Ref. Ares(2013)2950606 - 30/08/2013 Accelerating Transition to Virtual Research Organisation in Social Science (AVROSS) Deliverable M4 Final Report title & no. Deliverable Final report, full draft, v2-2.doc Version: Date: 27.10.2007 Contract: A study on requirements and options for accelerating the transition from traditional research to virtual research organisations through e-Infrastructure EU Service Contract No. 30-CE-0066163/00-39 Issued by: Information Society and Media Directorate General, Commission of the European Communities Consortium: School of Business, University of Applied Sciences Northwestern Switzerland (FHNW), Olten, Switzerland (lead contractor) empirica GmbH, Bonn, Germany National Centre for e-Social Science (NCeSS), Manchester, UK National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago (NORC), Chicago, USA Coordination: Franz Barjak School of Business University of Applied Sciences Northwestern Switzerland Riggenbachstrasse 16 CH-4600 Olten Switzerland [email protected] phone +41 62 287 7825, fax: +41 62 287 7845 Final report, full draft, v2-2.doc AVROSS Table of content Executive summary IV 1. Introduction 1 1.1 Current e-Infrastructure use in the social sciences and humanities 1 1.2 Definition of e-Infrastructures in this study 2 1.3 Contents of this deliverable 3 2. Theoretical framework of the study 5 2.1 Different models of technological innovation 5 2.2 The social shaping of e-Infrastructures 6 2.2.1 Technology and user communities 8 2.2.2 Scientific shaping of technology 9 2.2.3 Funding and staff 11 2.2.4 Relationship to institutional practices and disciplinary cultures 12 3. Stock-taking of e-Infrastructures in the social sciences and humanities 16 3.1 Explanation of the empirical approach 16 3.2 Background information on respondents 18 3.2.1 Differences in origin 18 3.2.2 Activity profiles of time use 20 3.2.3 Collaborators 21 3.2.4 Respondents’ involvement and experience with e-Infrastructure 21 3.3 Background information on projects 26 3.3.1 Disciplines represented 26 3.3.2 Project funding and size 27 3.3.3 Technological features of the projects 32 3.3.4 Project outcomes and user constituency 36 3.4 e-Infrastructure adoption 44 3.4.1 Sources of information contributing to e-Infrastructure use 44 3.4.2 Potential catalysts in the adoption of e-Infrastructure technology 49 3.4.3 Potential barriers in the adoption of e-Infrastructure technology 53 3.5 Positive and negative lessons learned during the realisation of an e-Infrastructure project 57 3.5.1 Responses on positive and negative lessons learned 57 3.5.2 Lessons learned by characteristics of respondents 62 3.6 Summary 68 3.6.1 e-Infrastructure projects 68 3.6.2 e-Infrastructure adoption 70 3.6.3 Positive and negative lessons learned in e-Infrastructure projects 71 4. Promising approaches to using e-Infrastructures in the social sciences and humanities 73 4.1 Case study approach 73 4.1.1 Identification of the eight most promising approaches 73 4.1.2 Case study method and guidelines 75 II M4 Final Report 4.2 Case studies on e-Infrastructure initiatives 76 4.2.1 Access Grid Support Centre – AGSC 76 4.2.2 Modelling and Simulation for e-Social Science – MoSeS 86 4.2.3 Communication Data – ComDAT (pseudonym) 95 4.2.4 Simulation Portal – SPORT (pseudonym) 101 4.2.5 Understanding New Forms of Digital Records for e-Social Science (Digital Records) – DReSS 107 4.2.6 Dokumentation Bedrohter Sprachen [Documentation of Endangered Languages] - DoBeS 111 4.2.7 TextGrid 114 4.2.8 FinGrid (pseudonym) 118 4.3 Synthesis of the investigated cases 125 4.3.1 Technology 132 4.3.2 User communities and involvement 133 4.3.3 Funding and staff 134 4.3.4 Relationship to established practices 135 4.3.5 Impact on research and learning 136 5. Policy recommendations 138 5.1 Introduction 138 5.2 Capacity building 140 5.2.1 Broaden the base of scientists and technicians trained on e-Infrastructures 140 5.2.2 Provide resources for e-Infrastructure development 141 5.3 Tool development 143 5.4 Facilitating adoption 145 5.5 Raising awareness 148 References 151 Appendix I: Early adopters survey 156 Appendix I.1: The questionnaire 156 Appendix I.2: The Email 171 Appendix I.3: Tables 172 Appendix I.4: Verbatims 181 Appendix I.5: Code system for the positive and negative lessons (QD3 and QD4) 192 Appendix II: Case studies 195 Appendix II.1: Criteria for rating the e-Infrastructure initiatives 195 Appendix II.2: Informants in case studies 196 Appendix II.3: Contact letter for e-Science experts worldwide 197 Appendix II.4: Interview Guideline 198 III AVROSS Executive summary This report is the fourth deliverable of the AVROSS study (Accelerating Transition to Virtual Research Organisation in Social Science, AVROSS) aimed at delivering “A study on requirements and options for accelerating the transition from traditional research to virtual research organisations through e-Infrastructures” to the EC under EU Service Contract No. 30-CE-0066163/00-39. The study responds to a European Commission call to report on