Presentation I gave as part of the Grid Computing Environments (GCE) Workshop at SC09 in Portland on Nov. 20, 2009. Describes different approaches for integrating social networking in scientific gateways, and highlights our experiences using Facebook, Ning and Elgg in developing the GeoChronos scientific gateway.

1. Social Networking and
Scientific Gateways
Roger Curry, Cameron Kiddle and Rob Simmonds
Grid Research Centre
University of Calgary

2. Outline
 Motivation
 Related Work
 Integration Approaches
 Our Experiences
 Conclusions and Future Work
GCE 2009
Nov. 20, 2009
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3. Motivation
 Scientific Gateways
 Aim to enable collaboration and transparent access
to data and computational resources
 Social Networking
 Can enhance collaboration capabilities and improve
transparency
 Widely adopted
 Facebook
 > 300 million users (50% log on to Facebook on any given day)
 > 1 billion chat messages per day
 > 2 billion photos, 14 million videos uploaded per month
 > 350 thousand applications on Facebook Platform
GCE 2009
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4. Related Work: Social Networking
for Science/Academia
 Academia.edu
 Aims at being Facebook or LinkedIn for academia
 Biomedexperts (biomedexperts.com)
 Connecting biomedical experts based on author connections between publications
 SciWeavers (sciweavers.org)
 Bookmark and share links to source code, data sets, publications, presentations, etc.
 myExperiment (myexperiment.org)
 Share computational/data workflows and other research objects
 HUBzero (hubzero.org)
 Collaborative platform to share publications, presentations, etc. and provide on-line
access to scientific tools
 REAL (Research Environments Associated with Learning through Social
Networks)
 Access to data and compute resources from Second Life
 OGCE (Open Grid Computing Environments) (collab-ogce.org)
 Recently began development of OpenSocial based gadgets/containers
GCE 2009
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5. Integration Approaches
 Build on an Existing Social Network
 Build a Custom Social Network Hosted by
a Third Party
 Build a Custom Social Network Hosted
In-House
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6. Build on an Existing Social Network
 Examples: Facebook, MySpace, Friendster, orkut
 Advantages
 Likely that users are already members
 Familiarity with features/tools
 Wide range of robust features/functionality
 Do not have to scale/maintain collaborative aspects
 Disadvantages
 Lack of control/customization
 Data privacy/ownership
 Distractions: advertising, “social noise”
 Risks affiliated with vendors going out of business
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7. Build a Custom Social Network
Hosted by a Third Party
 Examples: Ning, KickApps, Haystack
 Advantages
 Customizable (to a certain extent)
 Wide range of robust features/functionality
 “Social noise” can be avoided
 Do not have to scale/maintain collaborative aspects
 Disadvantages
 Still don’t have complete control/customization
 Data privacy/ownership
 Advertising, potential fees
 Risks affiliated with vendors going out of business
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8. Build a Custom Social Network
Hosted In-House
 Examples: Elgg, Drupal, PHPizabi, Dolphin
 Advantages
 Complete control and customization
 Ownership of data
 Open source
 Advertisements and “social noise” can be avoided
 Less risk if vendor goes out of business
 Disadvantages
 Features aren’t always as robust or fully developed
 Must maintain, manage, scale collaborative aspects
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9. Fire Dynamics Simulator (FDS)
Demonstrator
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 Created a Facebook-based
interface to provide users
with access to cloud-based
FDS
simulation/visualization
services
 A one-stop shop
 Upload/edit input files
 Submit/resubmit/execute
simulations
 Share/visualize/download
results
 Message boards

10. Facebook-based GeoChronos
 GeoChronos – CANARIE/Cybera
funded project to create an on-line
collaborative platform for earth
observation scientists
 Developed initial Facebook-based
prototype for accessing and sharing
MODIS satellite data
 Create, edit and share subscriptions
 List and view details of subscriptions
 View thumbnails and metadata
 Message boards
 Evaluation
 Positive feedback from scientists
 Concern over customizability and
“social noise”
 Concern over data ownership
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11. Ning-based GeoChronos
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 Created a custom social network
in Ning for GeoChronos
 Ported the MODIS application to
Ning
 Evaluation
 Scientists liked more custom
environment, but wanted even
greater control over customization
 Scientists did not like
advertisements
 Application API not as easy to work
with as Facebook API
 Data ownership concerns

12. Elgg-based GeoChronos
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 Settled on Elgg
 Have incorporated tools for sharing
spectral data and running applications
on-line
 Evaluation
 Much more positive feedback
 Fully customizable
 Full ownership of data
 Wide range of features but not quite as
polished as Facebook
 Usage
 Over 70 users from around the world
 IAI Summer School, July 2009
 Tropi-Dry community
 Registration currently restricted – will open
to the broader community by end of 2010

13. Elgg-based GeoChronos
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Interactive Application ServiceSpectral Libraries

14. Conclusions and Future Work
 Conclusions
 Custom in-house hosted social network suited
needs for GeoChronos best
 Other approaches may be more suitable for
other communities depending on their needs
 Future Work
 Plan to monitor usage/adoption to better
evaluate impact of social networking
 Build more common reusable tools and services
that leverage social networking and can be used
in other gateways
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15. Contact Information
GCE 2009
Nov. 20, 2009
Cameron Kiddle
kiddlec@cpsc.ucalgary.ca
http://pages.cspc.ucalgary.ca/~kiddlec/
http://twitter.com/kiddlec
http://grid.ucalgary.ca/
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http://geochronos.org/
info@geochronos.org