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Transdisciplinary research teams are essential to scientific advancement, and successful transdisciplinary teams rely on effective communication. Overcoming barriers to foster productive team dynamics requires communication strategies and tools. We combine our practical experience to offer a succinct protocol, including only the essentials, to help teams quickly establish an agile communication platform during project start-up (https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/N5GFP).

An analysis of more than 50 collaborations shows the secrets of success, write Joel Cutcher-Gershenfeld and colleagues from the Stakeholder Alignment Collaborative.

This paper introduces xDCI, a Data Science Cyber-infrastructure to support research in a number of scientific domains including genomics, environmental science, biomedical and health science, and social science. xDCI leverages open-source software packages such as the integrated Rule Oriented Data System and the CyVerse Discovery Environment to address significant challenges in data storage, sharing, analysis and visualization. We provide three example applications to evaluate xDCI for different domains: analysis of 3D images of mice brains, videos analysis of neonatal resuscitation, and risk analytics. Finally, we conclude with a discussion of potential improvements to xDCI.

Valley of death describes the metaphorical depths to which promising science and technology too often plunge, never to emerge and reach their full potential. Behavioral and institutional perspectives help in understanding the implications of choices that inadvertently lead into rather than over the valley of death. A workshop conducted among a diverse set of scientists, managers, and technology transfer staff at a U.S. national laboratory is a point of departure for discussing behavioral and institutional elements that promote or impede the pathway from research toward use, and for suggesting actionable measures that can facilitate the flow of information and products from research toward use. In the complex systems that comprise research institutions, where competing pressures can create barriers to information or technology transfer, one recommendation is to re-frame the process as a more active ushering toward use.

This paper describes a multi-institution effort to develop a “data science as a service” platform. This platform integrates advanced federated data management for small to large datasets, access to high performance computing, distributed computing and advanced networking. The goal is to develop a platform that is flexible and extensible while still supporting domain research and avoiding the walled garden problem. Some preliminary lessons learned and next steps will also be outlined.

Understanding the earth as a system requires integrating many forms of data from multiple fields. Builders and funders of the cyberinfrastructure designed to enable open data sharing in the geosciences risk a key failure mode: What if geoscientists do not use the cyberinfrastructure to share, discover and reuse data? In this study, we report a baseline assessment of engagement with the NSF EarthCube initiative, an open cyberinfrastructure effort for the geosciences. We find scientists perceive the need for cross-disciplinary engagement and engage where there is organizational or institutional support. However, we also find a possibly imbalanced involvement between cyber and geoscience communities at the outset, with the former showing more interest than the latter. This analysis highlights the importance of examining fields and disciplines as stakeholders to investments in the cyberinfrastructure supporting science.

This paper examines the potential for comparisons of digital science data curation lifecycles to software lifecycle development to provide insight into promoting sustainable science software. The goal of this paper is to start a dialog examining the commonalities, connections, and potential complementarities between the data lifecycle and the software lifecycle in support of sustainable software. We argue, based on this initial survey, delving more deeply into the connections between data lifecycle approaches and software development lifecycles will enhance both in support of science.

Science software has contributed to research practices, but the sustainability of scientific software presents challenges for the future use of research resources. Identifying improvements for science software sustainability practices can contribute to the re-use of science software. A focus group study was conducted to identify ways to improve science software sustainability practices of the Earth science community. A facilitated, roundtable discussion activity at the 2014 Federation of Earth Science Information Partners (ESIP) Summer Meeting elicited recommendations on community activities to improve practices for the sustainability of scientific software. These suggestions fell into three broad themes – (1) improving collaboration and community engagement through publications and presentations (2) developing workshops, training, and documenting best practices and (3) creating incentives and motivation with awards, citation and a reviewed software repository. In addition to the recommendations coming out of the roundtable activity, this paper highlights how community-led groups such as ESIP are key to move a sustainable software effort in its various forms from concept to reality.

Science for Society, a workshop held at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) on September 27, 20111, explored ways to move Laboratory science toward use. It sought actionable recommendations. Thus the workshop focused on: (1) current practices that promote and inhibit the translation of science into use, (2) principles that could lead to improving ORNL's translational knowledge and technology transfer efforts, and (3) specific recommendations for making these principles operational. This highly interactive workshop struck a positive chord with participants, a group of 26 ORNL staff members from diverse arenas of science and technology (S and T), technology transfer, and external laboratory relations, who represented all levels of science, technology, and management. Recognizing that the transformation of fundamental principles into operational practices often follows a jagged path, the workshop sought to identify key choices that could lead to a smoother journey along this path, as well as choices that created roadblocks and bottlenecks. The workshop emphasized a portion of this pathway, largely excluding the marketplace. Participants noted that research translation includes linkages between fundamental and applied research and development (R and D), and is not restricted to uptake by manufacturers, consumers, or end users. Three crosscutting ideas encapsulate workshop participantsmore » observations: (1) ORNL should take more action to usher the translation of its S and T products toward use, so as to make a positive national and global impact and to enhance its own competitiveness in the future; (2) ORNL (and external entities such as DOE and Congress) conveys inconsistent messages with regard to the importance of research translation and application, which (a) creates confusion, (b) poses disincentives to pursue research translation, (c) imposes barriers that inhibit cross-fertilization and collaboration, and (d) diminishes the effectiveness of both the science mission and the translation of that science for use; and (3) ORNL should design its commitments and actions for helping move science from the Laboratory toward use to align with one another and should integrate them into its institutional culture in such a way as to elevate research translation and application to coequal status with scientific excellence. Participants made several actionable recommendations for enhancing research translation at ORNL, some of which were particular to specific S and T domains. Among the recommendations that participants agreed apply Lab-wide are to: align metrics and incentives with research translation goals; manage risks and conflicts of interest instead of avoiding them; and create programs (e.g., entrepreneurial leave) that promote interactions between key ORNL staff and industry in ways that complement careers at ORNL.« less

“We have a shared responsibility to create and implement strategies to realize the full potential of digital information for present and future generations,” according to the Electronic Geophysical Year (eGY) Declaration [CoBabe-Ammann et al., 2007]

Federation of Earth Science Information Partners Summer 2011 Meeting; Santa Fe, New Mexico, 12–15 July 2011 Scientific data quality is important to scientists, archivists, decision makers, and the public. Uncertain quality costs valuable research dollars and has impacts beyond the initial science. The Federation of Earth Science Information Partners (ESIP) is a consortium of Earth science data and technology professionals spanning the government (NASA, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), National Science Foundation), academia, and private sectors (both commercial and nonprofit). The organization is dedicated to transforming research data and information into useful and usable data and information products for decision makers, policy makers, and the public.