Science gateways - also called virtual research environments or virtual labs - allow science and engineering communities to access shared data, software, computing services, instruments, and other resources specific to their disciplines. The US Science Gateways Community Institute (SGCI), opened in August 2016, provides free resources, services, experts, and ideas for creating and sustaining science gateways. It offers five areas of services to the science gateway developer and user communities: the Incubator, Extended Developer Support, the Scientific Software Collaborative, Community Engagement and Exchange, and Workforce Development. While all these services are available to US-based communities, the Incubator, the Scientific Software Collaborative and the Community Engagement and Exchange serve also the international communities. SGCI aims at supporting beyond borders on international scale with diverse measures and to form and deepen collaborations with partner organizations and coalitions beneficial and/or related to the science gateways community. Research topics are independent of national borders and researchers spread worldwide can benefit from each other’s research results, software, data and from lessons learned — via online materials and publications or at international events. The gateway community has benefitted from this type of exchange for years and one mission of SGCI is to support the international community. This talk will present related work describing the benefits of international collaborations generally, and specifically as they relate to science gateways. It will go into detail regarding SGCI’s ongoing work on an international scale and SGCI's work planned in the near future to foster collaborations under consideration of challenges such as different timezones and long distances between collaborators.

1. Award Number
ACI-1547611
The Science Gateways
Community Institute:
International Collaboration on
World-Wide Scale
Sandra Gesing
sandra.gesing@nd.edu
2 November 2017
Victoria University of Wellington, ECS,
New Zealand

2. 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

3. University of Notre Dame

4. 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 Stati

5. 5
Data- and compute-
intensive problems
Research Infrastructures
NO geographical
boundaries
Geographical
boundaries

6. Importance of Scientific Software
In 2009 a survey was published with answers from 2000
researchers.
• 91% answered that using scientific software is
important for their own research
• 84% answered that developing scientific software is
important for their own research
• 53.5% answered that they spend more time developing
scientific software than they did 10 years ago
• 38% spend at least one fifth of their time developing
software
J.E. Hannay et al., "How Do Scientists Develop and Use Scientific Software?", Proc. ICSE
Workshop Software Eng. for Computational Science and Eng., pp. 1-8, 2009.

7. State of the Art
7
Increased
complexity of
• research
questions
• hardware
• software
• instruments
• data volume
• data formats
The need for end-
to-end solutions for
accessing data,
software,
computing
services, and
equipment specific
to the needs of a
science or
engineering
discipline

8. Science Gateways
8
Increased
complexity of
• research
questions
• hardware
• software
• instruments
• data volume
• data formats
The need for end-
to-end solutions for
accessing data,
software,
computing
services, and
equipment specific
to the needs of a
science or
engineering
disciplineScience Gateways!

9. 9

10. 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

11. Technologies
• Widely used complete frameworks (Galaxy, HUBzero, Open Science
Framework, Globus 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 20,000 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 users world wide

12. Technologies User Interface
Layer
HPC Facili4es
Services Layer
Workflow
management
Data
management
Storage
Grid and
Cloud
services
Metadata
services
Applica4on
Layer

13. Large Infrastructure Projects

14. Large Infrastructure Projects
• MARVL
• HuNI
• CVL
• ENDOVL
• ASVO
• Industrial Ecology (IE) VL
• Alveo
• VGL
• BCCVL
• VHIRL
• GVL

15. Large Infrastructure Projects

16. Large Infrastructure Projects
16
• 2004 TeraGrid project director Rick Stevens recognized
growth in scientific portal development and proposed the
Science Gateway Program
• Followed up by XSEDE’s Science Gateway Program
All users
Gateways
Login
Gateway
users are
77% of
active
XSEDE
users in
Q4 2016

17. Many Successful Groups/Centers at
Universities
Benefits
• Great visibility for the institution’s
research activities
• Synergy 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
Examples for success stories:
• Center for Research
Computing at the
University of Notre Dame
• HUBzero Team at the
Purdue University
• Science Gateways
Research Center at the
Indiana University
• Science Gateway Group at
TACC (University of Texas,
Austin)

18. Funding Bodies
Funding bodies such as NSF and NIH mention science
gateways direct in solicitations and roadmaps!
https://dibbs17.org/
report/Presentations/
KeynoteQualters.pdf

19. Science Gateways Survey 2014
19
• 29,000-person survey
• 4957 responses from across domains
Respondents’
domains
• 52% from life, physical or
mathematical sciences
• 32% from computer and
information sciences or
engineering
Areas of software
development
!

