It's a familiar scenario. A PhD student creates a piece of software during their 3 years of research, it's used for their project but then they leave. What happens to the software? Who looks after it? Who maintains it?
EPSRC have also recognised this problem and have recently awarded £4.2 million to establish the UK’s Software Sustainability Institute (SSI). A team of academics and software engineers based at the University of Southampton’s School of Electronics and Computer Science, the School of Computer Science at the University of Manchester and led by EPCC at the University of Edinburgh will work together to tackle these issues.
Together with the research community they will work to manage software beyond the lifetime of its original funding, so that it is strengthened, adapted and customised to maximise its value to future generations of researchers.
The establishment of the SSI obviously has implications for the NGS as there are many pieces of software out there which could be used by the wider community on the NGS - they just need a bit of TLC!
Showing posts with label OMII-UK. Show all posts
Showing posts with label OMII-UK. Show all posts
Wednesday, 7 April 2010
Friday, 12 March 2010
Let's get together
And so back from the OMII-UK collaborative workshop which took place in Edinburgh Wednesday and Thursday this week.
Like last years event, it was a really interesting and productive 2 days with many actions resulting from the in-depth discussion groups. The great thing about the workshop is that it's not death by PowerPoint. The sessions are discussions sessions where delegates chose from a range of topics, disappear off into groups in various parts of NeSC and then after an hour everyone reconvenes and reports back their findings. Importantly it's not just findings but short-term and long-term actions that are reported back!
Unsurprisingly as the NGS outreach person, I attended several sessions on collaboration and was the "report back" person for the session on "assistance with publicity, outreach and dissemination"which had a healthy audience (obviously a pertinent topic!).
There were many findings over the past two days and these can be found ordered by session on the event website. However the one that really stuck in my mind was something that was raised by several of the researchers who attended the meeting.
They have things they need done which they can't do themself eg code written, advice on optimising or tweaking existing software. They need computer scientists for this but they don't know how to "hook up" with them for want of a better description! The things they need done quite often aren't large projects and may only take a few weeks or less but they don't know where to go for help, who to approach and who is best suited for the job.
Several possible ways of tackling this problem were suggested at the event and if you are interested in the ideas that came up, the slides from this particular topic can be found on the website under - "Long-term researcher-driven collaborations" and "Collaboration 2". This was such a popular topic that we ended up with 2 discussion sessions.
So the question is for those research scientists out there who work with computer scientists - how did you hook up? How did you get together and form a collaboration?
Like last years event, it was a really interesting and productive 2 days with many actions resulting from the in-depth discussion groups. The great thing about the workshop is that it's not death by PowerPoint. The sessions are discussions sessions where delegates chose from a range of topics, disappear off into groups in various parts of NeSC and then after an hour everyone reconvenes and reports back their findings. Importantly it's not just findings but short-term and long-term actions that are reported back!
Unsurprisingly as the NGS outreach person, I attended several sessions on collaboration and was the "report back" person for the session on "assistance with publicity, outreach and dissemination"which had a healthy audience (obviously a pertinent topic!).
There were many findings over the past two days and these can be found ordered by session on the event website. However the one that really stuck in my mind was something that was raised by several of the researchers who attended the meeting.
They have things they need done which they can't do themself eg code written, advice on optimising or tweaking existing software. They need computer scientists for this but they don't know how to "hook up" with them for want of a better description! The things they need done quite often aren't large projects and may only take a few weeks or less but they don't know where to go for help, who to approach and who is best suited for the job.
Several possible ways of tackling this problem were suggested at the event and if you are interested in the ideas that came up, the slides from this particular topic can be found on the website under - "Long-term researcher-driven collaborations" and "Collaboration 2". This was such a popular topic that we ended up with 2 discussion sessions.
So the question is for those research scientists out there who work with computer scientists - how did you hook up? How did you get together and form a collaboration?
Monday, 8 March 2010
OMII go visual
Our colleagues at OMII-UK have recently launched the OMII-UK YouTube channel which lets you view the latest software demonstrations and videos from their staff and collaborators.
The channel will be grown over the next few months but currently it contains software demonstrations of Campus Grid Toolkit, Middleware interoperation, OSCAR, Rapid and JSDL Applications Repository. However it's not all demonstrations as they also have videos showing the sustainability lecture recently presented at NeSc in Edinburgh by Neil Chue Hong (OMII-UK's Director) and interviews with OMII-UK's PIs and some of their partners.
