Science Gateways Community Institute presentation to UCSD's research IT group

1. Award Number
ACI-1547611
Award Number
ACI-1547611
Nancy Wilkins-Diehr
San Diego Supercomputer Center
wilkinsn@sdsc.edu
Principal Investigator
Science Gateways Community
Institute

2. What is a science gateway?
2
science gateway /sī′ əns gāt′ wā′/ n.
1. an online community space for science
and engineering research and
education.
2. a Web-based resource for
accessing data, software,
computing services, and
equipment specific to the
needs of a science or
engineering discipline.
Known internationally by many names: research platforms,
virtual laboratories, virtual research environments, etc.

3. Gateways are changing the face of
science!
3
Contributor to
BRAIN Initiative

4. Gateways come from many fields
SGCI gateway catalog and a smaller subset using NSF
supercomputers (XSEDE)
4

5. • Developers typically
• work in isolation
• must bridge to
variety of resources
• need building
blocks in order to
focus on higher-
level functionality
• struggle to secure
sustainable funding
But, gateways could be even more successful
Early
adopters
Publicity
Wider
adoption
Funding
ends
Scientists
disillusioned
New
project
prototype

6. Large-scale survey launched in 2014
Sent to 29k NSF PIs and academic CIOs and CTOs
• 5000 responses!
• 58 domain areas across 9
broader categories
• Who’s using gateways?
• For what?
• Who’s developing
gateways?
• What do they need?

7. Specialized Resources Percent
Data collections 75%
Data analysis tools, including visualization and mining 72%
Computational tools 72%
Tools for rapidly publishing and/or finding articles and data
specific to my domain
69%
Educational tools 67%
Platforms for fostering group or community collaboration 63%
Simplified interfaces that eliminate the need to learn coding 62%
Citizen science and other public engagement resources 47%
Workflows that automate or capture tasks or processes 42%
Scientific instruments, such as telescopes, microscopes, or
sensors
39%
88% indicate Web-based applications are
important to their work
n=4,004, or 88% of 4,538 researcher/educators. Percentage
indicates these resources are “somewhat” or “very” important to
their work.

8. 57% played some role in gateway creation
and these gateways were used for a variety of purposes
n of application types=7,805,
by 2,756 creators (out of
2,819); mean=2.8 application
types per application creator

9. Why is it difficult to build a science gateway?
• Building a gateway takes many types of expertise
• But projects cannot always locate or afford to hire these specialists
• Finding the right people for short-term work is also difficult
• Need for a variety of team members, like a start-up company!
9
34% 36%
20%
17%
31%
26%
42%
16%
30%
18%
45% 44%
14% 15%
0%
5%
10%
15%
20%
25%
30%
35%
40%
45%
50%
Usability
Consultant
Graphic
Designer
Community
Liaison/
Evangelist
Project
Manager
Professional
Software
Developer
Security
Expert
Quality
Assurance
and Testing
Expert
Wished we had this
Yes, we had this

10. Access to
specialized
services can help
10
Service % Interest
Evaluation, impact analysis, website
analytics
72%
Adapting technologies 67%
Web/visual/graphic design 67%
Choosing technologies 66%
Usability Services 66%
Developing open-source software 64%
Support for education 64%
Keeping your project running 62%
Legal perspectives 61%
Managing data 60%
Cybersecurity consultation 57%
Website construction 57%
Software engineering process
consultation
53%
Source code review and/or audit 51%
High band-width networks 45%
Scientific instruments or data streams 44%
Management aspects of a project 38%
• Many topics well-
suited for short-term
consulting

11. NSF commits $15M to Science Gateways
Community Institute in 2016
11

12. Science Gateways Community Institute
Designed to help the community build gateways more effectively
12
Diverse expertise
on demand
Longer-term,
hands-on support
Student
opportunities &
educator resources
Sharing
experiences &
knowledge as a
community
Software & visibility
for gateways
A unique platform-independent approach to
gateway development.
We recommend what’s best for the client.

