SGCI - Science Gateways - Technology-Enhanced Research Under Consideration of Usability and Sustainability

Award Number
ACI-1547611
Sandra Gesing
Center for Research Computing, University of Notre Dame
sandra.gesing@nd.edu
University of Hawai’i
January 9, 2018
Science Gateways - Technology-Enhanced
Research Under Consideration of Usability
and Sustainability

2
• In the middle of nowhere of northern Indiana
(1.5 h from Chicago)
• 4 undergraduate colleges
• ~35 research institutes and centers
• ~12,000 students
University of Notre Dame

Center for Research Computing
• Software development and profiling
• Cyberinfrastructure/science gateway development
• Computational Scientist support
• Collaborative research/
grant development
• System administration/
prototype architectures
• Computational resources:
25,000 cores+
• Storage resources: 3 PB
• National resources (e.g., XSEDE)
• ~40 researchers,
research programmers,
HPC specialists
CRC and OIT building
http://crc.nd.edu CRC HPC Center (old Union Station)

Technology-Enhanced Research
5
•  Increased complexity of
•  today’s research questions
•  hardware and software
•  skills required
•  Greater need for openness
and reproducibility
•  Science increasingly driving
policy questions
•  Opportunity to integrate
research with teaching
•  Better workforce preparation
We need end-to-end
solutions that provide
broad access to
advanced resources
and
allow all to tackle
today’s challenging
science questions
è Science
Gateways

6
Data and compute-
intensive problems
High-speed networks
Users generally not
IT specialists
Tools and workflow
engines
Web-based
agile frameworks Distributed data and
computing infrastructures

7
Data and compute-
intensive problems
High-speed networksTools and workflow
engines
Web-based
Users generally not
IT specialists
Need for science gateways!

8
Data and compute-
intensive problems
High-speed networksTools and workflow
engines
Web-based
Users generally not
IT specialists

10
It’s a
Science
Gateway
It’s a
Research
Portal
It’s a
Collaboratory
It’s a
Cyber-
infrastructure
It’s
a Virtual
Research
Environment
It’s a
Virtual
Lab

Gateway users are 77% of active XSEDE
users in Q4 2016
11
This is largely due to the CIPRES and I-TASSER gateways, but others are gaining
All users
Gateways
XSEDE users
Login

Science Gateways Survey 2014
29
What services
would be helpful?•  sent out to 29,000 persons
•  4,957 responses from
across domains
•  52% from life, physical or
mathematical sciences
•  32% from computer and
information sciences or
engineering
•  45% develop data collections
•  44% develop data analysis
tools
Proposed Service % Interest
Evaluation, impact analysis, website analytics 72%
Adapting technologies 67%
Web/visual/graphic design 67%
Choosing technologies 66%
Usability Services 66%
Visualization 65%
Developing open-source software 64%
Support for education 64%
Community engagement mechanisms 62%
Keeping your project running 62%
Legal perspectives 61%
Managing data 60%
Computational resources 59%
Mobile technology 59%
Database structure, optimization, and query
expertise
59%
Data mining and analysis 58%
Cybersecurity consultation 57%
Website construction 57%
Software engineering process consultation 53%
Source code review and/or audit 51%
High-bandwidth networks 45%
Scientific instruments or data streams 44%
Management aspects of a project 38%

Science Gateways Survey 2014
30
34% 36%
20%
17%
31%
26%
42%
16%
30%
18%
45% 44%
14% 15%
0%
5%
10%
15%
20%
25%
30%
35%
40%
45%
50%
Usability
Consultant
Graphic
Designer
Community
Liaison/
Evangelist
Project
Manager
Professional
Software
Developer
Security
Expert
Quality
Assurance
and Testing
Expert
Wished we had this
Yes, we had this
Well-designed gateways require a variety of
expertise

Technologies
•  Widely used complete frameworks (Galaxy, HUBzero, Open Science
Framework, Globus Data Portal etc.)
•  RESTful APIs and support of multiple programming languages in widely
used frameworks (Apache Airavata, the Agave platform, etc.)
•  Reused interface implementations such as the one of CIPRES with its
RESTful API (CIPRES has served more than 25,000 users to date)
•  Science gateways as a service with provision of hardware in the
background such as SciGap (Science Gateway Platform as a Service)
Lessons learned: approaches should be technology agnostic, using
APIs and standard web technologies OR deliver a complete solution
Community Engagement is key
HUBzero instances world wide

Technologies
Re-inven'ng is not always necessary..

Technologies
... and users should get more features easily...

