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?
Showing posts with label e-science. Show all posts
Showing posts with label e-science. Show all posts
Friday, 12 March 2010
Tuesday, 2 February 2010
Barev!
A warm Barev (welcome) to Arsen Hayrapetyan from ArmeSFo, the Armenian e-Science Foundation. He is visiting RAL for two months to work on CA software, a visit funded by NATO's Science for Peace and Security programme. The aim is to develop CA software for "NATO partners and mediterranean dialogue countries."
The main raison d'être for the certificate infrastructure is that our certificates are trusted all over the world - they provide a sufficiently high level of assurance. All grid and e-Science CAs in the world are united in the International Grid Trust Federation, which encourages trust and collaborations between national CAs. With the software developed by Arsen, we can expand this collaboration to new countries, such as Georgia, Turkmenistan, and Kazakhstan, to enable and encourage further collaborations between scientists.
The main raison d'être for the certificate infrastructure is that our certificates are trusted all over the world - they provide a sufficiently high level of assurance. All grid and e-Science CAs in the world are united in the International Grid Trust Federation, which encourages trust and collaborations between national CAs. With the software developed by Arsen, we can expand this collaboration to new countries, such as Georgia, Turkmenistan, and Kazakhstan, to enable and encourage further collaborations between scientists.
Monday, 7 December 2009
AHM kicks off
It’s been a hectic day so far at AHM - the first thing I had to do today as soon as I walked in the venue was to find a presentation for someone to use as they were standing in for a NGS user who was ill. Luckily thanks to our shiny new website a suitable presentation was found and they made their slot with minutes to spare. A huge thank you to Shiv and Dave F for stepping in at the last minute with a presentation on using the NGS for in-silico drug screening.
The exhibition area where the NGS has a booth has been particularly busy. We had our first demo this afternoon on the NGS booth and I am pleased to say that it was extremely busy. Photos will follow tomorrow to prove this! The UI/WMS demo was given by Jonathan Churchill and was very popular with people staying way past the demo slot to ask more questions and find out more. More information on the user interface / work management system (UI/WMS) can be found on the NGS website.
This evening brings the poster session and the journey back into Oxford to find and check into our accommodation for the week.
The exhibition area where the NGS has a booth has been particularly busy. We had our first demo this afternoon on the NGS booth and I am pleased to say that it was extremely busy. Photos will follow tomorrow to prove this! The UI/WMS demo was given by Jonathan Churchill and was very popular with people staying way past the demo slot to ask more questions and find out more. More information on the user interface / work management system (UI/WMS) can be found on the NGS website.
This evening brings the poster session and the journey back into Oxford to find and check into our accommodation for the week.
Friday, 4 December 2009
Busy
It’s all been a bit busy here at the NGS this week as many of us are off to the AHM and e-science conference in Oxford next week. The NGS will be sharing a large double stand with our colleagues at GridPP so it should be fun!
We have some demos on the stand so be sure to pop past and see what’s going on. We have demos of the new UI/WMS, the Digital Library and SARoNGS on which we would really like your feedback.
The NGS will also be hosting a Birds of a Feather meeting on the Monday night 4.30pm - 6pm on the topic of "Services to support EU projects through the NGS" so come along!
So the stand rota is done, the leaflets are packed, the posters are printed, the stand presentation is almost done and the only thing that’s left now is to write my own talk that I’m giving on Tuesday!
I’ll be at both conferences so I’ll be in Oxford Monday – Friday – I hope it’s a good one as that’s a long stretch!
If you can’t make the conferences you can keep up to date through the wonders of blogging. Various NGS staff should be blogging from the events and myself and Claire will also be blogging for the GridCast team along with Manisha (from GridTalk) and Neasan from GridPP.
We have some demos on the stand so be sure to pop past and see what’s going on. We have demos of the new UI/WMS, the Digital Library and SARoNGS on which we would really like your feedback.
The NGS will also be hosting a Birds of a Feather meeting on the Monday night 4.30pm - 6pm on the topic of "Services to support EU projects through the NGS" so come along!
So the stand rota is done, the leaflets are packed, the posters are printed, the stand presentation is almost done and the only thing that’s left now is to write my own talk that I’m giving on Tuesday!
I’ll be at both conferences so I’ll be in Oxford Monday – Friday – I hope it’s a good one as that’s a long stretch!
If you can’t make the conferences you can keep up to date through the wonders of blogging. Various NGS staff should be blogging from the events and myself and Claire will also be blogging for the GridCast team along with Manisha (from GridTalk) and Neasan from GridPP.
Friday, 16 October 2009
Release of a free e-science book online today
We are pleased to announce that “The New Paradigm”, a collection of essays expanding on the vision of pioneering computer scientist Jim Gray has been released online today.
Malcolm Atkinson, Director of The e-Science Institute and National e-Science Centre said –
“The UK e-Science programme always recognised the importance of data. This book recognises that data-intensive science is dramatically changing the way research is done, and is an excellent compendium of progress with this new approach.
It is also dedicated to the memory of Jim Gray, who christened data-intensive research "The New Paradigm", who shaped the transactional model of databases we all depend on, who led Microsoft into supporting the Sloan Digital Sky Survey and into developing new database technology to support data-intensive research. Sadly, Jim was mysteriously lost at sea in January 2007.”
