Science gateways community institute

Science gateways, also known as web portals, virtual research environments, virtual laboratories, are a fundamental part of today’s research landscape. But they can be difficult to develop in a sustainable fashion. This talk will provide an overview of the newly funded NSF Science Gateways Community Institute ( http://www.sciencegateways.org ), which aims to address these challenges by offering services to and building community among the research communities developing gateways. The institute is comprised of five areas to support gateways throughout their lifecycle: Incubator will provide shared expertise in business and sustainability planning, cybersecurity, user interface design, and software engineering practices. Extended Developer Support will provide expert developers for up to one year to projects that request assistance and demonstrate the potential to achieve the most significant impacts on their research communities. Scientific Software Collaborative will offer a component-based, open-source, extensible framework for gateway design, integration, and services, including gateway hosting and capabilities for external developers to integrate their software into Institute offerings. Community Engagement and Exchange will provide a forum for communication and shared experiences among gateway developers, user communities, within NSF, across federal agencies, and internationally. Workforce Development will increase the pipeline of gateway developers with training programs, including special emphasis on recruiting underrepresented minorities, and by helping universities form gateway support groups. We envision close collaborations with gateway providers such as the Galaxy developer group to provide best practices for developers and use cases of real-world gateways to improve the experience and efficiency of developers and user communities.