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OCR for page 11
The Use of ~formadon
Technology in Research
n this chapter we examine the effect of information technology on the
conduct of research. New technologies offer new opportunities, although
pervasive use of computers in research has not come about without
problems. Some of these problems are technological, some financial. Underlying
many of them are complex institutional and behavioral constraints.
Nearly five decades ago, the first programmable, electronic, digital computer
was switched on. That day science acquired a tool that at first simply facilitated
research, then began to change the way research was done. Today these changes
continue, and now amount to a revolution.
Electronic digital computers at first simply replaced earlier technologies.
Researchers used computers to do arithmetic calculations previously done with
paper and pencil, slide rules, abacuses, or roomfuls of people running mechan-
ical calculators. Benefits offered by the earliest computers were more quantitative
than qualitative; bigger computations could be done faster, with greater reliabil-
ity, and perhaps more cheaply. But computers were large, expensive, required
technically expert operators and programmers, and consequently were accessi-
ble only to a relatively small fraction of scientists and engineers.
One human generation and several computer generations later, with the
advent of the integrated circuit (the semiconductor "chip"), computational speed
increased by a factor of 1 trillion, computational cost decreased by a factor of 10
million, and the smallest useful calculator went from the size of a typewriter to
the size of a wristwatch. At present, personal computers selling for a few
thousand dollars can put significant computing power on the desk of every
scientist. Meanwhile, advances in the software through which people interact
with and instruct computers have made computers potentially accessible to
people with no specific training in computation. More recently, computer
technology has joined telecommunications technology to create a new entity,
11
OCR for page 12
12
INFORMATION
TECHNOLOGY AND
THE CONDUCT
OF RESEARCH
Bodices supplement or
expand points in the text:
the first two below deal
with specific disciplines.
"information technology." Information technology has done much to remove
from the researcher the constraints of speed, cost, and distance.
On the whole, information technology has led to improvements in research.
New avenues for scientific exploration have opened. The amount of data that can
be analyzed has expanded, as has the complexity of analyses. And researchers
can collaborate more widely and efficiently.
Different scientific disciplines use information technology differently. Uses vain
according to the phenomena the discipline studies and the rate at which the
discipline obtains information. In such disciplines as high energy physics,
neurobiology, chemistry, or materials science, experiments generate millions of
observations per second, and these must be screened and recorded as they
happen. For these disciplines, computers that can handle large amounts of
information quickly are essential and have made possible research that was
previously impractical. Other disciplines, such as economics, psychology, or
public health, gather data on events that accumulate slowly over relatively long
periods of time. These disciplines also need computers with large capacities, but
do not need the capability to react in "real time." Most disciplines use informa-
tion technology in ways that fall somewhere in the range between these two
extremes.
HIGH ENERGY PHYSICS: SCIENCE
DRIVES THE LEADING EDGE OF
INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
An example helps to illustrate the direction
in which many disciplines are moving: high
energy physics could not be done without
information technology, and offers an ex-
treme example of the trends for computing
and communication needs in many scientific
disciplines.
Most high energy physicists work on the
same set of questions: what is the behavior of
the most elementary particles, and what is
the nature of the fundamental forces be-
tween them? Their experiments are con-
ducted in machines called accelerators, de-
vices that produce beams of protons, elec-
trons, or other particles that are accelerated
to high speeds and huge energies. There are
two types of accelerators: those in which two
beams of particles are made to collide with
each other (colliders), and those in which a
beam hits stationary targets. Physicists then
reconstruct the collision to find new phe
nomena.
Remarkable results have emerged from
high energy physics experiments conducted
over the past two decades. For instance, a
Nobel prize-winning experiment carried out
at the proton-antiproton collider at the Euro-
pean Center for Nuclear Research (CERN) in
Switzerland, discovered two new particles
known as the W and the Z. Their existence
had been predicted by a theory claiming that
the weak and electromagnetic forces, seem-
ingly unrelated at low energy levels, were in
fact manifestations of a single force, called
the electroweak interaction, which would ap-
pear at sufficiently high energies. This discov-
ery is a significant step toward the descrip-
tion of all known interactions-gravity, elec-
tromagnetism, and the strong (nuclear) and
weak (radioactive decay) forcers manifes-
tations of a single unifying force.
