(The slides supporting Dr. Atkins’s comments to NSDL are posted here.)

Dr. Atkins is the head of the National Science Foundation’s new Office of Cyberinfrastructure, a directorate-level post. He was also chair of an NSF panel that released an influential report on the subject in January 2003. The report re-framed many discussions about digital education with statements like this one: “A new age has dawned in scientific and engineering research, pushed by continuing progress in computing, information, and communication technology, and pulled by the expanding complexity, scope, and scale of today’s challenges. The capacity of this technology has crossed thresholds that now make possible a comprehensive ‘cyberinfrastructure’ on which to build new types of scientific and engineering knowledge environments and organizations and to pursue research in new ways with increased efficacy.”

Building the nation’s cyberinfrastructure (or “CI”) is a priority for education, said Atkins, but another goal of the project is to improve “rapid response to man-made issues.” The office is promoting “science gateways” such as Linked Environments for Atmospheric Discovery (LEAD), a web portal that gives high school students, undergraduates, and the public access to a huge amount of computational power. It takes a very large, very fast computer to crunch all the variables that make an accurate forecast of a hurricane’s path. Teragrid, the computer network behind LEAD, has more than 102 teraflops of computing capability and more than 15 petabytes (quadrillions of bytes) of online and archival data storage. Its headquarters at the University of Chicago provides rapid access and retrieval over high-performance networks linking computers on nine campuses.

One of LEAD’s main goals is to improve storm forecasting and the public’s understanding of storms. It is one of many efforts called “Science Gateways” sponsored by Atkins’ office; several others are profiled in his slides.

Dan Atkins. Click for larger image.

The vision of Atkins’s office is to promote four broad outcomes, which he calls a “vision framework”:
* high performance computing;
* data, data analysis and visualization;
* virtual organizations; and,
* learning and workforce development.
Dozens of organizations already exist to promote these things, of course, but Atkins is pushing them from a unique fulcrum point. His office is easing the “multi-discipline, multi-investigator, and multi-institution approach that is driving the frontier of science,” he says. LEAD and other Science Gateways are research fronts that rely on massive amounts of data that must be shared and stored. They also lower the barrier for entry into these disciplines. Atkins says his office’s mission also includes producing the people who will run the Gateways and do the research.

Atkins uses an ancient scientific analogy to describe the activities his office must focus on. A Borromean Ring is a structure of three circles that are inseparable; remove one and the other two will fall apart. The three activities are “provisioning,” or the creation, deployment, and operation of advanced CI networks; research and development to enhance the social and technical effectiveness of future CI environments; and sponsoring “transformative applications” that will enhance discovery and learning.

Borromean Ring

Science directorates in many countries are pushing toward this goal of One Big Network, says Atkins. He mentioned a European science officer who said that his country is counting on massive virtual organizations to retain its world leadership in research and education.

Several NSDL people in the audience made snap-to-attention nods at the words “transformative application,” because, after all, that is our battle station on this Federal directorship. Atkins said that in his opinion, NSDL is also like a Borromean Ring – it is “a diverse and complimentary community linking people in work who have often not physically met.” The other accomplishment he noted was the applied and content contributions NSDL has made to the field of digital libraries. NSDL is “broadening the notion of library content,” he said.

Atkins identified several trends his office is watching closely. One is the Open Education/Learning Resources movement; another is the reuse, remixing, and “mashup” of existing digital resources. He also said the office is keenly interested in efforts to improve the integration of learning and discovery based on CI platforms. These efforts can come from just about anywhere. Atkins mentioned the popular game site site secondlife.com, where users create an online persona of their choosing and interact with thousands of on-line participants in fantasy societies. As the site has taken off, it has blurred the lines between fantasy and reality.

“People are making money in the real world by creating and selling virtual pieces of real estate on secondlife.com. These lots have great views of the virtual sea,” said Atkins. “So one particularly clever player bought a piece of imaginary land right along the shore that was very narrow and infinitely long, and he erected mile-high billboards on it. Then he was happy to sell the land to the people with the sea views.” It isn’t clear yet how NSDL could latch on to the passion generated by sites like these, he says, but it is worth thinking about.