13. Incubator
Expertise for the gateway lifecycle
13
Need specialized expertise on a part-term basis?
Want to learn gateway-building, from start to finish?
Project Management
Sustainability Planning
• Nancy Maron, creator of the ITHAKA S+R
course on Sustaining Digital Resources
Business & Strategic Planning
• The Purdue Foundry, national award-
winning entrepreneurship program
Security
• Center for Trustworthy Scientific
Cyberinfrastructure
Community Engagement
Development Tools & Processes
Technology Planning, Open-Source
Licensing & Selection
• Indiana University Science Gateways
Research Center, initiators of Apache
Airavata
Graphic & User-Interface Design
Usability
• Purdue University User Experience
Programs
Creating Institutional Resources
• Notre Dame’s Center for Research
Computing
• HUBzero® group at Purdue
Broad Buy-in

14. • Full 5 days
• Knowledge dissemination
• Interactivity
• Community formation
• Putting away the normal
daily routine
• Homework
14

15. Extended Developer Support
• Help building new gateways
• Or portions of new gateways
• Dedicated support
• 25% time for months to a year
• Using all kinds of technologies
• Get the expertise you want only when you need it
• Request services at https://sciencegateways.org/
request-services

16. 16
Collaboration
QUBES
Drew LaMar, William& Mary
Ecology Plus
Teresa Mourad, Ecological Society of America
Data Distribution
Coastal Emergency Risk Assessment
Carola Kaiser, LSU and Jason Fleming, SCS
CitSci.org
Greg Newman, Colorado State University
ENIGMA
Lisa Eyler, University of California, San Diego
Ocean Observatories Initiative
Ivan Rodero, Rutgers University
Aquavit
Jack Smith, Marshall University
Software as a Service
COSMIC2
Michael Cianfrocco, University of Michigan
LSU Systems Biology
Michal Brylinski, Louisiana State University
SimCCS
Kevin Ellet, Indiana Geological and Water Survey
ChemCompute
Mark Perri, Sonoma State University
nSides
Rami Vanguri, Columbia University
Interactive Parallelization Tool
Ritu Arora, University of Texas
Cyberinfrastructure
Galaxy CloudLaunch
Enis Afgan, Johns Hopkins University
Early gateway-building clients

17. Center for Applied Internet
Data Analysis (CAIDA)
PI: kc claffy, University of California, San Diego
Consultants: Mona Wong, San Diego Computer Center
and Steven Snyder, Purdue University

18. • Contributions:
• Re-architected and re-implemented the AS service using
best design practices: REST API and UI
• Dramatically improved performance and scalabiliy (<0.5 s
latency)
• Helped redesign front-end interface using modern
technologies
• Background: CAIDA’s Autonomous Systems ranking
service provides a map of Internet Service Providers
and organizations
• The tool has served policy makers, network operators, and
network researchers for almost a decade.
• Objective: Improve DB query performance and increase
capacity for simultaneous users
• < 10 simultaneous users, queries took minutes

19. Virtual Clusters for
Community
Computation
PI: Robert Gardner, University of Chicago
Consultant: John Gentle, TACC

20. • Background: VC3 is a platform for organizing
and automating the delivery of scientific
computing resources from multiple facilities into
a single logical environment.
• Objective: Assist the VC3 portal development
team develop a user and administrator portal
using their framework API.
• Contributions:
• Evaluated core technology selections
• Established a conceptualization workflow for developing user
stories and workflows
• Integrated the VC3 gateway authentication with GlobusID
• Integrated the VC3 Gateway with VC3 Infoservice client/API
• Recommendations for design of information communicated via
the portal interface

21. The Quantitative Undergraduate Biology Education
and Synthesis (QUBES) Gateway
PIs: Drew LaMar, College of William and Mary and
Sam Donovan, University of Pittsburgh
Consultant: Shawn Rice, Purdue University
Enabling Science & Broader Impacts

22. • Background: QUBES provides resources
for teaching quantitative biology
• Objective: Improve HUBzero’s
Publication feature for their community
• Propose changes to someone else's
publication
• Use someone else's publication as a starting
point for one’s own idea.
• Contributions: Feature delivered and put into
production.
• Added the ability for an assigned license of a publication to
indicate if it allows for derivations of the source materials, which
will determine if a publication can be forked or not.
• PEARC18 paper submitted

23. The ENIGMA
Bipolar Disorder
Brain Age Project
PI: Prof. Lisa Eyler, UCSD
Consultant: Mona Wong, SDSC

24. • Background: Creating a large database of existing
measures of brain size for people with and without
Bipolar Disorder from multiple investigators across
the world
• Objective: PI seeks an efficient and secure method
for collecting processed data.
• Accomplishments:
• Drupal-based data portal implemented
• Provides the ability to securely login, sign a user-data
sharing agreement, upload data, validate the uploaded
data, store and calculate some metadata and display
some basic report and charts about the data.
• Value add of the gateway are the quality control
measures.

