Cyber-Share: Advancing Interdisciplinary Research Using Cyber-Enhanced Approaches

Faculty #18
Discipline: Computer Sciences & Information Management
Subcategory: STEM Research

Ann Gates - University of Texas at El Paso
Co-Author(s): Monika Akbar, Darren Cone, Vladik Kreinovich, Deanna Pennington, Natalia Villanueva Rosales, Craig Tweedie, and Aaron Velasco, University of Texas at El Paso

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The Cyber-ShARE Center of Excellence at the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP) was established in 2007 with a mission is to advance and integrate cyber-enhanced, collaborative, and interdisciplinary education and research through technologies that support the acquisition, exchange, analysis, and integration of data, information, and knowledge to solve complex problems. The Center’s cyberinfrastructure (CI) efforts are focused on the following: 1) CI, computational science, and technology-enabled science research that links methods across multiple fields in creative that lead to innovation; and 2) CI dissemination that focuses on making CI products and tools accessible and on training individuals on established and innovative tools that support collaborations across disciplines and among different organizations. As national leaders in the study of collaborative science and engineering, the Center has developed and applied models of team-based, cooperative learning, interdisciplinary teamwork, and knowledge integration. Areas of advancement in CI have been in data management, data analysis, and virtual organizations in support of collaboration. In particular, CI research has focused on scientists’ ability to document data collection and product development in ways that enable sharing and reuse of scientific results by enhancing results with provenance and other critical information. Cyber-ShARE’s research groups and projects are as follows: iConnect – Connecting institutional data, people, and expertise: Expertise Connector, and the Cyber Security Ecosystem; iFuse – Integrated Analysis for Development of 3-D Models of Earth’s Structure; iLink – Knowledge Representation, Negotiation and Integration: Linking Human and Machine Knowledge Models through Semantics; and iSense – Advancing Understanding of Ecosystem Processes Using Cyberinfrastructure. Cyber-Share serves as an institutional incubator for targeted new interdisciplinary Centers. We support these nascent projects as they develop their own supporting mechanisms: Center for the Advancement of Space Safety and Mission Assurance Research, and Smarter Cities: Physical Infrastructure.

Funder Acknowledgement(s): The National Science Foundation; 1000 Strong; US AID; US Fish & Wildlife Service; NASA; NUNA Technologies; Digital Globe; Geothermal Development Company; El Paso Metropolitan Planning Organization

Faculty Advisor: None Listed,