Technologies
... but the model should ﬁt to the demands of the
community

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Reproducibility
Carole Goble on Reproducibility (2016)

Re-Usability
• Sharing of knowledge and data
• Re-Using of „recipes“ and workﬂows
• Re-Usability of soBware

“The key to produc/vity is
reusability. The easiest way to
produce code is obviously to
have it already!"
(John R. Bourne in “Object-oriented
Engineering: Building Engineering
Systems Using Smalltalk-80”, 1992)

37
“After all, usability really just means that making sure that
something works well: that a person … can use the thing -
whether it's a Web site, a fighter jet, or a revolving door - for
its intended purpose without getting hopelessly frustrated.”
(Steve Krug in “Don't make me think!: A Common Sense
Approach to Web Usability”, 2005)
Usability

38
Sustainable software is software which is:
•  Easy to evolve and maintain
•  Fulfils its intent over time
•  Survives uncertainty
•  Supports relevant concerns (Political, Economic, Social,
Technical, Legal, Environmental)
(Patricia Lago at WSSSPE4)
Software Sustainability

Science Gateways Community Institute
39
•  Diverse expertise on
demand
•  Longer term support
engagements
•  Software and visibility
for gateways
•  Information exchange in
a community
environment
•  Student opportunities
and more stable
career paths

Incubator Service
40
Technology
Planning
•  Choosing technologies
•  Cybersecurity
•  Software engineering
•  Interfaces to compute and
data
•  Business model development
•  Financial planning
•  Project management
•  Software licensing
•  Staff and sustainability
planning
Business Planning
Specialized Expertise
Security
• Center for Trustworthy Scientific
Cyberinfrastructure
Sustainability
• Nancy Maron, creator of the ITHAKA
S+R course on Sustaining Digital
Resources
Evaluation & Impact Measurement
• Ann Zimmerman Consulting
Campus Resource Development
Client Interaction
Planning
•  Usability studies
•  Web/visual/graphic design
•  Impact measurement
•  Community engagement
•  Support for education
Common Experiences
•  Training sessions
•  Group interactions
Continuing Engagement
•  Customized structure, content, goals
•  Mentoring
•  Pay It Forward
A Framework for Decision Making
Network / Cohort Formation
An Ongoing
Dispassionate
Ear

Bootcamp at a
Glance
41
•  5 full days
•  Knowledge
dissemination
•  Interactivity
•  Community
formation
•  Putting away the
normal daily
routine
•  Homework

Incubator Bootcamp – Magic Moments
42
The lightbulb effect, who I can unify
community request for support to create
a funding request to campus leadership.
I'm planning to organize the gateway
community on our campus, including
humanities, libraries, engineering and
science and create a strategic budget
request to our campus leadership.
For me, it was the realization of our team
after the second day that we weren't in a
black box of "where do we go from here",
but could see a path to making our
gateway sustainable in the next 5 years
(50% nsf funding) and 10 years (0% nsf
funding).
I was really impressed by the common
challenges faced by such diverse projects.
They were diverse in their maturity, goals,
and disciplinary contexts and yet we all
could learn from each other by addressing
the shared challenges.

Extended Developer Support
43
Focus
• Front-end development
• Gateways using all types of CI
• Both sides give 2-month to 1-
year commitment
• Well-defined engagements with
work plans
• Technology agnostic Mission
• Bring new gateways into
existence
• Adapt existing gateways to new
resources and technologies
• Provide “burst” support to help
gateways with smaller issues
Benefits
• Reinforce Incubator lessons
• Develop deep understanding of
community needs that feed into
other Institute areas
• Capture and document support
efforts for scalability
• Hands-on opportunities for
student participants
Data
Instruments
Analysis Tools
Workflows
Sensor
s
Computation
Collaboration
Education
Airavata
AGAVE
And more…
Galaxy
HUBzero
Jupyter

Scientific Software Collaborative
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End-to-End
Solutions
•  Serve a diverse set of scientific
domains
•  Out-of-the-box gateway solution that
can be customized
•  Based on Docker – executable
images that are the skeleton for a
secure and functioning gateway
•  Portable and reproducible
•  Community-contributed •  API integration
•  Variety of services
•  Information
•  Security
•  Execution
•  Data
•  Event
•  Accounting
•  Hosting opportunity
“Use-what-you-
need”
Gateway Discovery
•  Open registry
•  Promotes use of existing science
gateways
•  Community-contributed
•  Admin approval
•  Automated cleanup
Software Integration &
Community Contribution
•  Docking mechanisms for community-
contributed software, including NSF
SI2
•  Incorporate community standards
Engage Other Areas of
Institute
•  Support projects leverage
Collaborative components
•  Framework evolves as a result of
gateway engagements
•  Community outreach
Software
Marketplace
for Science
Gateways

