[OSGeo-Discuss] possible idea for a funding opp?

[Cameron Shorter]

Hi James,
This sounds like a great idea. It is also something that has been proven 
possible.
A program very similar to what you are describing has been set up in 
Australia, called the Australian Urban Research Infrastructure Network 
(AURIN). http://aurin.org.au/

AURIN have built their workbench software upon open source, and are 
moving toward open sourcing their tools as well.

The challenge which is grant worthy would be to take the AURIN framework 
which is based on Australian datasets and customise to be able to work 
as effectively with UK datasets.

I'm CCing Chris, Jack, and Stewart who are directly involved in the 
AURIN program, and may have extra suggestions.


On 17/12/2014 11:13 pm, James Reid wrote:
> All, in the UK one of the educational funding charities is having an 
> open door ideas pitch where you can pitch ideas relating to research data:
>
> http://www.jisc.ac.uk/rd/get-involved/research-data-spring
>
> I'm on the cusp of submitting an idea to this but thought Id poll this 
> list first to see if there's any support/ interest i.e. to validate 
> the notion and make sure its not just my creeping insanity knocking!
> As the submitted ideas will be ranked based on votes cast I was also 
> trying to gauge if there would be any support for what I'm proposing.
>
> Below is the nub of the idea. If folks think this is something that 
> has merit (and moreover something they might vote for) then could you 
> ping me a '+1' off list?
>
> Of course other ideas are also to be encouraged...
>
> cheers
> james
>
>
> Proposal Idea:
>
> The concept of Cloud Work Bench (CWB) is quite simple -- to provide 
> researchers in the geospatial domain (GI Scientists,geomaticians, GIS 
> experts, spatial disciplines) the tools, storage and data persistence 
> they require to conduct research without the need to manage the same 
> in a local context that can be fraught with socio-technical barriers 
> that impede the actual research. By streamlining the availability and 
> deployment of open source software tools, by supporting auto-generated 
> web services and using open data, the work bench concept is geared 
> towards removing the barriers that are inherent in geospatial research 
> workflows -- how to deploy the tools you want and have the storage and 
> data management capabilities without the overhead of doing it all 
> yourself. Think of it as an academic Dropbox with additional 
> geospatial software tools and data thrown in...
>
>
> Recognising the high set-up cost for researchers in acquiring and 
> managing both the tools and the data with which to undertake research, 
> CWB will on demand, instantiate virtual machines that can be 
> configured at initiation by the researcher and will pre-populate their 
> custom 'workbench' with a selection of open source tooling and open 
> data with the additional assurance of resilience and persistence 
> provided by a University backed private cloud.
>
>
>
> We propose piloting the CWB approach within the geospatial research 
> community which has a well established and broad user base across 
> academia and industry and also has a mature open source toolset and 
> data stack which are prerequisites to conducting research e.g. Open 
> Street Map, Ordnance Survey Open data, Postgis, Geoserver, GDAL/OGR.
>
>
> -- 
> James S Reid
> Geoservices,
> EDINA,University of Edinburgh
>
> t:+44 (0)131 651 1383
> m:0759 5116988
>
> "The things that pass for knowledge
> I can't understand"
>
>
> The University of Edinburgh is a charitable body, registered in
> Scotland, with registration number SC005336.
>
>
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-- 
Cameron Shorter,
Software and Data Solutions Manager
LISAsoft
Suite 112, Jones Bay Wharf,
26 - 32 Pirrama Rd, Pyrmont NSW 2009

P +61 2 9009 5000,  W www.lisasoft.com,  F +61 2 9009 5099

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