The OMII-UK collaboration workshop will take place in Edinburgh this week so look out for blog posts from the various NGS staff attending including myself.
Monday, 12 October 2009
Amazon vouchers up for grabs from OMII-UK
Our colleagues at OMII-UK are looking for volunteers to fill in a quick ten-minute survey on e-research.
Completing the survey not only gives you the chance to win an Amazon voucher, but it also means that you will be directly contributing to development of the software and support that is needed by the research community.
The survey can be found here.
Completing the survey not only gives you the chance to win an Amazon voucher, but it also means that you will be directly contributing to development of the software and support that is needed by the research community.
The survey can be found here.
Monday, 27 July 2009
New GridSAM tutorial from OMII-UK
Our colleagues at OMII-UK have released a new tutorial which shows how to run a command-line-based client: from generating results locally, through to running the same command line in a controlled manner on GridSAM.
The tutorial is aimed at researchers who would like to learn more about deploying a custom GridSAM application in a grid environment but systems administrators and technical managers may also be interested in the tutorial. It can be found here on the OMII-UK website.
The tutorial is aimed at researchers who would like to learn more about deploying a custom GridSAM application in a grid environment but systems administrators and technical managers may also be interested in the tutorial. It can be found here on the OMII-UK website.
Friday, 8 May 2009
NGS & OMII-UK project in the news
A recent edition of the weekly grid bulletin, iSGTW, featured an article by Simon Hettrick from OMII-UK on the joint NGS and OMII-UK Engage project.
The article explains the background to the Engage project and why it was set up with the goal of finding out the computational needs of various research communities by actually going out and talking to the researchers.
This approach is still somewhat unusual in e-science and has been a long time coming. How can we be sure we are providing the resources that researchers need if we don't go out and talk to them? The grid was originally built for the particle physicists but now there is a much larger research community who want to take advantage of the opportunities that distributed computing offers. The social scientists and molecular biologists, for example, don't necessarily work in the same way as the particle physicists and it is important that the tools are in place for them to take advantage of all available resources.
The Engage project will hopefully produce tools which will be deployed on the NGS and made available to these diverse communities therefore attracting more users from different subject areas. There is a lot of work yet to be done in taking the outcomes of the Engage project, making them available to the communities and, perhaps most importantly, making sure that the community knows that these tools exist for them to use.
Tuesday, 5 May 2009
Hard work at the OMII-UK workshop
Last week I attended the OMII-UK Collaborations workshop and, unlike many meetings where you sit and listen to presentations, this one was really hard work! The attendees were varied and included representatives from the Engage project teams, OMII-UK, the NGS, end users and data providers. The workshop consisted of breakout sessions where a variety of topics were discussed and all participants had to contribute to the discussion.
As the NGS outreach officer, I was particularly interested in the outreach / communication sessions. The session names say it all really –
I can honestly say it was one of the most productive meetings I have ever attended with a great deal of productive discussion and long term collaborations planned. It’s not often you come out of a meeting with such a large number of people with concrete tasks and plans for the future!
If you would like to see the outcomes and slides from the meeting then visit the workshop page.
As the NGS outreach officer, I was particularly interested in the outreach / communication sessions. The session names say it all really –
- Communications between computer scientists and scientists that use computers
- How to talk to scientists?
- Best practices for software development in research community
- Tracking customer requirements
I can honestly say it was one of the most productive meetings I have ever attended with a great deal of productive discussion and long term collaborations planned. It’s not often you come out of a meeting with such a large number of people with concrete tasks and plans for the future!
If you would like to see the outcomes and slides from the meeting then visit the workshop page.
Monday, 6 April 2009
Help shape the future of e-research!
Our colleagues at OMII-UK are organising a two-day Collaborations Workshop at NeSC in Edinburgh, starting on 30 April 2009.
Unlike most workshops, the agenda for this event is very flexible with attendees being able to suggest topics for discussion so that you can raise issues important to you and your research area.
On the day, break out groups will be scheduled to come up with solutions for topics through discussions in groups, the writing of new software or by getting existing components to work together. Topics will be examined for as long as required within the duration of the meeting (or beyond) - it is up to the group members to judge when an adequate conclusions has been drawn. The workshop will bring together OMII-UK staff, software developers, architects and users.
