Transcript 1. The Long Tail - National e

Applications Day
The Influence and Impact of Web 2.0 on e-Research
Infrastructure, Applications and Users
Or...
De Roure, D. and Goble, C. (2007) myExperiment
– A Web 2.0 Virtual Research Environment. In:
International Workshop on Virtual Research
Environments and Collaborative Work
Environments, May 2007, Edinburgh, UK.
...revisited
1. The Long Tail
• Our target users are the
large number of scientists
conducting the routine
processes of science on a
daily basis.
• Through sharing we have the
potential to enable smart
scientists to be smarter and
propagate their smartness,
in turn enabling other
scientists to become better
and conduct better science.
• myExperiment currently has
1640 registered users, 138
groups, 651 workflows, 170
files and 50 packs
• Lots of unique IP visits!
• Total viewings: 85168
Most viewed: 2934
Total downloads: 68525
Most downloaded: 3524
• We share process
• There is evidence in papers and
talks that people are finding
and using workflows to achieve
new scientific results
2. Data is the Next “Intel Inside”
• myExperiment understands • Taverna 1, GWorkflowDL,
that scientists are focused
Taverna 2 beta, Chemistry
on data, not software or one
Plan, Trident (Package),
particular workflow engine.
Trident (XOML), WSVLAM
• Furthermore, workflows
• Packs are our new Intel
themselves are the data of
Inside?
myExperiment and provide
its unique value.
3. Users Add Value
• myExperiment makes it easy
to find workflows and is
designed to make it useful
and straightforward to share
workflows and add
workflows to the pool.
• To succeed we draw on the
insights into the incentive
models of scientists gained
through experience with
Taverna.
• Largest public workflow
collection
• BUT Upload incentive has
long return on investment
• Paul Fisher gets support
requests not credit!
• We are prepared to pay
expert curators
• Quality triage imminent
4. Network Effects by Default
• myExperiment aggregates
user data as a side-effect
of using the VRE.
• The ability to execute
workflows from
myExperiment, and the
integration of tools such
as Taverna with
myExperiment, further
enable us to achieve
increased value through
usage.
• Google works!
• Privacy restricts
recommendation
• Biocatalogue takes this
forward
5. Some Rights Reserved
• myExperiment users require
protection as well as
sharing, but the
environment is designed for
maximum ease of sharing to
achieve collective benefits –
workflows are "hackable"
and "remixable".
• Initiatives such as Science
Commons provide a useful
context for this.
• Compare with OpenWetWare
• E-Lab lifecycle...
6. The Perpetual Beta
• myExperiment is an online
• Daily dev meetings, weekly
service – indeed a collection
management meetings,
of online services – and is
monthly hackfests & team
continually evolving in
meetings with guests
response to its users.
• Test servers (virtualised)
• To support this, the project
commenced with developers • Friends and
being embedded in the user
family,
community.
champions
• Through day-to-day contact
between designers and
researchers, design is both
inspired and validated.
7. Cooperate, Don't Control
• myExperiment is a network
• It’s not a lightweight set of
of cooperating data services
components
with simple interfaces which
• Nor is Facebook!
make it easy to work with
content.
• It both provides services and
reuses the service of others.
It aims to support
lightweight programming
models so that it can easily
be part of loosely coupled
systems.
For Developers
android
API
config
Managed REST API
tags ratings reviews
profiles
workflows credits groups
friendships
packs
files
Search
Engine
SPARQL endpoint
HTML
iGoogle
facebook
XML
RDF
Store
`
mySQL
Enactor
8. Software Above the Level of a
Single Device
• The current model of
Taverna running on the
scientist’s desktop PC or
laptop is evolving into
myExperiment being
available through a variety
of interfaces and supporting
workflow execution.
• Interfaces for iGoogle,
Facebook and Android
Six Principles of Software Design to Empower Scientists
1. Fit in, Don’t Force Change
2. Jam today and more jam
tomorrow
3. Just in Time and Just
Enough
4. Act Local, think Global
5. Enable Users to Add Value
6. Design for Network Effects
1. Keep your Friends Close
2. Embed
3. Keep Sight of the Bigger
Picture
4. Favours will be in your
Favour
5. Know your users
6. Expect and Anticipate
Change
De Roure, D. and Goble, C. (2009) Six Principles of Software Design to Empower
Scientists. IEEE Software vol. 26, no. 1, pp. 88-95, Jan/Feb 2009.
Closing remarks
 Scientists do share – also see OpenWetWare
 Looking at upload incentives
 Web2 Principles worked
 Privacy, credit, attribution, licensing really matter
 We have chosen a software platform that enables us to
spend more time with the users in development and
provide agile response in operation
 Next: controlled vocabularies, navigation of results,
repository integration, recommendations, ...
 We want to explode myExperiment into an e-Lab – what
are the components, services and research objects?
 Contributions of the National Centre for e-Social Science
have been crucial
Contact
David De Roure
[email protected]
Carole Goble
[email protected]
Further info
wiki.myexperiment.org
Thanks
The myGrid Consortium
National Centre for e-Social Science