Lessons from Developing a Social Networking Site for Scientists

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Procter, Rob; Lin, Yuwei; Poschen, Meik; Voss, Alex; Goble, Carole; Bhagat, Jitenkumar; De Roure, David; Rouncefield, Mark; Cruickshank, Don

Contemporary research challenges increasingly demand collaborative and cross-disciplinary methods. In recognition of this, research funders worldwide have, in recent years, invested substantial resources in building large-scale and networked e Infrastructure (or Cyberinfrastructure as it is known in the US) and tools. These tools include virtual research environments (VREs) and virtual observatories. However, these Grid-based, heavy-weight computing infrastructures, driven as they largely have been by the needs of researchers requiring High Performance Computing or High Throughput Computing, do not necessarily address the different needs of scientists across the full range of research areas and disciplines. Consequently, what we now observe is a 'grass roots' led appropriation by these latter groups of more flexible, lightweight, easily configurable and rapidly deployable technologies originating from the Web sphere.

In this paper, we focus on a project to create a Web 2.0 social networking site for scientists. The aim is to identify good practices for developing them. Zimmerman and Nardi (2006) have argued that e-Research software projects offer distinctive challenges to accepted development methodologies. This paper explores some of these challenges in detail, drawing on participants' experiences of how the conduct of the project was made orderly in the face of all the usual contingencies and constraints to which project work is subject (Button and Sharrock, 1996), with a special focus on those particular to Web 2.0 and e-Research. Of course, our findings are not a solution to all the issues raised by Zimmerman and Nardi, however, we argue that there are lessons which might be fruitfully applied in other projects.

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