25. EDS by the Numbers
20 projects distributed over 18 different
institutions
Funding: 11 NSF, 3 NIH, 1 DOE, 1
USDA, 4 university-funded
11 out of 20 projects used an SGCI
constituent framework
25

26. Scientific Software Collaborative
Leveraging & promoting existing investments in gateway
technologies
• Want to find software
solutions?
• Have software to share?
26
Extend Your Audience
• List your gateway or components
• Offer your technology
• Support gateways as SGCI
Affiliate
End-to-End Solutions
• Browse existing gateways
• Identify their technologies
• Use for your research or
teaching
• Identify platforms or components
and use what you need
• Assemble & test in our “sandbox”
Consensus
http://catalog.sciencegateways.org

27. 27
How do I find a
gateway I can
use in my
classroom to
help teach my
students?
I have a really
great gateway,
how can I share
it with the wider
community?
WOW! This
gateway looks
great how can
I contact the
team and find
out more
about how
they built it?
I want to play
with these
gateway tools,
how do I get
started?
My team consists of
Django developers,
how can I find
gateways that are
built using tools
my team is already
familiar with?
Consensus

28. Searchable gateway catalog
28
• Find operational
gateways
• Find software used
to build them
• Find developers
willing to provide
advice
• Find gateways
ready to use in the
classroom
• Highlight gateways
from a particular
institution to show
off local
investments
• Future plans to
reach out to NSF
software developers
• International listings

29. Community Engagement & Exchange
Connecting the community through interaction &
professional development
• Events
• Annual conference
• Webinar series
• Resources
• Community news and events
posted through newsletter,
website, and social media
• Website, including blog, job
postings, research, learning
materials, best practices, etc.
• Case studies and other success
stories
• Community Building
• Campus-based gateway groups
support
• Social media presence
• Partner and affiliates program
29

30. Community Engagement and Workforce
Development
• Annual Gateways conference (since 2005)
• Interact with other developers
• Tutorials, presentations, posters, reception, open space
discussions
• Help organize!
• Publish in special journal issue, joint with international
developers
• Gateways 2018
• September 25-27, Austin
• Student fellowships, internships, travel support
• Annual workshops in Europe and Australia
• IWSG, IWSG-A

31. Workforce Development
Nurturing the next generation of
science gateways users and developers
• Internships for gateway developers
• Travel funding for students
• Working with faculty on gateways for use in the
classroom
• Developing gateway skills pipelines and career tracks
31
Young Professionals Network
• SPOTLIGHT featuring young professionals
• Young Professional of the Year Award includes
honorarium
• Networking opportunities through virtual seminars
• Support for professional editing for your technical
publications
• Volunteer to be a mentor
Summer Programs & Internships
• Graduate & undergraduate students
• Domain-focused & gateway-development
topics
• Work on real gateway projects
• Stipend and housing/transportation support
Successful Formation

32. Planning has paid off
Activities at 18-months
32
8partners
65letters of
collaboration
38
Bootcamp
attendees
tutorials &
outreach
presentations86
18
Incubator
consultations
conference
attendees220
webinar
attendees &
registrants
180
student &
21
faculty
participants
Extended
Developer
Support
projects20 402Gateway Catalog entries
575
10
Campus Gateway Group
engagements

33. Thank you
• Request services
• Short term consulting, longer term gateway building
• Find or list gateways or gateway building software
• catalog.sciencegateways.org
• Gateways 2019
• Sept 23-25, San Diego
• Held at the Catamaran in conjunction with international eScience conference
• Request a Letter of Commitment to leverage existing SGCI offerings in
proposal
• Become involved as a partner or affiliate
• Engaging with SGCI clients
• Train students via the internship program
www.sciencegateways.org
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ACI-1547611