We stared of our morning at the CSIR knowing that we had to attend a knowledge workshop today. There was however a bit of confusion of what time we needed to be there.

I really enjoyed the workshop, it was truely a new learning experience. The workshop started off with us writing down our favouraite animal as well as how this animal can be linked to what we did up to now at the CSIR. I chose a dog, as our group was "sick as a dog", but also because a dog supports its owner and I feel the people at CSIR supports each other.

A few ground rules were layed down such as:
positive energy,
active participation,
sharing,
cooperation,
attentiveness,
no side meetings allowed,
don`t judge
and english only.

We spoke about the 5 D`s namely discovery, dream, design, destiny and delivery.

After this we made a list of 3 actors, emotings/ feelings and things that contributed to a positive energy. We looked at the different values that can exists among new proffesionals and after a period of voting we agreed on the top 5 which was :

never give up,
believe in the impossible,
failure is not an option,
make the best of every moment
and don`t let others define you.

A question that had us thinking was where we would like to be in a year`s time: the title or position as well the experiences that we wanted to have experienced by then. This was followed by a list of needs and a list of what we had to offer to other`s, which we had to post next to our names for others to read.

We then sticked a number of qualities that was printed on papers to the names of people we think deserved them or what fit them in order to establish how other`s percieve you.

We ended of this event by naming 3 words about how we felt about the knowledge workshop. It was all good and well but what was bad about it is that it made us all relaxed, which made it very hard to start working again. I think that knowledge sharing workshops is a very good idea, and if managed correctly it can lead to a very productive session.


When we eventually got back from Knowledge Commons, I finalised the worked that I started yesterday which was the following:

E-Infrastructures

Definition:According to Belief (2010) “e-Infrastructure is a new way of doing research”.

Background.
In order to manage the complexity of new challenges in the scientific environment as well as dealing with global collaboration, e-Infrastructure has become a necessity according to Belief (2010). E-Infrastructures are used to connect scientists from all over the world, in order to encourage collaboration by giving access to scientific facilities such as tools and technologies, research data and information, communication and computing.

Composition of e-Infrastructure. According to Belief (2010), e-Infrastructures are made up of 6 “layers” or “perspectives” categorised under the following:

The first category is Connectivity at high speeds. By means of GEANT2 (a high bandwidth academic internet serving); researchers, educators and students can access resources and use tools and technologies with the best performance and connectivity available. In order to extend connectivity, projects such as SEEGRID2 and EELA-2 are rolled out which helps in the creation of virtual communities.

Grid Computing is a term used to describe the use of multiple computers in order to complete huge numbers of calculations at the same time. A tool used specifically in this area is EGEE-III that is used for the storage and elaboration of data from “collaborative scientific research projects”

The term Super Computing on the other hand refers to the process of using the power of supercomputers to run different calculations at the same time, which relates to Grid Computing. To name an example of how Super Computing can be of value is the DEISA project and the PRACE project.

Scientific Data can be seen as the 3d layer of the e-Infrastructure. This data is stored in a repository that is carefully managed and shared between project teams of different research areas. Europe has an initiative where policies are defined in this regarded in order to ensure that this information will be usable and relevant for a long period of time.

Global Virtual Research Communities enables countries to benefit from global collaboration as their researchers are able to participate in the sharing of software, data as well as best practises by means of virtual media.

Standards are in place which ensures that connectivity and interoperability can take place. Without these standards, there will be chaos and the e-Infrastructure will not function as it should.

I also continued on analysing another site which I will upload later...