This page is the draft of the proposal to send to JISC - Alun and Mustie, feel free to edit and expand or criticise. This is really urgent now, though!

Suggested Title: Access Management and Future Grid Useres: overcoming the tech barrier

Introduction

We propose a study involving the interviewing of scientific and humanities researchers who are potential, incipient and established grid users. Firstly, by observation, we wish to establish whether any existing or future (yet to be developed) grid resource or service would benefit them intheir research; this may be to enable their current style of working ot be easier or quicker, or it may be to enable greater collaboration or inderdisciplinary working.

For those uses who are either currently working with grids or who agree that future use of the grid may be beneficial, we would like to explore further to examine the following hypotheses:

1. If a grid interface or the working environment is (apparently) too difficult to use, it will not be adopted many of the rightful users.

2. Most scientists and humanities researchers will be Service End Users (as defined in [attachment:AllHandsPapers2006/AllHands06TypesUsers.pdf Norman, 2006]).

   • 2b. Currently grids are serving Power Users (as defined in [attachment:AllHandsPapers2006/AllHands06TypesUsers.pdf Norman, 2006]) and do not yet benefit non-computer-technical researchers.FootNote([attachment:AllHandsPapers2006/AllHands06TypesUsers.pdf Norman (2006)] Types of grid users and the Customer-Service Provider relationship: a future picture of grid use, paper accepted for the UK e-Science All Hands Meeting, September 2006.)

We also intend to examine the categorisation of users, as proposed by the ESP-GRID project, into the following groupings:

• Service End User (Data), Service End User (eXecutables), Power User Agnostic of grid node used, Power User requiring Specific grid node, Power User Developing a Service (known as SEUD, SEUX, PUA, PUS, PUDS respectively).

We need to establish whether these groupings are appropriate. Note that we these divisions do not take into account the kinds of grid jobs that result from their activity. This may, however, be another valuable approach. Nevertheless, we believe that the above five divisions - a subset of the seven that we proposed in [attachment:AllHandsPapers2006/AllHands06TypesUsers.pdf Norman, 2006] - are worthy of use in a study such as this.

Hypothesis one has been found to be difficult to investigate within the existing literature, as studies have focussed on the loss of productivity resulting from the imposition of difficult to use software.FootNote(For example, see Dutton, W.H. (1999), Society on the Line, Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK) xxxxMustie - have you got anything better for this point?) There seems to be little work undertaken on the consequences of poor usability where a researcher's free choice allows him/her to choose not to employ the new software or 'system' at all and either use an alternative or indeed not to pursue that kind of work at all. It will be beneficial to establish the principle that - at least in the academic environment - despite the great potential benefits, users may not adopt the newer, more powerful methods if their initial experience is that "it is too difficult".

Hypotheses 2a, 2b and the (third) aim cited above are all directed at examining the types of future users. If such a principle can be shown to be true then the knowledge that the majority of future users will be Service End Users should aid the thinking for the design of access management systems for the future.

Communities of users

We intend to interview users from as broad a range of disciplines as possible. As a starting point we will attempt to look at the requirements work (and follow ups) for researchers engaged in the [http://www.integrativebiology.ac.uk/ Integrative Biology (IB)] and the [http://bvreh.humanities.ox.ac.uk/ Building a Virtual Research Environment for the Humanities (BVREH)] projects, both of which are at led by researchers based in Oxford. We may approach users for follow-up sessions of our own. We also hope to contact potential future users through recommendations of their colleagues. We also hope to observe geneticists and/or biomedical researchers engaged in working with the [http://www.brc.dcs.gla.ac.uk/projects/bridges/ BRIDGES] portal for the first time. (The access mechanism - using Shibboleth - to the BRIDGES portal was developed as part of the ESP-GRID project). Of particular interest is the reaction of users when something appears to fail: what is their reaction? How do they attempt to continue?

Summary of aims

Aim one

To test the hypothesis that If a grid interface or the working environment is (apparently) too difficult to use, it will not be adopted many of the rightful users.

Aim two

To test the hypothesis that Most scientists and humanities researchers will be Service End Users and to test the related hypothesis (2b) that Currently grids are serving Power Users and do not yet benefit non-computer-technical researchers.

Aim three

To examine the categorisation of users, as proposed by the ESP-GRID project, into the following groupings:

• Service End User (Data), Service End User (eXecutables), Power User Agnostic of grid node used, Power User requiring Specific grid node, Power User Developing a Service.

Time scale

The study will take place between August and December 2006, inclusive.

Key personnel

The interviewing and analysis work will be carried out by Mustafizur Rahman and Alun Edwards. Marina Jirotka will advise on methodologies and at the analysis stages. Mark Norman will provide advisory input throughout.

Mustafizur Rahman

Mustie is Programme Manager of the ICT/Begbroke Directorate and a Principal Researcher at the Centre for Requirements and Foundations at the University of Oxford. His specialisms are in practice-driven requirements for industrial applications, requirements engineering in e-Science, e-Social Science and distributed computing environments and Mustie has looked into intellectual property and legal issues in e-Health. Previous projects include: IMaGE (Copyright Ownership of Medical Data in Collaborative Computing Environments); CyberSEM (remote scanning electron microscopy); eDiaMoND (Digital Mammography National Database Project).

Alun Edwards

Alun is the manager of the Humbul Humanities Hub at the University of Oxford and principal evaluator with the ESP-GRID project. Previously, Alun has worked on evaluation of the Digital Certificate Operation in a Complex Environment (DCOCE) project. Alun's expertise lies within requirements gathering and analysis. xxxxAlun, have you any standard/better text?

Marina Jirotka

Marina is a lecturer in Requirements Engineering at Oxford and University, the Director of the Oxford Centre for Requirements and Foundations and a Fellow of St Cross and Kellogg Colleges [xxxxcheck!]. She leads the Requirements Engineering MSc course at Oxford and is a member of the e-Science Usability Task Force. Marina's specialisms are in practice-driven requirements; Computer-Supported Collaborative Work; e-Science and e-Social Science. Recent and current projects include: IMaGE; Ethical, Legal, and Institutional Dynamics of Grid-enabled e-Sciences; Integrative Biology Virtual Research Environment.

Mark Norman

Mark is a project manager within Oxford University Computing Services and has managed several JISC projects in the general areas of identity management in the information environment and e-Science domains. Recent and current projects include: DCOCE; ESP-GRID; ShibGrid.

Costs

[xxxx This needs to be outlined properly - hopefully with Judy McAuliffe's help!] NEED A TABLE HERE.

• Mustie 0.5 FTE Aug-Oct 2006, 0.25 FTE Nov-Dec 2006
• Alun 0.5 FTE Sept-Nov 2006
• Mark 0.2 FTE Nov-Dec 2006 [N.B. I'm not 100% sure that I can commit to this yet]

We should have around £18K and I think that the above should come to 11 or so, so I'm hoping that we should be OK.

Work packages

xxxx MUSTIE, CAN YOU OUTLINE A MINI GANTT CHART IN A TABLE - LIKE THIS SORT OF THING