Meeting title:
Understanding VREs/SGs/VLs: planning a roadmap for sustainable collaborative development
A short introduction describing the activities and the scope of the group:
There are a significant number of initiatives that are developing some form of collaborative environment to support research, education or training. There are more than one name for this type of platform that are identified as virtual research environments in Europe, science gateways (SGs) in the USA and virtual laboratories (VLs) in Australia. Many of these platforms are developed to support a very specific requirement or community and have little or no capability for interoperability between them for the purposes of exchanging research assets (data, workflows, results etc.) or sharing of tools, services or resources. This group aims to coordinate a limited cross-section of the many VRE/SG/VL initiatives with the objective of moving towards some form of common architecture and/or best practices to support interoperability across the different platforms. It aims to work closely with other related initiatives such as the Science Gateways Community Institute (SGCI) and the Australian Research Data Cloud (ARDC) to ensure activities are complementary and not a duplication of effort.
Additional links to informative material related to the group i.e. group page, Case statement, working documents etc:
https://www.rd-alliance.org/group/virtual-research-environment-ig-vre-ig...
Meeting objectives:
This meeting aims to address some fundamental issues related to understanding the functionality and services delivered by the different types of collaborative platforms being funded internationally VREs/SGs/VLs all support some form of collaborative activity for those that are often geographically separated both from each other as well as from some of the resources they require e.g. HPC, data systems, etc. However, there is still a need to agree on definitions for a VRE, SG and VL that includes the tools and services they each deliver to their users. Clearly defining what each of the different types of platforms delivers will help users to better understand the available functionality, and also potentially support development of a roadmap for the cooperative delivery of these tools and services in the future.
Another key issue for users of these VRE/SG/VL platforms is their sustainability. There needs to be some prospect of long-term support for these collaborative environments for users to commit time and resources to their adoption. The second part of this session will focus on starting an activity to capture information about the sustainability models that have been used for various types of collaboration platforms, both those that succeeded and those that failed, with the aim of documenting some best practices for the sustainability that can be used by current and future VRE/SG/VLs initiatives.
Meeting agenda:
0 - 10 min Introduction
10 - 35 min Understanding the differences/commonalities of VREs/SGs/VLs
The terms VRE/SG/VLs are used almost interchangeably but are these real (technical or architectural) or perceived due to regional and cultural differences in requirements and solutions? Four short presentations (5 mins each) will explore this question from the perspective of the virtual research environment (VRE), virtual laboratory (VL) and science gateway (SG).
Speakers:
- Dimitris Koureas (NHM) EU
- Mark Leggott (RDC) Canada
- Natalie Myers (UND) USA
- Hamish Holewa (NecTAR/VLs), (Australia)
35– 45 min Discussion
A guided discussion with the aim of producing a matrix of the tools, services etc. each type of platform
delivers to its users
45 - 70min Sustainability of collaborative platforms
Sustainability is a recognised challenge for both providers and users of virtual research environments (VRE), science gateways (SG) or virtual laboratories (VL). But what factors contribute to their sustainability and how can we influence them? Four short presentations (5 mins each) will provide overviews of the sustainability models of existing collaborative platforms
Speakers:
- Mark Miller (CIPRES), USA
- Lesley Wyborn (NCI) Australia
- Nancy Wilkins-Diehr (SGs) USA
- Keith Jeffery NERC/BGS (EU)
70 – 80 min Discussion
A guided discussion with the aim of producing a matrix of sustainability models (including an indicator for the level of success for each)
80 – 90 min Conclusions and next steps
Target audience:
This session is aimed at anyone who is or has been involved in developing, maintaining or using any form of online collaborative environment or its components.
In preparation for this meeting, attendees should refer to the notes from the previous session that took place during the 9th RDA Plenary meeting that focused on understanding the commonalities and differences of the different VRE/SG/VL platforms from the different global regions.
Participants should also come prepared with examples of any sustainability models for collaborative environments they may be aware of, both past and present
Group chair serving as contact person: Helen Glaves
Type of meeting: Working meeting
Session Room: Cartier 2
Session Time: Wednesday 20 September, Breakout 4, 11:00 - 12:30
Collaborative session notes:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1hpp6njnzgUHOT_yDw8hTQZncqDKM2EK_bJ6V...
Session slides and materials: All presentations are available on https://www.rd-alliance.org/rda-p10-vre-ig-presentations
Remote Access Information (Gotomeeting):
Online: https://global.gotomeeting.com/join/873606621
Phone:
Australia: +61 2 8355 1038
Austria: +43 1 2530 22500
Belgium: +32 28 93 7002
Canada: +1 (647) 497-9379
Denmark: +45 32 72 03 69
Finland: +358 923 17 0556
France: +33 170 950 590
Germany: +49 692 5736 7300
Ireland: +353 15 360 756
Italy: +39 0 230 57 81 80
Netherlands: +31 207 941 375
New Zealand: +64 9 282 9510
Norway: +47 21 93 37 37
Spain: +34 932 75 1230
Sweden: +46 853 527 818
Switzerland: +41 225 4599 60
United Kingdom: +44 330 221 0097
United States: +1 (571) 317-3116
Access Code: 873-606-621
| Attachment | Size |
|---|---|
 Versioing IG title slide and program.pptx | 241.59 KB |