The process by which some tens of these
OCR for page 13
13
The Panel recognizes the diversity in research methods, and differences in
needs for information technology. But the needs of researchers show sufficient
commonalities across research fields to make a search for common solutions
worthwhile.
THE CONDUCT OF RESEARCH
The everyday work of a researcher involves such activities as writing proposals,
developing theoretical models, designing experiments and collecting data, ana-
lyzing data, communicating with colleagues, studying research literature, rev~ew-
ing colleagues' work, and writing articles. Information technology has had
important effects on all these activities, and more change is in the offing. To
illustrate these effects, we examine three particular aspects of research: data
collection and analysis, communications and collaboration, and information
storage and retrieval. In each area, we discuss how researchers currently use
information technology and what difficulties they encounter. In a final part of this
section, we discuss new technological opportunities and their implications for
the conduct of research.
new W and Z particles were isolated from
millions of collision events in the CERN accel-
erator offers a striking illustration of the
dependence of high energy physics on the
most advanced aspects of information tech-
nology. Three steps are involved. First, data
are acquired in real time as the experiment
progresses; second, the data obtained are
transformed into flight paths, from which the
particles making the paths are identified; and
third, the event itself is reconstructed, and
those few events exhibiting the very special
characteristics of the new phenomenon are
identified. In each of these steps computers
are vital: to trigger the identification of inter-
esting events; to establish particle tracks
from the data; and to carry out analysis and
interpretation.
In the future, high energy physicists will
demand more from information technology
than it can now deliver. Proposed new parti-
cle accelerators, such as the Superconduct-
ing Super Collider (SSC), are expected to pro
duce several million collisions every second,
of which only one or two collisions a second
can be recorded. Selecting this tiny fraction
of the produced events in a manner that does
not throw away other interesting data is a
tremendous challenge. It is hoped that
"farms" of dedicated microprocessors might
be able to examine tens of thousands of
collision events per second, so that sophisti-
cated selection mechanisms can screen all
collisions and select the veIy few that are to
be recorded. The computer programs that
need to be developed for these tasks are of
unprecedented size and complexity, and will
challenge the capabilities of both the physi-
cists programming them and the information
technology software support available to the
programmers.
Even the small fraction of recorded events
will result in some ten million collisions to be
analyzed in a year. Processing one year's
worth of saved data from the SSC would take
a modern mid-sized computer 500 years;
THE USE OF
INFORMATION
TECHNOLOGY
IN RESEARCH
OCR for page 14
14
INFORMATION DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS
TECHNOLOGY AND
THE CONDUCT Current Use Collecting and analyzing data with computers are among the
OF RESEARCH most widespread uses of information technology in research. Computer hard
ware for these purposes comes in all sizes, ranging from personal computers to
microprocessors dedicated to specific instrumentational tasks, large mainframe
computers sensing a university campus or research facility, and supercomputers.
Computer software ranges from general-pu~pose programs that compute nu
meric functions or conduct statistical analyses to specialized applications of all
sorts.
The Panel has identified five trends in the use of information technology in
data collection and analysis:
· Increased use of computers for research. This trend coincides with large and
continued increases in the speed and power of computers and corresponding
declines in their costs.
· Dramatic increases in the amount of information researchers can store and
analyze. For example, researchers can now process and manipulate observations
in a database consisting of 18 years x 3,400 individuals x 1,000 variables per
individual for each year, create sets of relationships among these observations,
obviously, a faster processing rate is re-
quired. Although no computer currently on
the market would handle this load in reason-
able time, existing plans suggest that, by the
time it is needed, some combination of dedi-
cated microprocessors and large mainframe
systems will be available.
