Use it or lose it: a hybrid model for sustaining e-infrastructures
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The document discusses a hybrid model for sustaining e-infrastructures, focusing on the Vibrant project, which emphasizes community involvement and adaptability. It highlights the need for a shift in perspective on e-infrastructures from static systems to dynamic processes that encourage user contribution and collaboration. The conclusions suggest exploring community support models and the potential application of a Wikipedia-like approach for project sustainability.
Use it or lose it: a hybrid model for sustaining e-infrastructures
- 1. Use it or lose it: A hybrid model for sustaining e-infrastructures A case study from the ViBRANT project Vincent S. Smith Biodiversity Informatics Group | Department of Life Sciences Natural History Museum, London Pro-iBiosphere final conference Meise, Brussels, June 12 2014
- 2. Maintenance Funding application Project starts Project ends Development phase No further funding or gap in funding for development ? The ephemeral lifecycle of a project TDWG lists 682 Biodiversity Information projects
- 3. Project Infrastructure Discovery Individualistic Ephemeral Optional Risk taking Implementation Communal / agreed Persistent Essential Robust & reliable Adapted from Patterson D. 2013, Tempe, Arizona Transition from
- 4. “An infrastructure must be taken as a process instead of a system.” Shift in the way we think of e-infrastructures and information resources Stable/rigid system Dynamic/open process Outsource to and involve the end user community We need to set up the environment that will enable the community contribution Koerten, H. & van den Besselaar P. 2013. Sustainable Taxonomic Infrastructures: System or Process?
- 5. A network of compatible services with no single point of failure So… how did ViBRANT go? Low Medium High Scratchpads Platform for Cybertaxonomy Biowikifarm PWT NPT OBOE RefBank GoldenGATE Xper2 GeoCAT CartoDB ESTABLISHED USER BASE
- 6. For your community to support you you first have to build one Confidence Commitment Longevity Agility Adaptability User monitoring Marketing Visibility Intuitive interface
- 7. Scratchpads Virtual Research Environments 600 communities 7,100 active users Institutional support
- 8. Ambassadors programme Share enthusiasm and vision Usage experience Geographically distributed and cross-domain Crowdsourcing the support activities
- 9. Crowdsourcing the support activities On-line 3 online courses in 2013, 5 in 2014 Global reach Low cost Participants from all continents Training
- 10. Project management – Issues queue Bug reports Feature requests Support queries Redmine open source project management system > 1,200 issues / year Maximising support efficiency 61% processed within a day1 81% processed within a week1 1 Brake I. et al. 2011. Zookeys 150 doi:10.3897/zookeys.150.2191
- 11. Wiki based documentation site Documentation Maximising support efficiency > 115,000 views ca. 100 articles
- 12. 1 Embracing a commons philosophy Adopt CC0/CC-BY licences for all support and outreach material Maximising support efficiency 2 Improve cost/benefit ratio Adopt open-source support software 3 Keep open communication channels Sustain intuitive communication tools 4 Study your end-user base Perform sociological studies
- 13. Could a community support model on its own be the solution? Could any our projects follow the Wikipedia business paradigm? Conclusions But… Hybrid models will need to be applied Commons + No (not yet)…