Scientific Software Collaborative
45

Community Engagement and Exchange
53
Website Activities
•  Discussion forums
•  Gateway showcase with case
studies
•  Symposium series
•  News: media coverage,
related happenings, academic
publications, job openings,
events calendar
•  Curated blog with guest
authors,
•  Professional development:
synchronous and
asynchronous training
•  Capture client/user feedback
on web and through other
areas
•  Tutorials and workshops
•  Paper presentations
•  Invited keynotes and panels
•  Interactive elements: Open
Space, poster session
•  Travel support for students and
campus IT staff
Builds on 10 years of
experience
with GCE and IWSG series
Annual Conference
Campus Gateway
Groups
•  Task force builds campus-based
expertise
•  Channel for scaling institute services
Outreach to Complementary
NSF Initiatives
•  NSF SI2 projects
•  Large NSF projects
•  Science and Technology Centers
•  Engineering Research Centers
•  MolSSI software institute collaboration

Conferences and Workshops
•  2006: GCE (Gateway Computing Environment) workshop series started –
successful 10th anniversary in 2015
•  2009: IWSG (International Workshop on Science Gateways) workshop
series started
•  since 2013: GCE partners with IWSG on yearly special issue
10th IWSG will take place 13-15 June in Edinburgh, Scotland (Submissions
open!)
•  since 2015: GCE and IWSG partnering with Australian IWSG-A
(International Workshop on Science Gateways – Australia) on yearly
special issue
3rd IWSG-A took place 16-17 October in Brisbane, Australia
•  2016: GCE extended to Gateways conference with 140 participants at the
first event
Gateways 2018 will take place September 25-27 in Austin, Texas ,USA

Workforce Development
55
Providing Financial Support
•  Enabling students learning gateway
skills
•  Including internship experiences
Integrating Gateways into Course
Content
•  Providing broader access to high-end
resources
Promoting Gateway-
Related Career Paths
•  Campus
opportunities
•  Job boards
Partners
National Organization for the Professional
Advancement of Black Chemists and
Chemical Engineers (NOBCChE)
Association of Computer/ Information
Sciences and Engineering Departments at
Minority Institutions (ADMI)
Molecular
Science Software
Institute
Google Summer of Code
(GSoC)
Establishing Center for
Training and Education at
ECSU
•  Vigorous schedule of on-site and virtual
training
•  Development of training and course
curricula about science gateways
technologies
SGCI Institute Areas
4
Focal
Areas
•  Student-
related
conference
programs

Opportunities
56
•  Get advice (sustainability, usability, cybersecurity, other) on your
existing gateway
•  Work with SGCI to build a gateway for you
•  Find a working gateway or gateway development software in our
catalog
•  Learn how to set up a gateway group on your campus
•  Keep up to date on gateway developments
•  webinar series, gateways in the news, google scholar feed, case
studies, annual conference, blog posts
•  Enroll a student in an internship program to learn gateway development
•  Partner with SGCI on your own projects, technologies and events

YOU ARE NOT ALONE!
57
https://sciencegateways.org/
https://sciencegateways.org/engage/bootcamp

Galaxy – Hands-On
61
•  Please create a user at https://usegalaxy.org/
•  Upload the three files fastaDNAexample.fasta,
fastaExample.fasta and lambda-virus.fa from goo.gl/TnJT6T
to Galaxy
•  Look at the history and its details

Galaxy – Hands-On
62
•  Please create a user at https://usegalaxy.org/
•  Upload the three files fastaDNAexample.fasta,
fastaExample.fasta and lambda-virus.fa from goo.gl/TnJT6T
to Galaxy
•  Look at the history and its details

Galaxy – Hands-On
63
•  Convert lambda-virus.fa to FASTQ. You may need more
than one tool. Choose the parameters (you don't have a
quality column).

Galaxy – Hands-On
64
•  Create a workflow from the steps you needed for converting
the files.
•  Run the same workflow with fastaDNAexample.fasta. View
the details of the last job.
•  Select all lines from fastaExample.fasta, which start with >
as first character. Which regular expression do you have to
use?
•  Import the 1000 Genome library in your history. What is the
content of the first line of one of the files?

