Developing a Coherent Cyberinfrastructure from Local Campuses to National Facilities: Challenges and Strategies

Abstract
A fundamental goal of cyberinfrastructure (CI) is the integration of computing hardware, software, and network technology, along with data, information management, and human resources to advance scholarship and research. Such integration creates opportunities for researchers, educators, and learners to share ideas, expertise, tools, and facilities in new and powerful ways that cannot be realized if each of these components is applied independently. Bridging the gap between the reality of CI today and its potential in the immediate future is critical to building a balanced CI ecosystem that can support future scholarship and research. This report summarizes the observations and recommendations from a workshop in July 2008 sponsored by the EDUCAUSE Net@EDU Campus Cyberinfrastructure Working Group (CCI) and the Coalition for Academic Scientific Computation (CASC). The invitational workshop was hosted at the University Place Conference Center on the IUPUI campus in Indianapolis. Over 50 individuals representing a cross-section of faculty, senior campus information technology leaders, national lab directors, and other CI experts attended. The workshop focused on the challenges that must be addressed to build a coherent CI from the local to the national level, and the potential opportunities that would result. Both the organizing committee and the workshop participants hope that some of the ideas, suggestions, and recommendations in this report will take hold and be implemented in the community. The goal is to create a better, more supportive, more usable CI environment in the future to advance both scholarship and research.
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Keywords
cyberinfrastructure, CI, workshop, national
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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 License.
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Working Paper