2011 canarie user's forum

Dumontier::CANARIE user forum 2010

What researchers want?

Michel Dumontier

Associate Professor of Bioinformatics

Carleton University

Co-PI, C-BRASS NEP2


somebody who teaches courses, trains students at the undergraduate, graduate and post-

graduate levels, writes grants, does research, deals with the administration, writes and

publishes papers, and tries to have some kind of life


we’re successful we’re successful because of the help because of the help we get along the waywe get along the way


first, we all have different needs

second, the opinions expressed herein are reflect mine and those I’ve heard in one-on-

one and group discussions


it’s not so much that there’s something fundamentally wrong, it’s just that we can

do it better


we can build from a foundation of good work and good intentions


but, we really need a vision we can believe in

government and funding agencies that understand

and facilitate the broad spectrum across research

and development, sustainability,

commercialization and technology transfer

a roadmap for building out national cyberinfrastructure (network, computing, data,

instruments, community)


A successful strategy is one where

we are given financial, material and professional support to accomplish our (shared) objectives 1. integrated cyberinfrastructure that leverages

the investments made in network, computing and middleware towards knowledge discovery

2. professional capacity to develop NEP projects into sustainable and/or commercial endeavors


computing services (HPC / cloud / whatever) should exist to satisfy different scientific

computing requirements

HPC CLOUD


Research creates huge amounts of poorly analyzed data

represented using ad-hoc formats that typically can’t be efficiently indexed, integrated, queried

or consumed

it impedes progress, and this needs to be addressed in a meaningful way


The Semantic Web is a web of knowledge

11

It is about standards for publishing, sharing and querying knowledge drawn from diverse sources

It enables the answering of sophisticated questions

cyberinfrastructure needs to make use

of such standards


myth #1: myth #1: People don’t like People don’t like or want to share or want to share datadata

they will do so they will do so with proper with proper incentivesincentives


maximize investments in middlewarei)promote integration and interoperability

ii)facilitate sustainability and commercializaiton


Specific recommendations

• define a coherent vision – to guide and be advocated by government,

funding agencies, researchers and industry

• use / extend data standards and promote software interoperability– facilitate software and data as services

• develop expert capacity and involve professional support networks– commercialization and technology transfer


[email protected]

2011 canarie user's forum

Technology

canarie user forum

data standards

computing services hpc

professional capacity

web of knowledge

integrated cyberinfrastructure

different needs

software interoperability