1. The Sci-GaIA project and introduction to the Hackfest
Roberto Barbera - University of Catania – Italy
e-Research Summer Hackfest – Catania (Italy)

2. Introductory concepts, definitions and driving considerations
Outline
Introductory concepts, definitions and driving considerations
The Sci-GaIA project and its federated Open Science Platform
The e-Research Summer Hackfest
Summary and conclusions

3. Newton’s Gravitation Theory
G. Galilei
The Scientific Method
Examples of IR:
Classical Mechanics
Newton’s Gravitation Theory
Examples of DR:
General Relativity
Standard Model of Particle Physics

4. The “output” of the Scientific Method
Marked a real Scientific Revolution but…
it is the same since almost 4 centuries!

5. The Pillars of the Scientific Method
Repeatability
The closeness of agreement between independent results obtained with the same method on identical test material, under the same conditions (same operator, same apparatus, same laboratory and after short intervals of time)
Affected by random errors
Reproducibility
The closeness of agreement between independent results obtained with the same method on identical test material but under different conditions (different operators, different apparatus, different laboratories and/or after different intervals of time)
Affected by systematic errors
Is science really reproducible?

6. Challenges in irreproducible research (http://www. nature

7. The “reproducibility crisis”
Out of 18 microarray papers, results
from 10 could not be reproduced
Ioannidis et al., Repeatability of published microarray gene expression analyses. Nature Genetics 41: 14
Science publishing: The trouble with retractions
Bjorn Brembs: Open Access and the looming crisis in science

8. Repeatability and Reproducibility are not all…

9. Evolution of Distributed Computing
Time
Cost of hw
Cost of networks
Power of COTS
WAN bandwidth
00’s-10’s
Cloud
Computing
90’s-00’s
Grid
Computing
80’s-90’s
Cluster
Computing
Mainframe
Computing 9

10. Virtual Research Communities
e-Science
Applications
Data
Instruments/sensors
e-Infrastructure
Virtual Research Communities

11. How do e-Infrastructures support the Scientific Method?
Data Infrastructures
Open Access Doc. Repos.
Data Repos.
Semantic-web enrichment of linked data
Data preservation
HTC/HPC Clusters
Grids, Clouds
Challenge: «walk» across the knowledge path both ways

12. Open Science (definitions) (http://book. openingscience
Open Science (definitions) ( and
“Open Science refers to a scientific culture that is characterized by its openness. Scientists share results almost immediately and with a very wide audience”
“Open science is a means and not an end in itself and it is much more than just open access to publications or data; it includes many aspects and stages of research processes thus enabling full reproducibility and re-usability of scientific results.”

13. Open Science (tools)

14. The European Open Science Cloud (http://ec. europa

15. Some global “connections”
Challenge: make African science/scientists more «visible»
Opportunity: exploit e-Infrastructures to do it
Vision: promote Open Science in Africa

16. The Sci-GaIA Project (www.sci-gaia.eu)
Energising Scientific Endeavour through Science Gateways and e-Infrastructures in Africa
Research Infrastructures – Coordination & Support Action
Grant Agreement no
EC contribution: ~1.4 MEuro
Start date: 1 May 2015
Duration: 24 Months

17. Sci-GaIA is strongly committed to promote Open Science

18. The Dakar Declaration on Open Science in Africa

19. The Sci-GaIA Federated Platform for an Open Science Commons in Africa

20. The Knowledge Workflow

21. The e-Research Summer Hackfest (See all details at www. sci-gaia
The e-Research Summer Hackfest (See all details at
Overview and objectives
The e-Research Summer Hackfest will be held at the Department of Physics and Astronomy of the University of Catania on July, 4-15, 2016
The event is co-sponsored by the Sci-GaIA, INDIGO-DataCloud, and COST ENeL projects
The main objective of the event is to integrate scientific use cases through a pervasive adoption of web technologies and standards and make them available to their end users through Science Gateways
Promoting and fostering open and reproducible research will be the ultimate goal of the hackfest
Topics:
Big Data analytics
Distributed computing services
Distributed storage services
Programmable access to Open Data repositories
Semantic federation of Open Access repositories
User interfaces (web, desktop, mobile, etc.)
Workflows
Tools and technologies:
FutureGateway;
gLibrary
Kepler
Invenio
OAI-PMH
Onedata
Ophidia

22. The e-Research Summer Hackfest
Service/Tool
e-Infrastructure

23. The e-Research Summer Hackfest - Agenda
Day 1 and 2
Presentation of the technologies/tools
Day 3
Presentation of the use cases (with indication of the technologies/tools adopted)
Other days
Implementation of the use cases

24. Summary and conclusions
The Open Science vision can be implemented only if the “openness” paradigm becomes pervasive in day-by-day research
Science outputs’ reproducibility, but also re-usability and extensibility, are key to walk through the “knowledge path” in both directions
The Sci-GaIA project is strongly committed to promote the uptake of the Open Science paradigm and it’s building a viable federated platform for Open Science Commons across Europe and Africa
The e-Research Summer Hackfest is a scientific, technological and… “social” attempt to exploit web technologies to uptake the Open Science paradigm in a truly international and multi-cultural environment

25. Thank you!
sci-gaia.eu