure  Computing Power  Communication & Collaboration  Data Analysis & Collection  Additional Resources

 IT and Data Management Expertise  Local technology support—inadequate access  Data management expertise—designing new systems, enhancing current practices  Information—technologies and expertise available at UW eScience Institute

 Data Management Infrastructure eScience Institute  Access to storage infrastructure—large quantities of data for current projects and data archives  Data backup—inconsistent systems among researchers, some unreliable practices  Data security—secure access needed for inter- institutional partners eScience Institute

 Computing Power  Computing power—ever-increasing need for more powerful machines  Managing and housing computing clusters— challenge to configure and house  Network access—need for high bandwidth eScience Institute

 Communication and Collaboration  Real-time collaboration technologies—critical to some researchers  Videoconferencing, web conferencing, and advanced teleconferencing  Everyday technologies—basic tools are used by most researchers  Phone and , wikis and Web sites, remote desktop access eScience Institute

 Data Collection and Analysis  Analysis—need for specialized expertise  Visualization—not yet widespread  Collection—Web access to data, mobile devices eScience Institute

 Additiona l Resources  Labs & equipment—need for communal resources  Educational technology—strong link between research and education  Centralized information—support for research administration  Group pricing—negotiating discounts for products and services eScience Institute

Recommendations  For central institutional units—UW Technology, eScience Institute, Office of Research, Office of Information Management  For the UW research community

eScience Institute Assumptions  Researchers depend heavily upon UW’s leadership in networking infrastructure, and the UW must continue to sustain and advance these resources.  The UW should also pursue cloud-sourced solutions whenever suitable.

eScience Institute A New Data Management Paradigm  Integrate human expertise with the hardware  Data schema design, database design, parallel computing tasks, data analysis, data mining  Secure data management infrastructure options: back- ups, short- and long-term, high availability, cloud- sourced

eScience Institute On-Demand IT Expertise & Consulting  Data management  Security  Network, cluster, and storage design and administration  General IT support

eScience Institute Greater Availability of Computing Power  Sustained and on-demand  High performance networks  Sustained and dedicated  Pay-as-you and on-demand

eScience Institute Communication & Collaboration Toolset  A few, basic enhancements…  Drop-in videoconferencing  Ubiquitous Web-conferencing  Cloud-sourced applications to ease access  OpenID and federated AuthN/AuthZ

eScience Institute Research Commons  Bring together researchers, their support staff, and central units  Share information about what is already available  Provide episodic technology expertise and consulting  Identify collaborative opportunities wrt. Projects, technologies, facilities, support strategies  Mechanisms for group pricing

eScience Institute UW Research Community  Work with us to build a culture of collaboration

Questions/Discussion  Conversations report is available at: eScience Institute