High energy physicists are also highly de-
pendent on networks. Accelerators are lo-
cated in only seven main laboratories in the
United States, Switzerland, West Germany,
the Soviet Union, and Japan; the physicists
who use them are located in many hundreds
of universities and institutions scattered
around the world. Almost every high energy
experiment, large or small, is a result of
international collaboration: for instance, one
detector installed around one of the collision
points of the accelerator at the Fermi Na-
tional Laboratory is run by a collaboration of
four foreign and thirteen U.S. institutions,
involving some 200 physicists. Physicists at
several institutions designed different parts of
the detector; since the detector has to work
as an integrated apparatus, the physicists had
to coordinate their work closely. Different
physicists are also interested in different as-
pects of the experiment, and subsequent
analysis of the data depends crucially on
adequate networking.
Future networking needs for high energy
physics involve very high transmission
speeds (as high as 10 megabits per second)
between laboratories, with provision for ex-
change of collision event files, graphics, and
video conferencing. Present long distance
communication links are limited to lower
transmission speeds (typically, 56 kilobits per
second); each university physics group could
use a 1.5 megabit per second line for its own
research needs. The provision of these facil-
ities would be of enormous benefit to univer-
sity-based physicists and students who can-
not travel frequently to accelerator sites.
OCR for page 15
15
and then subject the data to complex statistical analyses, all at a cost of less than
$100. Two decades ago, that kind of analysis could not have been conducted, and
a much simpler analysis would have cost at least ten times as much.
· The creation of new families of instruments in which computer control and
data processing are at the core of observation. For example, in new telescopes,
image-matching programs on specialized computers align small mirrors to
produce the equivalent light-gathering power of much larger telescopes with a
single mirror. For instruments such as radio-telescope interferometers, the
computer integrates data from instruments that are miles apart. For computer-
assisted tomographic scanners, the computer integrates and converts masses of
data into three-dimensional images of the body.
· Increased communication among researchers, resulting from the prolifera-
tion of computer networks dedicated to research, from a handful in the early
1970s to over 100 nationwide at present. Different networks connect different
communities. Biologists, high energy physicists, magnetic fusion physicists, and
computer scientists each have their own network; oceanographers, space scien-
tists, and meteorologists are also linked together. Networks also connect re-
searchers with one another regionally; an example is NYSERNET, the New York
State Education and Research Network. Researchers with defense agency con-
tracts are linked with one network, as are scientists working under contract to the
National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). Such networks allow
data collection and analysis to be done remotely, and data to be shared among
colleagues.
· Increasing availability of software "packages" for standard research activities.
Robust, standardized software packages allow researchers to do statistical
analyses of their data, compute complex mathematical functions, simplify
mathematical expressions, maintain large databases, and design everything from
circuits to factories. Many of these packages are commercial products, with
high-quality documentation, service, and periodic updates. Others are freely
shared software of use to a specialized community without the costs or benefits
of commercial software.
One example illustrating several of the above trends is a system that geophys-
icists have set up to predict earthquakes more accurately. Networks of seismo-
graphs cover the western United States. One such network in northern California
is called CALNET. Information from the 264 seismographs in CALNET goes to a
special-purpose computer called the real-time picker. The software on the
real-time picker looks at data as they come in and identifies exceptional events:
patterns that indicate a coming earthquake. Then it notifies scientists of the
events by telephone and sends graphics displays of locations and magnitudes, all
within minutes.
Difficulties Encountered The difficulties that researchers encounter using
information technology to collect and analyze data vary in importance depend-
ing on the particular discipline.
THE USE OF
INFORMATION
TECHNOLOGY
IN RESEARCH
OCR for page 16
16
INFORMATION One difficulty is uneven access to computing resources. Information technol
TECHNOLOGY AD of iS not equally accessible to ail researchers who could benefit from its use,
THE CONDUCT even though broadening access is a continuing focus of institutions and Finding
OF RESEARCH agencies. To take an example from the field of statistics: according to a 1986
report on the Workshop on the Use of Computers in Statistical Research,
sponsored by The Institute for Mathematical Statistics, "...the quality and
quantity of computational resources available to researchers today varies dra
matically from department to department . . . Perceived needs appear to vary just
as dramatically.... tWhile] departments that already have significant computer
hardware feel a strong need for operating support, . . . departments that do not
have their own computational resources feel an equally strong need for hard
ware." (Eddy, 1986, p. iii.)