HUBzero Origins
65
https://nanohub.org/

HUBzero Origins
66
•  370+ Simulation Tools
•  4700+ Other Resources
•  3000+ Online Presentations
•  540+ Teaching Materials
•  35,000+ Students Reached

HUBzero Today
67
•  Open source platform
•  Foundation
•  Development
•  Hosting services
•  60+ Hubs
•  1.5 million visitors worldwide
hubzero.org

HUBzero Offers
68
•  Content management
•  Collaboration
•  Publication & Citation
•  Project management
•  Hub administration
•  Best practices
•  Tools development platform and workspace
•  Tools scalable execution (OpenVZ)
•  Distributed workflow management
•  Geosearch
•  Courses
•  Store
•  Help & supportTools
Online Resources
Interactive
Collaboration
CMSPublishing

HUBzero Gateways
69
CatalyzeCare
https://catalyzecare.org
An online platform dedicated to the
improvement of healthcare services
by applying engineering principles in
all aspects of service delivery.
PURR
https://purr.purdue.edu
A research collaboration and data
management solution for Purdue
University researchers and their
collaborators.
DiaGrid
https://diagrid.org
A scientific computing gateway for
instant access to research tools and
a distributed network of HPC, HTC
and data resources.
nanoHUB
https://nanohub.org
The largest online nanotechnology
facility, hosting online simulation
tools and resources for use in
education and research.
CDMhub
https://cdmhub.org
Increase the number and use of
simulation tools through education
and evaluation of existing and
emerging simulation tools.
NCIPhub
https://nciphub.org
Community research and
collaboration in cancer research and
informatics for sharing resources,
hosting online communities, and
collaboration.

HUBzero – NCIPHub example
70
•  National Cancer Informatics Program (NCIP)
•  Collaboratory for cancer research

71

72

73

YOU ARE NOT ALONE!
75

Award Number
ACI-1547611
Sandra Gesing
Center for Research Computing, University of Notre Dame
sandra.gesing@nd.edu
University of Hawai’i
January 10, 2018
Science Gateways - Technology-Enhanced
Research Under Consideration of Usability
and Sustainability – Part II

Technology-Enhanced Research
2
•  Increased complexity of
•  today’s research questions
•  hardware and software
•  skills required
•  Greater need for openness
and reproducibility
•  Science increasingly driving
policy questions
•  Opportunity to integrate
research with teaching
•  Better workforce preparation
We need end-to-end
solutions that provide
broad access to
advanced resources
and
allow all to tackle
today’s challenging
science questions
è Science
Gateways

3
“After all, usability really just means that making sure that
something works well: that a person … can use the thing -
whether it's a Web site, a fighter jet, or a revolving door - for
its intended purpose without getting hopelessly frustrated.”
(Steve Krug in “Don't make me think!: A Common Sense
Approach to Web Usability”, 2005)
Usability

In the past…
Interface design was system-centric
Users had to adapt to the technology
Focus was on training users
Design was concerned with:
What can we build with such-and-such a
platform?
How efficient is the code? How can resources be
optimized?
4
Most users don’t care about these unless they impact
usability and the user experience

System-Centered Design
5
https://xkcd.com/619/
View of the user?
The user is just like me!

For Usable Software
Need to shift the focus from system-centered design
to user-centered design
6

Corollary: if you think you know thy
users, think again!
7
KnowThy Users!
And you are not thy users…
First Rule of User-Centered Design

Usability
Learnability: How easy is it for users to accomplish basic tasks the
first time they encounter the design?
Efficiency: Once users have learned the design, how quickly can
they perform tasks?
Memorability:When users return to the design after a period of
not using it, how easily can they re-establish proficiency?
Errors: How many errors do users make, how severe are these
errors, and how easily can they recover from the errors?
Satisfaction: How pleasant is it to use the design?
8

9
User-Centered Design
Why?
Because usability and user
experience are predictors
of technology adoption.

10
Usability Test
Spend one hour a week on a usability
test and the increase of usability is
overproportional!

11
Usability Test
Go to http://sciencegateways.org/
Find:
•  How can you partner with us?
•  How can you apply for developer services?
•  How can you sign up for the email list?

Lifecycle of a Science Gateway
12

13
Sustainable software is software which is:
•  Easy to evolve and maintain
•  Fulfils its intent over time
•  Survives uncertainty
•  Supports relevant concerns (Political, Economic, Social,
Technical, Legal, Environmental)
(Patricia Lago at WSSSPE4)
Software Sustainability

What is a Napkin Drawing to You?
•Technical design of idea
•How will it work?
•Is it possible?
14

What is a Napkin Drawing to Your
Customer?
•Effectively communicate through verbal
and visual communication
•What it is
•What it does
•NOT how it works
•Articulate the components of your idea
that make it distinctively different than
what already exists
•Avoid technical jargon
15

Napkin Drawing Example - eBird
16
Birder Researcher

Verbal Communication
17
“I have , it does for customer.”
Allow the other person to lead the
conversation and ask questions.
Create Intrigue
converseexplanation understanding

Methods for Sharing
+ Go to market
+ Milestones
+ Competitors
+ Financials
20 Minute Pitch
•  Product
•  Differentiator
2 Sentence Intro 2 Minute Pitch
Story
+ Customer Problem
+ Market Size/ Landscape
•  Customer Problem
•  Market Size/ Landscape

Who CARES About Your Science
Gateway?
No, really!
Who are the people who benefit
most from your work?