The book has several connections with UK e-Science as the prime mover and first editor is Tony Hey (former director of the UK e-science initiative) and Carole Goble (University of Manchester) and Dave De Roure (University of Southampton) have a chapter in it.
The book is available for free download from the website.
The New York Times has also featured an article about the book.
Malcolm Atkinson, Director of The e-Science Institute and National e-Science Centre said –
“The UK e-Science programme always recognised the importance of data. This book recognises that data-intensive science is dramatically changing the way research is done, and is an excellent compendium of progress with this new approach.
It is also dedicated to the memory of Jim Gray, who christened data-intensive research "The New Paradigm", who shaped the transactional model of databases we all depend on, who led Microsoft into supporting the Sloan Digital Sky Survey and into developing new database technology to support data-intensive research. Sadly, Jim was mysteriously lost at sea in January 2007.”
The book has several connections with UK e-Science as the prime mover and first editor is Tony Hey (former director of the UK e-science initiative) and Carole Goble (University of Manchester) and Dave De Roure (University of Southampton) have a chapter in it.
The book is available for free download from the website.
The New York Times has also featured an article about the book.
Monday, 22 June 2009
e-Social Science in Germany
Tomorrow I am off to Cologne for the 5th International Conference on e-Social Science which is organised by the National Centre for e-Social Science (NCeSS) based at the University of Manchester.
I've had the pleasure of attending 3 out of the previous 4 of these conferences and they have always been very interesting showing the breadth of research in the social sciences using grid technology.
Many of the UK researchers who will be presenting their work over the next few days are users of the NGS. The NGS will have an exhibition stand at the event in conjunction with EGEE so pop over and say hello!
Hopefully I will find time to blog about some of the presentations during the conference so watch this space!
I've had the pleasure of attending 3 out of the previous 4 of these conferences and they have always been very interesting showing the breadth of research in the social sciences using grid technology.
Many of the UK researchers who will be presenting their work over the next few days are users of the NGS. The NGS will have an exhibition stand at the event in conjunction with EGEE so pop over and say hello!
Hopefully I will find time to blog about some of the presentations during the conference so watch this space!
Thursday, 21 May 2009
A week of e-science in Oxford
The ever popular UK e-Science All Hands Meeting (AHM) has just released a call for papers which is available here.
The AHM is now in its 8th year and has been moved from its traditional September slot to December so it can co-exist with the IEEE e-Science meeting which will also be taking place in Oxford. The AHM will take place from Monday 7th December until Wednesday 9th of December with IEEE being held on the 9th – 11th of December.
You can therefore spend an entire week in Oxford listening to the latest developments in e-science!
The IEEE event also has a call for papers out and details can be found here.
The AHM is now in its 8th year and has been moved from its traditional September slot to December so it can co-exist with the IEEE e-Science meeting which will also be taking place in Oxford. The AHM will take place from Monday 7th December until Wednesday 9th of December with IEEE being held on the 9th – 11th of December.
You can therefore spend an entire week in Oxford listening to the latest developments in e-science!
The IEEE event also has a call for papers out and details can be found here.
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.
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!
Wednesday, 18 March 2009
Archaeology in action
The NGS and OMII-UK work together on the Engage project which aims to promote the engagement of researchers with e-infrastructure in the UK. The Engage website holds a large amount of information on the project and also associated projects eIUS and e-Uptake which also look at the interaction and uptake of e-infrastructure within the academic community. The eIUS project has recently uploaded a video to the website demonstrating how computing has enhanced the work of researchers in archaeology. This is only the first in a series of video case studies produced by the project so watch this space for further announcements!
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!
Tuesday, 9 December 2008
Day 2 in Indianapolis
Yesterday afternoon I attended the workshop on “Project Management and User Engagement” which was organised by several people from the Oxford e-Research Centre and David Abramson from Monash University in Australia. Dimitrina Spencer from oerc was our host yesterday and chaired a very interesting workshop consisting of 9 presentations.
The presentations covered many different themes and aspects of working with disparate groups, how to manage virtual organisations, how researchers find and decide upon potential collaborators, how researchers collaborate remotely and how to develop global networks. I gave a presentation on how the NGS is organised and managed and the challenges that brings to our organisation. It was a really interesting workshop and gave some human perspective on what can sometimes be a very technology focused area. It provided the missing human element!
All the presentations from the entire conference are being streamed live over the internet and have been recorded so the presentations from yesterday will be online soon. If you aren’t able to make ieee but are interested in seeing what you missed then visit this website for a list of speakers and presentations. The conference is on until Friday so there are a lot more presentations to come!
The presentations covered many different themes and aspects of working with disparate groups, how to manage virtual organisations, how researchers find and decide upon potential collaborators, how researchers collaborate remotely and how to develop global networks. I gave a presentation on how the NGS is organised and managed and the challenges that brings to our organisation. It was a really interesting workshop and gave some human perspective on what can sometimes be a very technology focused area. It provided the missing human element!
All the presentations from the entire conference are being streamed live over the internet and have been recorded so the presentations from yesterday will be online soon. If you aren’t able to make ieee but are interested in seeing what you missed then visit this website for a list of speakers and presentations. The conference is on until Friday so there are a lot more presentations to come!
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