Exclusion from resources happens for a variety of reasons, all reducible in the
end to financial constraints. Not all academic or research institutions have links
to networks; in addition, access to networks can be expensive, so not everyone
who wants it can afford it. In some cases, since access to networks often mediates
access to resources such as supercomputers, exclusion from networks can mean
exclusion from advanced computing.
See box on software, One of the most frustrating difficulties for researchers is finding the right
page 18. software. Software that is commercially available is often unsuited to the
specialized needs of the researcher. In those fields in which industry has an
interest, however, commercial software is being developed in response to a
perceived market. Software could be custom designed for the researcher, but
relatively few researchers pay directly for software development, partly because
research grants often cannot be used to support it. Consequently, most research
RESEARCH MATHEMATICS AND
COMPUTATION
Computation and theory in mathematics
are symbiotic processes. Machine computing
power has matured to the point where math-
ematical problems too complicated to be
understood analytically can be computed and
observed. Phenomena have been observed for
the first time that have initiated entirely new
theoretical investigations. The theory of the
chaotic behavior of dynamic systems de-
pends fundamentally on numerical simula-
tions; the concept of a "strange attractor" was
formulated to understand the results of a
series of numerical computations. Recent
advances in the theory of knots have relied on
algebraic computations carried out on com-
puters. These advances can be directly ap-
plied to such important topics as understand-
ing the folding of DNA molecules. In the field
of geometry, numerical simulation has been
used recently to discover new surfaces whose
analytic form was too difficult to analyze
directly. The simulations were understood by
the use of computer graphics, and led to the
explicit construction of infinite families of
new examples.
The modern computer is the first labora-
tory instrument in the history of mathemat-
ics. Not only is it being used increasingly for
research in pure mathematics, but, equally
important, the prevalence of scientific com-
puting in other fields has provided the me
OCR for page 17
17
ers, although they are not often skilled software creators, develop their own
software with the help of graduate students. The result meets researchers'
minimum needs but typically lacks documentation and is designed for one
purpose only. Such software is not Filly understood by any one person, making
it difficult to maintain or transport to other computing environments. This means
that the software often cannot be used for related projects, and the scientific
community wastes time, effort, and money duplicating one another's efforts. In
sections to follow we examine how this problem is being addressed by profes-
sional associations, nonprofit groups, and corporations.
Some disciplines are limited by available computer power because computers
needed are not on the market. Some contemplated calculations in theoretical
physics, quantum chemistry, or molecular dynamics, for example, could use
computers with much greater capacity than any even on the drawing boards. In
other cases, data gathering is limited by the hardware presently available. Most
commercial computers are not designed to accommodate hardware and pro-
grams that select out interesting information from observational data, and
scientists who want such computers must build them.
Another difficulty researchers encounter is in transmitting data over networks
at high speed. For researchers such as global geophysicists who use data
collected by satellite, a large enough volume of information can be sent in a short
enough time, but transmission is unreliable. Researchers often encounter delays
and incur extra costs to compensate for "noise" on high-speed networks.
Technological solutions such as optical fiber and error-correcting coding are
currently expensive to install and implement and are often unavailable in certain
geographic regions or for certain applications.
dium for communication between the math-
ematician and the physical scientist. Here
modern graphics plays a critical role. This
interaction is particularly strong in materials
science, where the behavior of liquid crystals
and the shapes of complex polymers are
being understood through a combination of
theoretical and computational advances.
In spite of all this, mathematics has been
one of the last scientific disciplines to be
computerized. More than other fields, it lacks
instrumentation and training. This prevents
the mathematician from using modern com-
puting hardware and techniques in attacking
research problems, and at the same time
isolates him/her from productive communi-
cation with scientific colleagues.
Of course, mathematics is an important
part of the foundation and intellectual basis
of most of the methods that underlie all
scientific use of computational machinery.