YOUR AUDIENCE AND
KEY STAKEHOLDERS
•  Direct beneficiaries
•  Indirect beneficiaries
Photo credit Alper Çuğun via Flickr.

If you were at risk to disappear…
• Would they fight to keep you?
• If not, how to get there?
• (Are there other alternatives out there
that they prefer?)

THE ENVIRONMENT
• What other initiatives may
be serving a similar
purpose?
• How do you compare?
• More important, how do
your beneficiaries think you
compare?
Photo credit: Stiller Beobachter via Flickr.

YOUR VALUE TO YOUR USERS
•  VALUE PROPOSITION
•  What is so valuable that
people will advocate for it?
people will… pay for it?
people will donate their time
and effort to making it a
success?
Photo credit: Hans Splinter. Chicken Transport. Via Flickr

GOALS
1. Define primary and secondary audience segments for
your Gateway
2. Identify key stakeholders
3. What does each segment value (or need) from you?
4. Pinpoint the open questions that need further research
5. Begin to see connection between audience data and
strategies for outreach & impact
25

Strong Value
Proposition
More users
More volunteers
→ Greater impact
→ Strong reputation
→ → Grants
→ → In-kind support
→ → Rev generation
•  Meet needs
•  Something NEW?
•  MORE ENJOYABLE?
•  BETTER? CHEAPER? FASTER?
ROLE OF AUDIENCE IN SUSTAINABILITY

How well do you know your
audience?

TYPES OF INFORMATION
• Usage stats
number of people, visits, downloads
• Demographic profile
who they are, by profession, age, background, interest
• Behavioral
what they do on the site, how do they use the service
• Attitudes and motivations
what value they find in the site/service; why they use it

•  Your audience may be several audiences!
•  Different subgroups may
•  want different services
•  have different mission value for your library/institution
•  be reachable through different tactics
•  There may be different ways to “segment” your audience
depending on the purposes (user needs, business model,
etc…)
FIRST STEP – WHO ARE THEY?

BE SPECIFIC!
Too general
•  Researchers
Are there differences
between…
•  Researchers in certain
disciplines?
•  Researchers at certain
levels of seniority?
•  At institutions of all sizes?
•  Is it also useful for high
school instructors? Which
ones? At which schools?

WHY DO THESE DISTINCTIONS MATTER?
Researchers Breaking it down
•  Certain disciplines might
have more urgent/intensive
need
•  Junior (untenured) faculty
might engage in this activity
more (or less).
•  Those at research intensive
universities might not need
the same support as those
in liberal arts colleges
•  What else?

SURE! Projects compete for...
Users’ time and attention
Their perception of relative value is more important than “reality”!
Scarce resources
For not-for-profits, competition takes on an ethical dimension – is your project
making the best possible use of philanthropic funding or institutional resources?
33

Who is your competition?
1.  Direct competitors: Alternatives to your project that
may include projects similar to your own, aimed at
audiences quite similar to yours
2.  Indirect competitors: Projects that offer overlapping
benefits to similar audiences. (substitutes)
3.  Or … choosing not to act
34

Market Landscape Map
35
•  Demonstrate where it fits in the
existing landscape
•  Illustrate the relationships between
the existing solutions
•  Identify the key forces that drive the
marketplace
•  Find your product market fit
X

GENERATING FUNDS – Do we have to?
Depends on what direct costs you must cover
today and in the future.
May provide some needed flexibility to
invest in new programs.
Can be a buffer when other
sources of funding are less certain

37
Resources Needed
Project Management
IT Development
Content Creation
Event Planning
Outreach and Promotion
Legal Guidance
Financial Guidance
Office/Classroom Space

38
Resources Needed
Project Management
IT Development
Content Creation
Event Planning
Legal Guidance
Financial Guidance
From…?
Direct
Payment
In-kind
support
Volunteer
Labor
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X