20. Science Gateways Community Institute -
Conceptualization
20
What services
would be helpful?
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%
• 45% develop data collections
• 44% develop data analysis
tools
• 88% felt Web-based applications
were important to their work

21. Science Gateways Survey 2014
21
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

22. Science Gateways Community Institute
• Funded from 1 Aug 2016 –
31 Jul 2021 by NSF
• 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
help@sciencegateways.org
http://sciencegateways.org/

23. Science Gateways Community Institute
• International
Collaborations
help@sciencegateways.org
http://sciencegateways.org/

24. Incubator Service
24
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

25. Bootcamp at a
Glance
25
• 5 full days
• Knowledge
dissemination
• Interactivity
• Community
formation
• Putting away the
normal daily
routine
• Homework

26. COURSE PLAN
Introductions
Course Outline
and Goals
The “Napkin”
Drawing
Defining Your
Value
Proposition
26
Your Audience(s)
and Stakeholders
Mapping the
landscape
Going beyond
your initial
market
Technology,
Open Source
User Centered
Design
Goal Setting
Budgeting
Cybersecurity
On-Campus
Support
Funding
Models
Marketing &
Outreach
Outreach
Your
Sustainability
Model – Making
Your Case
Impact
Measurement
Case Study
Next Steps
Closing
MONDAY TUESDAY WEDNESDAY THURSDAY FRIDAY

27. Bootcamps
27
• twice per year
• additional ones can be booked (travel expenses
for presenters)
• adapted to feedback
Bootcamp 1 Bootcamp 2

28. Feedback to the Bootcamps
28
Bootcamp 1 Bootcamp 2

29. Feedback to the Bootcamps
29
Bootcamp 1 Bootcamp 2

30. Feedback to the Bootcamps
30
"The Science Gateways Bootcamp
is useful to people involved at any
stage of their science gateway
project, and in any role. Their
experts have you consider all
aspects of sustainability, from
understanding your unique value
proposition and audience, through
to best practices and standards in
software development. They
cultivate a lively, active, hands-on
environment. A great experience
overall.”
Steve Androulakis
Manager — Community Platforms,
NeCTAR.org.au, ANDS.org.au, RDS.org.au
(now at Amazon)
"The SGCI Bootcamp has fundamentally
altered, in a constructive way, my view
toward developing and implementing the
projects on which I work. The work during
the week helped me to generate a new
approach to the gateway on which I'm
working that has much greater potential to
be successful, and I intend to apply the
ideas and concepts from the Bootcamp to
all project phases, from idea to
implementation.”
Christopher Lenhardt
Domain Scientist for Environmental Data Science &
Systems, RENCI Data Observatory
Risk Analytics Discovery Environment (RADE) gateway
https://sciencegateways.org/-/reflections-from-the-inaugural-science-gateways-bootcamp-in-april-2017

31. On-Campus Teams - 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
• …
• A breadth of interesting roles
• Designers, statisticians, librarians, machine learning
experts, usability experts,…
31

32. On-Campus Teams - 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
32

33. Sustainability via On-Campus Teams
33
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

34. Sustainability via On-Campus Teams
34
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
Increase of
quality of
application
and
efficiency of
software
development

35. Sustainability via On-Campus Teams
35
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
Increased
possibility of
research
team to focus
on research

36. 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
36

37. Scientific Software Collaborative
37
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

38. Scientific Software Collaborative
38

39. Gateway Catalog
39

40. Gateway Catalog
40

41. Community Engagement and Exchange
41
Website Activities
• Discussion forums
• Gateway showcase with case
studies
• Monthly webinar series
• Newsletters with1,300
subscribers
• 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

42. Science Gateways Events
• 2006: GCE (Gateway Computing Environment) workshop series started –
successful 10th anniversary in 2015
• since 2009: European IWSG (International Workshop on Science
Gateways)
10th IWSG will take place 13-15 June 2018 in Edinburgh, UK
• since 2015: Australian IWSG-A (International Workshop on Science
Gateways – Australia)
Was two weeks ago in Brisbane, Australia
• 2016: GCE extended to Gateways conference with 160 participants at the
first event
Gateways 2018 will take place 25-27 September in Austin, Texas, USA

43. International Coalition on
Science Gateways
Partners:
Science Gateways Community Institute
(USA)
NeCTAR (Australia)
NESI (New Zealand)
Sci-GaIA (Africa)
Academia Sinica Grid Computing
Center (Taiwan)
Software Sustainability Institute (UK)
VRE4E1C (Europe)
IWSG (Europe)
CANARIE (Canada)
Research Data Canada (Canada)
IEEE Technical Area on Science
Gateways (International)
RDA VRE-IG (International)
The International Coalition on
Science Gateways aims to
provide an international forum for
the science gateways community
to:
• Provide leadership on future directions
for science gateways
• Facilitate awareness and international,
regional and national developments in
science gateways
• Identify and share best practice in the
field
http://www.icsciencegateways.org/

44. International Collaboration
• Improving national competitiveness
• Supporting less developed countries by developing science,
technology and innovation capabilities
• Tackling global challenges such as climate change, health
issues and sustainable energy resources
• Creating good and stable diplomatic relationships (and
indirectly ensuring international security)
• Globalization is not new but more and more evident in
industrial research and the worldwide mobility of researchers
• Smaller countries tend to collaborate internationally more
often than bigger ones
• Publications with international partners are more cited than
publications with one author or a group of authors from one
country. http://www.eurosfaire.prd.fr/7pc/doc/
1266832886_drivers_of_international_cooperation_in_research.pdf

45. Next Steps
• Collaboration, collaboration, collaboration…
• Working groups
• Integration of instruments with research infrastructures
• Sustainable science gateways
• Openly sharing of software and data - repositories
• Advancing searchability of software and data
• Reproducibility
• Processing of data
• Reports/recommendations to RIs and funding bodies on policies

46. Thanks for your attention!
help@sciencegateways.org
http://sciencegateways.org/
46