To use today's high-speed computing ma-
chines, new techniques have been devised.
The need for new techniques is providing a
serious challenge to the applied mathemati-
cian, and has placed new and difficult prob-
lems on the desk of the theorist; algorithms
themselves have become an object of serious
investigation. Their refinement and improve-
ment have become at least as important to
the speed and utility of high-speed comput-
ing as the improvement of hardware.
THE USE OF
INFORMATION
TECHNOLOGY
IN RESEARCH
OCR for page 18
18
IN1?OElMATION COMMUNICATION AND COLI^BORATION AMONG RESEARCHERS
TECHNOLOGY AND
THE CONDUCT Current Use Researchers cannot work vv~thout access to collaborators, to
OF RESEARCH instruments, to information sources and, sometimes, to distant computers.
Computers and communication networks are increasingly necessary for that
access. Three technologies are concerned with communications and collabora
tion: word processing, electronic mail, and networks.
Word processing and electronic mail are arguably the most pervasive of all the
routine uses of computers in research communication. Electronic mail sending
text from one computer user to another over the networks is replacing written
See box on document and telephone communication among many communities of scientists, and is
processing, page 19. changing the ways in which these communities are defined. Large, collaborative
projects, such as oceanographic voyages, use electronic mail to organize and
schedule experiments, coordinate equipment arrivals, and handle other logistical
IF KITCHEN APPLIANCES WERE LIKE
SOFTWARE
If kitchen appliances were like programs,
they would all look alike sitting on the
counter. They would all be gray, featureless
boxes, into which one places the food to be
processed. The door to the box, like the box
itself, is completely opaque.
On the outside of each box is a general
description of what the box does. For in-
stance, one box might say: "Makes anything a
meal"; another: "Cooks perfectly every time";
another: "Never more than 100 calories a
serving." You can never be exactly sure what
happens to food when it is placed in these
boxes. They don't work with the door open,
and the 200-page user's manual doesn't give
any details.
Working in a kitchen would be a matter of
becoming familiar with the idiosyncrasies of
a small number of these boxes and then
laying to get done what you really want done
using them. For instance, if you want a fried-
egg sandwich, you might try the "Makes any-
thing a meal" box, since a sandwich is a sort
of meal. But because you know from past
experience that this box leaves everything
coated with grease, you use the "Never more
than 100 calories" box to postprocess the
output. And so on. The result is never what
you really want, but it is all you can do.
You aren't allowed to look inside the boxes
to help you do what you really want to do.
Each box is sealed in epoxy. No one can break
the seal. If the box seems not to be working
right, there is nothing you can do. Even
calling the manufacturer is no help, because
the box is not under warranty to be fit for any
particular purpose. The manufacturers do
have help lines, but not for help with broken
boxe~rather to help you figure out how to
use functioning boxes. But don't try to ask
how your box works. The help-line people
don't know, or if they do, they won't tell you.
Several times a year you get a letter from the
manufacturer telling you to ship them your
old box and they will send you a new one. If
you do so, you find yourself with a shinier
box, which does whatever it did before a little
faster, or perhaps it does a little more but
since you were never sure what it did before,
you cannot be sure it's better now.
SOURCE: Mark Weiser, 1987. "Source Code," IEEE Com
puter, Z0(~): 6~73.
OCR for page 19
19
details. With the advent of electronic publishing tools that help lay out and
integrate text, graphics, and pictures, mail systems that allow interchange of
complex documents will become essential.
Networks range in size from small networks that connect users in a certain
geographic area, to national and international networks. Scientists at different
sites increasingly use networks for conversations by electronic mail and for
repeated exchanges of text and data files.
The Panel has identified two major trends in the way information technology
is changing collaboration and communication in scientific research:
· Information can be shared more and more quickly. For example, one of the
first actions of the federal government after the discovery of the new high-
temperature superconductors was to fund, through the Department of Energy's
Ames Laboratory, the creation of a superconductivity information exchange. The
laboratory publishes a biweekly newsletter on advances in high-temperature
superconductivity research, available in both paper and electronic forms; the
electronic version is sent out to some 250 researchers.
