Social Networking and Scientific Gateways

Roger Curry, Cameron Kiddle and Rob Simmonds

Grid Research Centre

University of Calgary

Outline Motivation Related Work Integration Approaches Our Experiences Conclusions and Future Work

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Motivation Scientific Gateways

Aim to enable collaboration and transparent access to data and computational resources

Social Networking Can enhance collaboration capabilities and improve

transparency Widely adopted

Facebook > 300 million users (50% log on to Facebook on any given day) > 1 billion chat messages per day > 2 billion photos, 14 million videos uploaded per month > 350 thousand applications on Facebook Platform

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Related Work: Social Networking for Science/Academia Academia.edu

Aims at being Facebook or LinkedIn for academia Biomedexperts (biomedexperts.com)

Connecting biomedical experts based on author connections between publications SciWeavers (sciweavers.org)

Bookmark and share links to source code, data sets, publications, presentations, etc. myExperiment (myexperiment.org)

Share computational/data workflows and other research objects HUBzero (hubzero.org)

Collaborative platform to share publications, presentations, etc. and provide on-line access to scientific tools

REAL (Research Environments Associated with Learning through Social Networks) Access to data and compute resources from Second Life

OGCE (Open Grid Computing Environments) (collab-ogce.org) Recently began development of OpenSocial based gadgets/containers

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Integration Approaches Build on an Existing Social Network Build a Custom Social Network Hosted by

a Third Party Build a Custom Social Network Hosted In-

House

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Build on an Existing Social Network Examples: Facebook, MySpace, Friendster, orkut Advantages

Likely that users are already members Familiarity with features/tools Wide range of robust features/functionality Do not have to scale/maintain collaborative aspects

Disadvantages Lack of control/customization Data privacy/ownership Distractions: advertising, “social noise” Risks affiliated with vendors going out of business

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Build a Custom Social Network Hosted by a Third Party Examples: Ning, KickApps, Haystack Advantages

Customizable (to a certain extent) Wide range of robust features/functionality “Social noise” can be avoided Do not have to scale/maintain collaborative aspects

Disadvantages Still don’t have complete control/customization Data privacy/ownership Advertising, potential fees Risks affiliated with vendors going out of business

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Build a Custom Social Network Hosted In-House Examples: Elgg, Drupal, PHPizabi, Dolphin Advantages

Complete control and customization Ownership of data Open source Advertisements and “social noise” can be avoided Less risk if vendor goes out of business

Disadvantages Features aren’t always as robust or fully developed Must maintain, manage, scale collaborative aspects

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Fire Dynamics Simulator (FDS) Demonstrator

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Created a Facebook-based interface to provide users with access to cloud-based FDS simulation/visualization services

A one-stop shop Upload/edit input files Submit/resubmit/execute

simulations Share/visualize/download

results Message boards

Facebook-based GeoChronos GeoChronos – CANARIE/Cybera

funded project to create an on-line collaborative platform for earth observation scientists

Developed initial Facebook-based prototype for accessing and sharing MODIS satellite data Create, edit and share subscriptions List and view details of subscriptions View thumbnails and metadata Message boards

Evaluation Positive feedback from scientists Concern over customizability and

“social noise” Concern over data ownership

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Ning-based GeoChronos

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Created a custom social network in Ning for GeoChronos

Ported the MODIS application to Ning

Evaluation Scientists liked more custom

environment, but wanted even greater control over customization

Scientists did not like advertisements

Application API not as easy to work with as Facebook API

Data ownership concerns

Elgg-based GeoChronos

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Settled on Elgg Have incorporated tools for sharing

spectral data and running applications on-line

Evaluation Much more positive feedback Fully customizable Full ownership of data Wide range of features but not quite as

polished as Facebook Usage

Over 70 users from around the world IAI Summer School, July 2009 Tropi-Dry community Registration currently restricted – will open

to the broader community by end of 2010

Elgg-based GeoChronos

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Interactive Application ServiceSpectral Libraries

Conclusions and Future Work Conclusions

Custom in-house hosted social network suited needs for GeoChronos best

Other approaches may be more suitable for other communities depending on their needs

Future Work Plan to monitor usage/adoption to better

evaluate impact of social networking Build more common reusable tools and services

that leverage social networking and can be used in other gateways

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Contact Information

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Cameron Kiddlekiddlec@cpsc.ucalgary.cahttp://pages.cspc.ucalgary.ca/~kiddlec/http://twitter.com/kiddlec

http://grid.ucalgary.ca/

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http://geochronos.org/info@geochronos.org