Polar Programs and Cyberinfrastructure

1. Polar Programs and Cyberinfrastructure Dan Lubin Program Manager for Cyberinfrastructure NSF Office of Polar Programs dlubin@nsf.gov, 703-292-7416 Bill Wiseman Arctic Natural Sciences NSF Office of Polar Programs wwiseman@nsf.gov

2. NSF Office of Cyberinfrastructure • OPP and OCI are “birds of a feather” at NSF • Major programs largely unique to NSF, • OPP historically (USAP), OCI recently. • See the Aktins Report (NSF 07-28) • On NSF OCI web site, under publications-reports. • OCI provides a rubric for engaging the most modern computational research available with all disciplines covered by NSF. • OCI administers large “flagship” programs, sometimes in the $10s of millions, (e.g., CDI).

3. Cyberinfrastructure and OPP • OCI will very likely set the standard for future OPP investments in data management and interoperability, cyber-enabled collaboration, bandwidth, and other requirements for computational resources. • Most of the OCI solicitations lend themselves very well to polar concerns. Do consider submitting proposals! • There has already been good interest in OCI proposal submission by polar researchers earlier this year. • 2 went to CDI, 2.5 went to DataNet. • What went right? What went wrong?

4. Requirements for Success • Domain Science (everything we do) must have an equal partnership with Computer Science. • Computer Science must not appear to be the servant of the Domain Science. • If you do anything polar – you are a domain scientist! • OCI panels tend to be heavily weighted by computer scientists’ input! • Not always by number, sometimes by unique expertise, strong personalities! • You should have a bona fide computer scientist as a collaborator. • Computer scientist, informatician, sociologist, etc., depending on solicitation. • Involve, or (even better) potential to publish: research in top-flight computer or information science peer-review journals. • Computer trade journals, software manuals, not sufficient for your reference list! • Your work/management plan must clearly discuss everyone’s role, even on a 5-page preproposal. A “token” computer scientist, or name dropping, won’t fly! • Broader Impacts must be robust and credible, not boilerplate! • Challenge: Panels are multidisciplinary, highly competitive – you must engage the reviewers and keep them excited about your work! • Positive: Great interest in global climate change issues throughout OCI!

5. Proposal versus Preproposal • Preparing a Proposal • You take lots of long walks. • You write the best 15 pages you can, finishing a draft at least several days before the deadline. • You do a lot of proofreading, editing, and polishing before submitting the proposal. • You can count on ~10 minutes of discussion about your proposal in the NSF panel. • Preparing a Preproposal • You need to take just as many long walks. • You only need to write 5 pages, but you need to engage the reviewers, convince them that your project is worth doing and will break new ground, that your approach is viable, and that your team is well constituted. • You do just as much proofreading, editing, and polishing before submitting the preproposal. • You can count on ~5 minutes of discussion in the NSF panel.

6. CDI: Cyber-Enabled Discovery and Innovation • LOI by 30 SEP 08, Preproposal by 4 NOV 08, Full proposal by 27 FEB 09 • Lead Program Officers: Sirin Tekinay and Tom Russell • CDI seeks ambitious, transformative, multidisciplinary research proposals within or across the following three thematic areas:   • From Data to Knowledge:enhancing human cognition and generating new knowledge from a wealth of heterogeneous digital data; • Understanding Complexity in Natural, Built, and Social Systems:deriving fundamentalinsights onsystems comprising multiple interacting elements;  and • Building Virtual Organizations:enhancing discovery and innovation bybringing people and resources together across institutional, geographical and cultural boundaries. • “Emphasis on bold multidisciplinary activities that, through computational thinking, promise radical, paradigm-changing research findings.”

7. DataNet: Sustainable Digital Data Preservation and Access Network • Preproposal by 6 OCT 08, Full proposal by 16 FEB 09 • Lead Program Officer: Lucy Nowell • Challenge: How to develop the new methods, management structures and technologies to manage the diversity, size, and complexity of current and future data sets and data streams? • Answer: Create a set of exemplar national and global data research infrastructure organizations (dubbed DataNet Partners) that provide unique opportunities to communities of researchers to advance science and/or engineering research and learning. • The new types of organizations envisioned in this solicitation will integrate library and archival sciences, cyberinfrastructure, computer and information sciences, and domain science expertise.

8. INTEROP: Community-based Data Interoperability Networks • Full proposal target date: 23 JUL 08, 23 JUL 09. • Lead Program Officer: Lucy Nowell • Goal: Foster the ability to re-purpose data – to use it in innovative ways and combinations not envisioned by those who created the data. • Interoperability: Ability of two or more systems or components to exchange information and to use the information that has been exchanged. • This program supports community efforts to provide for broad interoperability through the development of mechanisms such as robust data and metadata conventions, ontologies, and taxonomies. • Support is provided for Data Interoperability Networks that will be responsible for consensus-building activities and for providing the expertise necessary to turn the consensus into technical standards with associated implementation tools and resources.

9. VOSS: Virtual Organizations as Sociotechnical Systems • Full Proposal due date: 2 JUN 08 • Lead Program Officer: Diana Rhoten • A virtual organization is a group of individuals whose members and resources may be dispersed geographically, but who function as a coherent unit through the use of cyberinfrastructure. Sound familiar? • This program supports scientific research directed at advancing the understanding of what constitutes effective virtual organizations and under what conditions virtual organizations can enable and enhance scientific innovation. • Disciplinary perspectives may include (but are not limited to) anthropology, complexity sciences, computer and information sciences, decision and management sciences, economics, engineering, organization theory, organizational behavior, social and industrial psychology, public administration, and sociology. • A successful polar proposal to VOSS could greatly benefit the community, by enabling us to take a step back and look at the big picture!

10. More on VOSS • The key points here are: • -- theoretical • -- empirical • This program not meant to support: • -- building VOs • -- consulting to single VOs • -- evaluating single VOs • The work supported by this program should inform the development of VOs as a field … by identifying general principles and working with theoretical frames … not focusing on merely describing single cases. • This program will not support implementation of individual VOs. • A domain scientist “playing a sociologist on TV” will not succeed in this competition! You will need a collaborator.

11. Resources for VOSS Collaborators