39
Resources Needed
Project Management
IT Development
Content Creation
Event Planning
Legal Guidance
Financial Guidance
From…?
Direct
Payment
In-kind
support
Volunteer
Labor
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
$
Strategy to
generate
revenue
Focus on
host,
partners,
stakeholders
Drive
audience,
incentivize
volunteers

41
Resources Needed
Project Management
IT Development
Content Creation
Event Planning
Legal Guidance
Financial Guidance

42
Resources Needed
Project Management
IT Development
Content Creation
Event Planning
Legal Guidance
Financial Guidance
From…?
Direct
Payment
In-kind
support
Volunteer
Labor
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X

43
Resources Needed
Project Management
IT Development
Content Creation
Event Planning
Legal Guidance
Financial Guidance
From…?
Direct
Payment
In-kind
support
Volunteer
Labor
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
$
Strategy to
generate
revenue
Focus on
host,
partners,
stakeholders
Drive
audience,
incentivize
volunteers

44
Which sources of value might you be able to
leverage?
Value Assessment Framework
Content?
Tools and Services?
Audience?
Mission?

Bring value as you fulfill a need
Communicate and connect with your audience
Deliver a service that people can benefit from
Exchange ideas
Engage with your target audience
Build lasting relationships and followers
45

The Four Ps of Marketing
Traditionally, there are four marketing mix variables
that are associated with a product that have been
considered when making decisions regarding
marketing activities.
46

Product
The entire experience including design, usability,
packaging, quality, options.
“Products” by Nick Webb is licensed under CC BY 2.0
47

Price
Not just the list price, but all the factors associated
with a product.
“Money” by TaxCredits.net is licensed under CC BY 2.0
48

Promotion
Any and all efforts to publicize a product and make
the consumer aware of its existence.
“Wienermobile!” by Jerry Ferguson is licensed under CC BY 2.0
49

Place
All distribution and location aspects of a product.
Where the product is placed to get it to the
audience.
Photo credit: Joanna Mainowska
Location: Sibiu, RO
http://freestocks.org/photo/blue-tea-cupboard/
50

How will people know that you exist?
51
WE HAVE AN
AWESOME
GATEWAY!

nanoHUB.org
●  A place for computational nanotechnology
research, education, and collaboration
●  Website hosts a collection of simulation tools for
nanoscale phenomena that run in the cloud and
are accessible through a web browser
●  Also provides online presentations, nanoHUB-U
short courses, animations, teaching materials,
etc.
52

nanoHUB.org
●  The goal is to offer resources that help users
learn about their simulation tools and about
nanotechnology in general.
●  Their website offers researchers a venue to
explore, collaborate, and publish content via
workspaces, user groups, and projects.
53

nanoHUB.org
In their mission, nanoHUB states that “our vision is
to grow a diverse community who uses an
increasingly rich collection of nanotechnology
research and educational resources.”
How do they tackle the monstrous task of growing
their community and reaching their audiences?
54

How nanoHUB.org reaches their
audience
1) They look for relevant events and conferences
where more than one nanoHUB user will be
attending, and for which the conference
sessions match well with nanoHUB resources.
○  Make a presentation (talk or poster) tailor-made for
each conference/event
○  Offer a tutorial, workshop, short course
○  Have a table at resource expos/exhibit halls
55

audience
Events are selected based on the audiences that nanoHUB is
trying to target. They ask themselves, is this audience:
•  an engineering education audience?
•  a materials science audience?
•  a photonics audience?
•  a chemistry audience?
•  a K-12 education audience?
•  a nanotechnology technician preparation audience?
•  etc….
Each audience would use nanoHUB in a different way, so
materials must be prepared with that in mind.
56

audience
As nanoHUB thinks about the audience they’ll be
presenting to, they ask themselves questions about
the audience that will help make decisions on what to
present:
●  do they use simulations?
●  do they use simulations in research?
●  do they make their own simulation tools?
●  do they teach?
●  do they teach with simulations?
●  etc...
57

Your first task will be to raise awareness
of your gateway. Ask yourself...
1) What topics and sources of information are most
important to them?
2) What events matter to them?
3) What problems can I help them solve?
4) What jobs can I help them complete?
5) What makes you different from others and
special to your audience?
6) What are the main topics, categories, or
messages that support your gateway?
58

Topics
Make topics broad enough that running out of
content will be impossible.
Educational?
Statistical?
Technical?
Procedural?
Informational?
All of the above?
59

nanoHUB.org Content Strategy
nanoHUB is most active on Facebook and
Twitter, but they also maintain a Pinterest
account and send out monthly newsletters.
nanoHUB’s marketing goal is to drive people to
their website, so most of the posts they make are
about the resources and tools that they have
available.

