Governance and cyberinfrastructure in the Earth system sciences

Governance and cyberinfrastructure
in the Earth system sciences
Paul N. Edwards
School of Information and Dept. of History, University of Michigan

EarthCube goal
}  “…to design, build, and maintain an easy-to-use system
based on existing resources that embraces open-source
culture and methods to align technology development
with scientific needs.”
Richard et al.“Community‐developed Geoscience Cyberinfrastructure.” Eos 95, no. 20 (2014): 165-166
EarthCube All-hands Meeting, June 2014Paul N. Edwards

Governance: formal vs. informal

The Tower of Babel…
}  Heritage of multiple
disciplines, sensors, data
analysis methods
}  Cacophony of formats,
metadata, software
}  Earthcube survey of ~175
scientists (2011): need…
}  Common data formats
}  Better metadata and metadata
standards
}  Better ways to find data
}  Coupled web-based services,
such as visualization tools

Cyberinfrastructure and
climate change informatics (Rood & Edwards 2014)
R. B. Rood & P. N. Edwards,“Climate Informatics: Human Experts and the End-to-End System,” Earthzine, May 2014

The loading dock model of cyberinfrastructure
Data Models Services
Loading Dock ModelEarthCube All-hands Meeting, June 2014Paul N. Edwards

Access is not the main problem
}  Beyond the loading dock model
}  Need for translational information for (many) particular
users and uses
}  Human communication — often informal — remains the
most basic process for effective data sharing
}  Metadata as product vs. metadata as process
}  Always provide for communication with data creators

This morning
}  A little history of infrastructure
}  … and of governance in meteorology
}  What is governance?
}  Governance and software in Earth system science

Infrastructure: a historical model
}  System building: designed, coherent,
centrally organized
}  Proliferation of systems; variation
}  Networks: dedicated gateways link
heterogeneous systems
}  Internetworks: generic gateways
link heterogeneous networks
}  Decentralization, fragmentation
}  Abandonment, substitution
time
Edwards et al. 2007

Dedicated or improvised gateways (Egyedi 2001)
}  Whose responsibility?
}  Who sets standards?
}  Who pays?

Computer networks link computers

Generic gateways
the ISO standard container

Internetworks link networks
}  Routers are gateways
}  connect computers to each
other (network)
}  … and connect the local
network to other
networks
}  “The” Internet connects
millions of networks

1872 War Dept. synoptic map

The Victorian Internet (Standage 1998):
British telegraph network, 1890

1870 1900
1930 1960
Surface station coverage: evolution
Source: J. Hansen and S. Lebedeff,“Global Trends of Measured Surface
Air Temperature,” Journal of Geophysical Research 92, no. D11 (1987),
13,346-13,347

Stages in the history of weather forecasting
}  Systems: national weather
services
}  Set own standards
}  Networks: national and
international
}  The Réseau Mondial
}  Internetworks
}  Integrating heterogeneous
data sources
}  Surface stations
}  Air bases and airports
}  Marine data
}  Satellites
}  Governance
}  International Meteorological
Organization (1873-1949)
}  World Meteorological
Organization (WMO, founded
1950)
}  Set standards, assisted
coordination — but lightweight
relative to national services

an internetwork

World
Weather
Watch
•  Planned early 1960s

•  Operational 1968


What is governance?
}  Aligning an organization’s practices and procedures with
its goals, purposes, and values
}  Oversight, steering, and articulating organizational norms
and processes
}  vs. management: detailed planning, supervision of work,
allocation of effort

Modes of governance
Hierarchy Network (of
firms)
Market or
firm
Bazaar
Contractual
framework
Employment
contract
Neoclassical
contract
Property
contract
Open source
license
Incentives
intensity
Low Medium High Low
Control
intensity
High Medium Low Low
Social
relations
Strong ties Strong ties Anonymous Mostly
anonymous or
weak ties
Membership Employees
selected
Members select
each other
Buyer selected
by seller
Open; many free
riders
Timeframe Long-term
commitment
Long-term
commitment
Transaction or
contract
Variable; no
commitment
Source: adapted from B. Demil and X. Lecocq,“Neither Market Nor
Hierarchy Nor Network:The Emergence of Bazaar Governance,”
Organization studies 27, no. 10 (2006): 1447-66

Open source culture: bazaar governance
}  E. Raymond,“The Cathedral and the Bazaar”
}  Linux is ‘a great babbling bazaar of differing agendas and
approaches’
}  Characteristic: chaotic market, huge variations in quality
}  “Low levels of control and weak incentives intensity are
distinctive features of bazaar [governance], lending a high
uncertainty to governed transactions.”
}  Source: B. Demil and X. Lecocq,“Neither Market Nor Hierarchy Nor Network:The Emergence of Bazaar
Governance,” Organization Studies 27, no. 10 (2006): 1447-1466.

…but how does governance really work?
Highly competent groups can
get a lot done without much
management from above —
but there are limits to
leaderless teams, especially
when work is time-sensitive
and requires coordinating
complex, interdependent
activity.

Organizations in science…
}  Organizations provide space, equipment, money, and support
}  Stable, long-lasting (decades)
}  Well-defined roles and routines
}  Have boundaries, hierarchies, and entrenched cultures
}  Research (NCAR, GFDL, universities) vs. operational (NOAA, NASA,
DOE)
}  National laboratories and military research
}  Funding agencies (NSF, NIH) and foundations
}  They strongly structure work incentives and disincentives

… vs. projects
}  ...but most scientific work takes place in projects, teams,
and working groups
}  Varying sizes
}  Lifespans vary, but mostly short (1-5 years)
}  Depend heavily on funding cycles
}  Often cross organizational boundaries
}  Many scientists are involved in several projects at once
}  Overlapping membership
}  Funding is an ongoing concern

Governance: norms & rules (Elinor Ostrom)
}  Constitutional rules
}  Collective choice rules
}  Operational norms and rules

Operational norms and rules
}  Expectations that govern everyday interaction among
project members
}  Largely informal and tacit (unarticulated)
}  May be embedded in organizational routines or tools
}  Usually surface only during crisis or conflict
}  Difficult to change without a forcing factor
}  Tools can embody operational norms — but usually can’t force
changes

Cyberinfrastructure pitfalls
}  Software makes it seem easy to build gateways between
systems and networks…
}  “You just…”
}  … but social, institutional, and security gateways are even
more important
}  Multiple institutional cultures
}  Complex projects with many working groups
}  Multiple security and legal standards can block interchange

Conclusions: some lessons from history
}  Centralized design and control is not the primary path to
working infrastructure
}  Instead, build gateways (couplers)
}  Standards technologies, institutions
}  Must be lightweight, readily understood, easily transferred
across regions and cultures (including disciplinary cultures)
}  International governance of data standardization and
exchange in meteorology was achieved by the 1960s
}  in the face of enormous technical obstacles (communication
channels) and social obstacles (Cold War, decolonization)

Conclusions: some lessons from history
}  The tensions between hierarchy, network, and bazaar
modes of governance will be difficult to resolve
}  Cyberinfrastructure can help, but it can also hinder
}  Social and organizational issues must be addressed along with
technology
}  The EarthCube experiment is enormously important, and
worth doing!

Edwards et al., Knowledge
Infrastructures: Intellectual
Frameworks and Research
Challenges (2013)
knowledgeinfrastructures.org

Governance and cyberinfrastructure in the Earth system sciences

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