There will be regular reporting to the other attendees summarising what has been achieved, what is to be done next or whether a topic has been exhausted. Once a topic has been discussed, the group will migrate to a new topic or disband and join other groups after writing up a set of summary slides enumerating outcomes and possible future work.
For more information, registration and to register topics for discussion visit the event website.
Unlike most workshops, the agenda for this event is very flexible with attendees being able to suggest topics for discussion so that you can raise issues important to you and your research area.
On the day, break out groups will be scheduled to come up with solutions for topics through discussions in groups, the writing of new software or by getting existing components to work together. Topics will be examined for as long as required within the duration of the meeting (or beyond) - it is up to the group members to judge when an adequate conclusions has been drawn. The workshop will bring together OMII-UK staff, software developers, architects and users.
There will be regular reporting to the other attendees summarising what has been achieved, what is to be done next or whether a topic has been exhausted. Once a topic has been discussed, the group will migrate to a new topic or disband and join other groups after writing up a set of summary slides enumerating outcomes and possible future work.
For more information, registration and to register topics for discussion visit the event website.
Friday, 27 March 2009
What do people want from ICT? – Part 2
The second presentation at this JISC conference session was given by Prof. Rob Procter, Research Director of National Centre for e-Social Science (NCeSS).
Rob was talking about the e-Uptake project which looked at barriers and enablers to the uptake of e-infrastructure. Again interviews with 50 people from a wide variety of research areas were conducted as well as intermediary services such as ITS units at universities and national services. This resulted in over 25 hours of audio tape to be transcribed which must have been a daunting task!
The second phase of the project was of particular interest as this involved 25 “established and inspirational” HEI’s as well as small specialised research institutes. Two interviews were performed at each – one at a strategic level and the other at the direct user support level.
This was of particular interest to me as often we deal directly with the end user but it is important to have the support of everyone in the institution from the strategic level down to the “coal face”. This is particularly important to the NGS as we try to encourage more HEI’s to become members of the NGS. If people at a strategic level are not aware of the services and benefits on offer then it makes our job much harder.
The results from these interviews will eventually be available as the researchers are currently developing an online database of their findings. However some of the initial findings were presented. I’ve listed them here along with some comments on what the NGS is currently doing to tackle these problems.
1. People weight up the cost of adoption – is it worthwhile learning to use e-research?
Through user case studies and user participation in our roadshow and innovation forum agendas, we showcase how using NGS resources has helped real-life research take place. There is no better advertisement than our major users! We also showcase users research in many of our outreach mechanisms such as user case studies, the NGS newsletter, website etc. All examples to potential new users of how the NGS can help research.
2. What’s the long term sustainability?
The NGS has just received funding for another 2 years (until March 2011) and discussions are already taking place for long term security after this date.
3. Enablers are needed such as roadshows, consultancy, collaboration and the need to follow up potential leads
The NGS hosts roadshows at any interested institution and these events are organised by NGS staff ensuring as little burden as possible on local organisers. The events are free to host and attend. All you need to do is let us know that you’d like one!
The NGS has a helpdesk staffed by experienced grid users who are there to offer help in the immediate term but also longer term advice to institutions and users.
4. Lack of support infrastructure
The NGS has a helpdesk as mentioned above and also offers a great deal of support to new institutions wishing to join the NGS by providing them with a “buddy”. We also offer a wide variety of training which is free through the training team at NeSC so new users can get up and running as quickly as possible on the NGS and also training for more experienced users in order to hone their skills.
5. Awareness raising
Well this is what I do as the NGS Liaison Officer. It’s my full time job to make sure that the NGS reaches out to as many people as possible through every means available! We have a wide variety of Web 2.0 tools such as this blog, Twitter, Facebook etc. We attend a large number of research-based conferences in order to reach out directly to users as well as conferences held by organisations such as JISC. We go out to institutions with our roadshow events in order to reach a wide variety of people at an institution from PhD students to IT directors. We produce a large range of literature from user case studies to newsletters demonstrating how the NGS helps researchers and how NGS resources are used. And much much more!
Of course there is always more the NGS could be doing but with the resources that we have I’d like to think that we are tackling many of the issues that Rob raised and that our users do feel supported and informed. We are always looking for suggestions from users for things that they feel we could do more of or things they feel that are missing from the NGS. All comments are welcome!