· Researchers are making new collaborative arrangements. The technology of
networks provides increased convenience and faster turnaround times often
several completed message exchanges in one day. For shorter messages, special
software allows real-time exchanges.
DOCUMENT PROCESSING
[An] area of significant change is document
processing. This began in the 1960s with a
few simple programs that would format
typed text. In the context of UNIX* in the
1970s, these ideas led to a new generation of
document processing programs and lan
are constructing systems, such as the POST
SCRIPT protocols, embodying these ideas.
The NSF-sponsored EXPRES project, at the
University of Michigan and Carnegie Mellon
University, illustrates a serious effort to de
velop a standard method of exchanging full
scientific documents by network. Low-cost
laser printers now make advanced document
guages, such as SCRIBE and the UNIX-based preparation and printing facilities available to
tools troths, eqn, tbl, and pie. The quintessence many people with workstations and personal
of these ideas are Knuth's TeX and computers. It is now possible for everyone to
METAEiONT systems, which have begun to submit high-quality, camera-ready copy di
revolutionize the world's printing industry. rectly to publishers, thus speeding the publi
In workstations, these ideas have produced cation of new results; however, it is no longer
WYSIWYG (w~zzy-wig, or "what you see true Mat a well-formatted document can be
iswhatyouget")systemsthatdisplayformat- trusted to have undergone a careful review
ted text exactly as it will appear in print. and editing before being printed.
International standards organizations are
considering languages for describing docu
ments, and some software manufacturers
SOURCE: Peter J. Denning, 1987, Position Paper: Informa
tion Technology in Computing.
THE USE OF
INFORMATION
TECHNOLOGY
IN RESEARCH
See box on collaboration,
page 20.
OCR for page 20
20
INFORMATION AS Lederberg noted a decade ago (Lederberg, 1978), digital communication
TECHNOLOGY AND allows scientists to define collegial relationships along the lines of specialized
THE CONDUCT interests rather than spatial location. This is immensely beneficial to science as
OF RESEARCH a whole, but causes some consternation among administrators who find more
loyal to disciplines than to institutions.
Technologies in the process of development show the networks' remarkable
potential. Multimedia mail allows researchers to send a combination of still
images, video, sound, and text. Teleconferencing provides simultaneous elec
tronic links among several groups. Electronic chalkboards allow researchers to
draw on their chalkboard and have the drawing appear on their computer and on
the computers of collaborators across the country. Directory services, or
"namese~vers," supply directories of the names and network addresses of users,
processes, and resources on a given network or on a series of connected
networks. Program distribution services include the supply of mathematical
software to subscribers. A spectacular new technology is represented in the Metal
Oxide Semiconductor Implementation System (MOSIS), a service that contracts
for the manufacture of very large-scale integrated (VLSI) chips from circuit
diagrams pictured on a subscriber's screen. Fabrication time is often less than 30
days. In one notable example, the researchers designing a radiotelescope in
Australia designed custom chips for controlling the telescope. MOSIS returned
the chips in a matter of days; the normal manufacturing process would have
taken months and would have delayed the development of the instrument
considerably.
NEW FORMS OF COLLABORATION
THROUGH THE NETWORKS
The development of COMMON LISP (a pro
~arnming language) would most probably
not have been possible without the electronic
message system provided by ARPANET, the
Department of Defense's Advanced Research
Projects Agency network. Design decisions
were made on several hundred distinct
points, for the most part by consensus, and
by simple majority vote when necessary. Ex
cept for two one-day face-to-face meetings,
all of the language design and discussion was
done through the ARPANET message system,
which permitted effortless dissemination of
messages to dozens of people, and several
interchanges per day.
The message system also provided auto-
matic archiving of the entire discussion,
which has proved invaluable in preparation
of this reference manual. Over the course of
thirty months, approximately 3000 messages
were sent (an average of three per day),
ranging in length from one line to twenty
pages... It would have been substantially
more difficult to have conducted this discus-
sion by any other means, and would have
required much more time.