60

nanoHUB.org Content Strategy
The team at nanoHUB created a chart to decide how many
times a week to talk about each subject, and created a
schedule for posts to be made to each of the social media
outlets.
Each of the posts ties back to their initial marketing goal,
which is to drive people to their website.

61

Twitter
Each week, nanoHUB tweets four times about the simulation tools that
are available on their website for a grand total of 35 tweets per week.
The team generated a document that outlines the different ways to
write about each of the tools. This way, each one tool has four or five
different ways of explaining the same thing.
Tip from nanoHUB: It’s ok to repeat tweets! Things can get lost on
news feeds pretty quickly.
62

Be Responsive
Make an effort to respond to each and every
comment and message you receive and try to view
every interaction as an opportunity to learn more
about your audience.
Keep in mind that the community you grow in the
beginning stages are often the most supportive
advocates of your service. They can help improve
your work and can be your biggest enthusiasts.
64

Find your niche
Expand your following and community by finding
relevant/related Facebook and LinkedIn groups,
Twitter chats, Google+ Communities, etc. and
participate in them. Getting involved in focused
groups related to your niche can provide incredible
insight into what’s important to your audience and
replaces the real-life version of going to
conferences, joining groups on campus, or being
on an email list.
65

Ask for Feedback
Consider creating posts on occasion that ask your
audience what they are interested in.
●  What are their top problems?
●  What are the products and features they wish
they had access to?
66

Be Original and Make Content
Spreadable
Think peanut butter and jelly sandwich spreadable. If
topics are varied and interesting, you will reach more
people and grow your community significantly through
shares, retweets, comments on Quora or Reddit.
“40+116 PB&J” is licensed under CC BY 2.0
67

Sustainability via On-Campus Teams
•  Great visibility for the institution’s research
activities
•  Synergy effects between projects
•  Shared resources, costs and expertise across
departments
•  Lower learning curves
•  Expertise that is otherwise difficult for individual
projects to obtain
•  Ability to retain top-quality research computing
support by providing interesting projects
68

Opportunities
•  A breadth of interesting topics in the science
gateway creation process
•  Novel frameworks and web applications
•  Inter- and multidisciplinary work
•  Contributing to grand challenges, e.g., Malaria
eradication
•  HPC usage…
•  A breadth of interesting roles
•  HPC programmers, designers, statisticians, librarians,
machine learning experts, usability experts,…
69

Challenges
•  Some topics and roles are
only needed for part of the
project
⇒ Not fully funded positions
via one project
⇒ For diverse expertise,
several different people
are needed
70

Your Campus
71
Is your campus seeing an increasing number of
research projects that include web-based
applications using HPC? Does each group have to
hire developers independently?
This can be time consuming and inefficient, but
there is a solution.

YOU ARE NOT ALONE!
72
Even ants wish
they had an extra
pair of hands
when developing
science gateways!
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Is your campus seeing an increasing number of research projects that
include web-based applications? Does each group have to hire developers
independently? This can be time consuming and inefficient.
You are not alone.
Contact us to request a free consultation, webi-
nar, or on-campus visit to start your path toward
sustainable gateway development.
Addressing Software
Sustainability on
Your Campus
THEREISASOLUTION
Synergy between projects
http://sciencegateways.org/campusgroups
help@sciencegateways.org
We can provide supplemental expertise
where you don’t have it.
We can provide support for your journey to
creating a campus-based group.
We can provide ongoing advice based on
campuses who have successfully created
their own groups.
Creating a central pool of expertise on your
campus offers many benefits including:
NOWISTHERIGHTTIME!
INTERESTED?CONTACTUS!
Science gateways are online, end-to-end solutions that
provide broad access to advanced resources. They provide
a community space for science and engineering research
and education, allowing all to tackle today's challenging
science questions.
Gateways are an increasingly common component of
funded activities by many agencies. Individual PIs find it
challenging to recruit and sustain teams that offer the
diversity of expertise necessary for developing gateways.
HOWTOSTART?

