Theme 1: The Impact and Implications of Cyberinfrastructure
From Establishing a Research Agenda for Scholarly Communication
Scholars and researchers in all disciplines require a robust digital infrastructure to conduct their research. Cyberinfrastructure – the “layer of enabling hardware, algorithms, software, communications, institutions, and personnel [that] should provide an effective and efficient platform for the empowerment of specific communities of researchers to innovate and eventually revolutionize what they do, how they do it, and who participates”[1] – refers to the shift from small scale and individualistic inquiry to a process of large scale, collaborative research that has financial, political and organizational implications far beyond the implicit technological issues. Because cyberinfrastructure promises to “revolutionize what [scholars] do, how they do it, and who participates,”[1] its deployment will affect every aspect of the communication of that scholarship. With its far-reaching impact on the nature and processes of research and scholarship, CI has also been framed as an important factor in the global competitiveness of the nation’s research enterprise.
Some people equate cyberinfrastructure to research computing and computational science. The initial thrust of investigation was instigated by the National Science Foundation (NSF), reinforcing the association of the term with high speed computing and the sciences.[1][1] NSF continues to support the development of a national and regional computing infrastructure through its reports and funding programs. The impact on all disciplines is becoming apparent. The American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) followed NSF in issuing a report on the opportunities and concerns from the perspectives of the humanities and social sciences.[1] In late 2004 an ARL/CNI Forum[1] presented an opportunity for the North American research library community to explore the topic.
Illustrative Challenges
Libraries often tailor services and collections to meet specific disciplinary needs, yet little is known about how institutional investments in cyberinfrastructure are affecting research at the discipline level. The distributed nature of cyberinfrastructure presents a challenge in determining the roles and contributions of individual institutions or their constituent parts, including libraries. Libraries have not always been at the table when research and high performance computing services have been discussed, priorities determined and funding distributed. Documenting and sharing information about investments in and management of cyberinfrastructure is needed. This work is urgent and important for libraries to redefine and assert their role in the creation, dissemination, and preservation of scholarship.
Research agendas and scholarly practice can be transformed by ubiquitous access to computing and network resources. How academic institutions choose to employ and distribute funding and computing resources will determine the future of scholarship and scholarly communication in all disciplines. How cyberinfrastructure is viewed, funded, and governed on campus will be a pressing issue for scholars, libraries, and IT to co-determine.
Research Possibilities
- Collect systematic data about academic library expenditures on IT for academic computing. Ensure that data elements are clearly defined so that comparable data can be collected and compared. A starting point could be to examine how EDUCAUSE collects institution-wide data and compare relative library and IT investments in infrastructure. This useful model illustrates the challenge of creating definitions and guidelines to ensure consistency in data collection that lead to meaningful comparisons.
- Review funding patterns of the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), and the National Science Foundation (NSF) to identify past and planned funding for cyberinfrastructure projects. Examine the assumptions about related impacts on the communication and management of research results.
- Study institutions receiving grant funding to track the degree the institutions have absorbed the funded projects into their budgets. Determine what elements of cyberinfrastructure development and deployment have been sustained beyond grant funding and examine how costs can be identified and tracked.
NEXT: Theme 2: Changing Organizational Models