Rob was talking about the e-Uptake project which looked at barriers and enablers to the uptake of e-infrastructure. Again interviews with 50 people from a wide variety of research areas were conducted as well as intermediary services such as ITS units at universities and national services. This resulted in over 25 hours of audio tape to be transcribed which must have been a daunting task!
The second phase of the project was of particular interest as this involved 25 “established and inspirational” HEI’s as well as small specialised research institutes. Two interviews were performed at each – one at a strategic level and the other at the direct user support level.
This was of particular interest to me as often we deal directly with the end user but it is important to have the support of everyone in the institution from the strategic level down to the “coal face”. This is particularly important to the NGS as we try to encourage more HEI’s to become members of the NGS. If people at a strategic level are not aware of the services and benefits on offer then it makes our job much harder.
The results from these interviews will eventually be available as the researchers are currently developing an online database of their findings. However some of the initial findings were presented. I’ve listed them here along with some comments on what the NGS is currently doing to tackle these problems.
1. People weight up the cost of adoption – is it worthwhile learning to use e-research?
Through user case studies and user participation in our roadshow and innovation forum agendas, we showcase how using NGS resources has helped real-life research take place. There is no better advertisement than our major users! We also showcase users research in many of our outreach mechanisms such as user case studies, the NGS newsletter, website etc. All examples to potential new users of how the NGS can help research.
2. What’s the long term sustainability?
The NGS has just received funding for another 2 years (until March 2011) and discussions are already taking place for long term security after this date.
3. Enablers are needed such as roadshows, consultancy, collaboration and the need to follow up potential leads
The NGS hosts roadshows at any interested institution and these events are organised by NGS staff ensuring as little burden as possible on local organisers. The events are free to host and attend. All you need to do is let us know that you’d like one!
The NGS has a helpdesk staffed by experienced grid users who are there to offer help in the immediate term but also longer term advice to institutions and users.
4. Lack of support infrastructure
The NGS has a helpdesk as mentioned above and also offers a great deal of support to new institutions wishing to join the NGS by providing them with a “buddy”. We also offer a wide variety of training which is free through the training team at NeSC so new users can get up and running as quickly as possible on the NGS and also training for more experienced users in order to hone their skills.
5. Awareness raising
Well this is what I do as the NGS Liaison Officer. It’s my full time job to make sure that the NGS reaches out to as many people as possible through every means available! We have a wide variety of Web 2.0 tools such as this blog, Twitter, Facebook etc. We attend a large number of research-based conferences in order to reach out directly to users as well as conferences held by organisations such as JISC. We go out to institutions with our roadshow events in order to reach a wide variety of people at an institution from PhD students to IT directors. We produce a large range of literature from user case studies to newsletters demonstrating how the NGS helps researchers and how NGS resources are used. And much much more!
Of course there is always more the NGS could be doing but with the resources that we have I’d like to think that we are tackling many of the issues that Rob raised and that our users do feel supported and informed. We are always looking for suggestions from users for things that they feel we could do more of or things they feel that are missing from the NGS. All comments are welcome!
Thursday, 26 February 2009
All set for Sicily
Preparations are well underway and indeed almost complete for the NGS presence at OGF25 / EGEE User Forum event next week in Catania, Sicily.
The NGS has organised the UK and Ireland Federation stand which is number B08 and located just outside the Michelangelo meeting room. Several UK and Irish organisations will be represented on the stand including GridPP, OMII-UK, NeSC, Grid-Ireland and the NGS.
Several NGS staff and associated staff will be present at the conference and will be helping to staff the UKI exhibition stand over the week. If there is anyone in particular you would like to speak to then please drop by and we can arrange a meeting. Staff present includes NGS directors, technical staff, helpdesk manager, liaison officer and many more!
Now that all remains to be done is hope that the packages for the exhibition stand arrive safe and sound and to pack the suitcase!
The NGS has organised the UK and Ireland Federation stand which is number B08 and located just outside the Michelangelo meeting room. Several UK and Irish organisations will be represented on the stand including GridPP, OMII-UK, NeSC, Grid-Ireland and the NGS.
Several NGS staff and associated staff will be present at the conference and will be helping to staff the UKI exhibition stand over the week. If there is anyone in particular you would like to speak to then please drop by and we can arrange a meeting. Staff present includes NGS directors, technical staff, helpdesk manager, liaison officer and many more!
Now that all remains to be done is hope that the packages for the exhibition stand arrive safe and sound and to pack the suitcase!
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