73
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
100%
Typical
Research
Team
Extended
Research
Team
Shared On-
Campus
Team
Q&A Expert
Security Expert
Usability Expert
Graphic Designer
Professional Software
Developer
Postdoc
PhD Student
Potential salary cost distribution

74
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
100%
Typical
Research
Team
Extended
Research
Team
Shared On-
Campus
Team
Q&A Expert
Security Expert
Usability Expert
Graphic Designer
Developer
Postdoc
PhD Student
Increased
possibility of
research
team to focus
on research

75
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
100%
Typical
Research
Team
Extended
Research
Team
Shared On-
Campus
Team
Q&A Expert
Security Expert
Usability Expert
Graphic Designer
Developer
Postdoc
PhD Student
Increase of
quality of
application
and
efficiency of
software
development

Success Stories
Some universities have successful centers/groups
with centralized services for science gateways
•  Center for Research Computing at University of
Notre Dame
•  HUBzero® Team at Purdue University
•  Science Gateways Research Center at Indiana
University
•  Science Gateway Group at TACC at the
University of Texas, Austin
•  …
76

ND CRC in 2006-2008
•  Effort with 7 FTEs centrally funded
•  HTC and HPC Computing and basic user support
•  One centrally funded cluster plus multiple faculty funded clusters in
various cabinets on campus
•  Around 300 active users
•  80% centrally funded hardware
•  No other kinds of research computing services
•  Underserved social sciences and humanities for their need
on science gateways
•  ~1000 faculty, ~12000 students
77

ND CRC Mission
CRC engages in computational science, fosters
multidisciplinary research and provides advanced
computational tools and services. The CRC works
to facilitate discoveries across science,
engineering, the arts and humanities, social
sciences, business and other disciplines.
78

ND CRC Vision
To become an internationally recognized
multidisciplinary research computing center based
upon our reputation for facilitating and accelerating
discovery through effective and novel applications
of cyberinfrastructure.
79

ND CRC Director’s thoughts on Vision
•  “Nice vision, but how we get there?”
•  “What should we do first?”
•  “Users should tell us what they need…”
•  “HPC works fine, so let’s focus on CI Development…”
•  “We need portals and other collaborative environments”
•  “We need good user support, and good, straight
resource usage policies”
•  “We need CI and HPC teams working together”
•  “How do we fund all these with very limited resources?”
•  “What is available out there?
•  And so on…
80

Implementation by Jarek Nabrzyski
Take the risk and hire people first
è train people
è generate / bring projects
è assign people to projects and focus on getting
more projects and more people -> etc...
è if not successful then exit, i.e. quit J
Fortunately, we had many projects, mostly science
gateway projects of various kinds and difficulty.
81

ND CRC in 2017
•  45 FTEs with 70% of the staff salaries supported through
grants and services
•  HTC and HPC Computing and user support
•  26,000 cores
•  1,800 active users
•  10 HPC engineers and user support staff
•  30% of compute nodes are centrally funded
•  Cyberinfrastructure development
•  ~15-20 CI projects each year with ~35 faculty from various
departments including social sciences and humanities
•  supported by ~15 research programmers, ~8 computational
scientists, some FTE fractions of HPC engineers, and a few (7) grad
students and undergraduate interns (4-6)
•  ~1000 faculty, ~12000 students
82

Lessons Learned by the Four Teams
•  You need an evangelist to build/sustain teams
•  You are going to have staff turnover
•  Plug into your talent reservoir
•  Put effort into your onboarding process
•  Get people contributing to your software and projects
as quickly as possible
•  Keep alumni involved
•  Developer mailing lists for example
•  Potentially hire as consultants
•  Use internal and external resources for creating/
maintaining science gateways
83

Funding Mechanisms – External Resources
Now is the right time – Get support from SGCI via
diverse services!
84

Funding Mechanisms – External Resources
•  Get support from SGCI via diverse services
•  Contractors from mature science gateway
frameworks
⇒ Means to create and/or maintain science
gateway(s) successfully while working on
building up internal resources
85

Funding Mechanisms – Internal Resources
•  Funding via involvement of some person months
in grants
•  Funding on some hard money from universities
•  Funding via re-charge
•  Funding via NSF for building facilitators/
cyberpractitioner career-paths (under
development - models like full funding the first
year and increasing responsibility on the side of
universities)
86

Using Existing Free On-Campus
Resources
•  Do you have people such as “digital librarians”?
They are generally not only serving humanities
and have great knowledge about data
preservation, data lifecycle, programming skills, ..
•  Do you have data scientists?
They probably know about machine learning,
meta-data, ontologies, statistics …
•  Do you have an HPC center?
They know how to access HPC resources, VMs,
containerization, distributed data management …
87

•  Deans?
•  Department chairs?
•  HPC colleagues?
•  Web developers?
•  Gateway group?
88
Identify key contacts and evangelists on
your campus

Sharing resources
•  Share human resources (librarians, data
scientists, web developers, HPC specialists,…)?
•  Share free resources such as office space?
•  Which departments?
•  Possibility between universities?
•  Presentations at events (new faculty events,
meetings within faculty, meetings between
departments, …)?
89

YOU ARE NOT ALONE!
90

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