Transcript Reflections and Responses - Association of Research Libraries (ARL®)

Reflections and Responses
Marjory S. Blumenthal
Associate Provost, Academic
Georgetown University
MSB 10-15-04 ARL-CNI E-Research
Perspective
•
Photo by the elevators near restrooms: typewriter keys
– Cyberinfra and cool charts with animation (not mine!)
•
Birth of a concept: NSF and historic tension between computer science and
computational science, from HPCCI (mid-’80s roots) to fully Internet-centric
(mid-’90s+)
– ’93 National Collaboratories report process—disciplinary identity, preferences
– RB’s focus on cyberinfrastructure given software, IT enablement of science
– How to engage CS—NVO: “computer scientists love us”—interesting problems (n.b.,
state of networking R)…new role of applied CS…
– Broader social challenge: how nurture cyberinfra? (bottom v. top of univ)
• Courant: evangelizing common cause of science, social science, humanities—and CS?
•
Global context: how to assess activity WW
– Effort ≠ results; effort and floor-raising
– Euro-US NREN study: US and government-funded basic R
– Euro attention to the info/knowledge society
•
Homeland security/critical infrastructure?
– Cf. data set and data mining mission creep—privacy issues in some instances
(econ/social obvious; links to science? Cf. GIS)
– Djorgovski: if WWW is Wild West and we need something more, does this link
cyberinfrastructure to other governance discussions? (sigh…)
– Research communities’ needs to trust data integrity, persistence, authenticity
– Expect new mechanisms (who will choose and shape? CS, computational science +
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Networking
• Rising expectations: students + scholars
– Infrastructure econ (Courant)—public good challenge
– How to pay, who pays—haves and have-nots? (GU)
• Purchase of fiber v. bandwidth (Lynch)
– Cf. CANARIE, condominium fiber for municipalities
• Networked systems of embedded computing devices—
sensornets, mass data
– Djorgovski: most data will never be seen by humans
– CENS and process in situ; cf. Djorgovski: Jim Gray—bring the
computation to the data;
• X-national courses (SI IT & Global’n w/S Afr)
– Enable global university? (Atkins)
• Where is the money? New pub-priv partnerships?
– Atkins’ list of government agencies and foundations
– Courant’s speculation about academic-copyright industries deals
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Changing Scholarly Practice
• Humanities response: Consider the arts and technology
– Not just use and support, but also true hybridization (ITCP)
• Easier sell on arts than CS side
– Tool development/use/sharing
• Customization (n.b., appeal of open source), lims of easy-to-use
• Who has voice in standards-setting? (problem > arts & hums)
– E-communities
• CKC: knowledge communities amid individ’m (Cf. Courant)
• What does it take for anyone anywhere to do X?
– My question to Djorgovski—A: if you know what you’re doing
• Educational process may provide another take on time-place
– Artists’ frustration about having to learn tools over and over
• UMich School of Info (Atkins)—pioneer in Internet
economics/policy as well as early collaboratory work
– Larger overall system: econ/soc sci analysis needed, too
– We need to study what we’re here to talk about today
MSB 10-15-04 ARL-CNI E-Research