the state of the art in applying e-Infrastructure to social science and humanities (SSH) in at least four fields. The aim of the study was to research, select and analyse a significant number of the most promising applications of e-Infrastructure which can trigger transition to virtual research organisations and motivate sustained e-Infrastructure use in these disciplines. It also is focussed on paying special attention to opportunities for computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL). The ultimate goal was to provide recommendations as to the possible scenarios for a large scale roll out of technologies and applications supporting virtual research organisations and novel services for students based on CSCL. The reason for this focus is that it is clear that "soft" sciences have both much to gain and a key role to play in promoting e-Infrastructure uptake across the disciplines, but to date have not been the fastest adopters of advanced grid-based e-Infrastructure. Our recommendations to EU policy-makers can be expected to point the way to changing this situation, promoting e-Infrastructure in Europe in these disciplines, with clear requirements to developers and expected impact in several other disciplines with related requirements, such as e-Health. Theoretical framework Previous theoretic and empirical work identified four factors likely to be influential in shaping the use of e-Infrastructures in the social sciences and humanities. These are illustrated in Figure I and include: 1. Technological frames and communities: Technological paradigms of developers and users which are shaped by the capabilities of previous technologies and the demands of the user communities constitute an influential frame on which the introduction and spread of e-Infrastructures takes place. Technological constraints limit the extent to which user needs can be implemented. 2. Scientific shaping of technology: Scientific progress for instance in computer science and computer linguistics is still a pre-condition for producing applications for the social sciences and humanities and dealing with confidentiality and privacy problems which are particularly virulent in the social sciences. 3. Funding and staff: In addition to funding needs for the sustainable development and provision of e-Infrastructures there are other resource-related issues: learning costs, availability of qualified staff, and training of personnel and prospective users on the capabilities of the technology. 4. Relationship to institutional practices and disciplinary cultures: Technologies may have inbuilt political purposes and the activities of political institutions and intermediaries – in science for instance research and higher education ministries, research foundations, scholarly societies – shape their spread and use. Moreover, they need to be integrated into proven work routines, institutional practices and disciplinary cultures which requires functioning cross- disciplinary communication and collaboration between engineers and domain scientists. IV M4 Final Report Figure I: Social shaping of e-Infrastructures in the social sciences and humanities Technology Scientific limitations Obtaining e-Infra- Funding veggie structure and staff food in SSH Communities Institutional practices and disciplinary cultures Source: AVROSS. Adoption of e-Infrastructures in the social sciences and humanities in Europe, the USA and beyond The first part of the empirical work in AVROSS consisted of an exploratory survey among the early adopters of e-Infrastructures in the social sciences and humanities that was carried out to provide a stock-taking of e-Infrastructure projects in Europe and beyond. The survey was sent in the spring of 2007 to roughly 2,000 individuals who had been identified as potentially involved in e-Infrastructure work. The aim was to cast a very wide net to generate the maximum number of responses, and over 560 responses were received - 448 usable responses (23.4% of the sample). The survey yielded several striking findings on e-Infrastructure adoption in social sciences and humanities and the type of e-Infrastructure projects carried out so far. e-Infrastructure adoption There are some regional differences in length of experience with e-Infrastructure (Figure II). Most strikingly, US respondents to the survey are on average more experienced than their colleagues from other regions, with an average over more than 10 years experience and more than 4 projects. Despite the fact that there are currently numerous e-Infrastructure projects in the UK, the relatively recent nature of this phenomenon is evidenced by the fact that the typical e-Infrastructure user has a relatively short experience with e-Infrastructure, and has worked on relatively few projects. A couple of other findings on adoption are interesting: First, survey respondents identified a number of key sources of information about e-Infrastructure and stressed the importance of other scientists in spreading information (see table I).