SOURCE: Guy Steele, 1984. COMMON LISP: The Lan
guage. Bedford, MA: Digital Press, pp. xi-xii. Reprinted
with permission. Copyright Digital Press/Digital Equip-
ment Corporation.
OCR for page 21
21
To share complex information (such as satellite images) over the networks,
researchers will need to be able to send entire pictures in a few seconds. One
technique that is likely to receive more attention in the future is data compres-
sion, which removes redundant information and converts data and images to
more compact forms that require less time to transmit.
Among the most important of potential applications of information technology
is the emergence of a truly national research network-that is, a set of connec-
tions, or gateways, between networks to which every researcher has access. The
National Science Foundation has announced its intention to serve as a lead
agency in the development of such a network, beginning with a backbone, called
NSFNET, that links the NSF-supported supercomputing centers, and widening to
include other existing networks.
Widespread access to networks will also offer much more than just commu-
nications links. They can become what the network serving the molecular biology
community aims to be: a full-fledged information system.
Difficulties Encountered The principal difficulty with communicating across
research communities via electronic mail and file transfer technologies is
incompatibility. The networks were formed independently, evolved over many
years, and are now numerous. Consequently, networks use different protocols,
that is, different conventions for packaging data or text for transmission, for
locating an appropriate route from sender to receiver over the physical network,
and for signaling the start and stop of a message. For example, a physicist on the
High Energy Physics network (HEPNET) trying to send data to a physicist on one
of the regional networks would first have to ask "What network are you on?";
"How do I address you?"; and "What form do you want the information in?" In
the gateway between two networks, the protocols of the first network must be
removed from the message and the protocols for the second added. Under heavy
traffic loads, the gateways can become bottlenecks. As a result, navigating from
one network to a researcher on another is time-consuming, tiresome, and often
unreliable; navigating over two networks to a researcher on a third is prohibitively
complex.
Text can frequently be moved from one word processing system to another
only with significant loss of formatting information including the control of
spacing, underlining, margins, or indentations. Graphics can only rarely be
included with text. Such issues of compatibility may delay the expansion of
electronic publishing as well as electronic proposal submission and review the
goals of the National Science Foundation's EXPRES project.
The issues are summarized succinctly by Denning: "Most word processors are
inadequate for scientific needs: they cannot handle graphs, illustrations, math-
ematics and layout, and myriad file formats make exchange extremely difficult.
With so many experts and so much competition in the market, it is hard to win
agreement on standards. There is virtually no electronic support for the remain-
der of the process of scientific publication submission, review, publication, and
THE USE OF
INFORMATION
TECHNOLOGY
IN RESEARCH
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INFORMATION training, and documentation have continued. Efforts to move research support
TECHNOLOGY AND into indirect cost categories have not succeeded as many research institutions
THE CONDUCT and universities face caps on indirect cost rates and have no room to accommo
OF RESEARCH date new costs.
Advances in communications and computing generate new services that
require subsidy during the first years of their existence if they are to be
successfully tested. This is particularly true of network-related services. Building
services into a national network for research will require significant federal, state,
and institutional subsidy, which cannot be recovered from user service charges
until large-scale connectivity has been achieved and services are mature. Sources
for these subsidies must be determined.
Methods used for cost recovery can have significant impacts on usage. Two
alternatives are to charge users for access to services or to charge users for the
amount of service used. Networks such as BITNET have grown substantially in
connectivity and use because they have fixed annual institutional charges for
membership and connection, but charge no fees for use. Use-insensitive charge
methods (often referred to as the library model) are attractive to institutions
because costs can be treated as infrastructure costs and are predictable. Charges
A REASONABLE MODEL
Although the Panel is unaware of anvthin~
precisely like the vision it holds for sharing
information, proposals for the newly estab- systems;
fished National Center for Biotechnology In
formation (NCBI) at the National Library of
Medicine may come close. The NCBI pro
poses to facilitate easy and effective access to
a comprehensive array of information
sources that support the molecular biology
research community.
Many, but not all, of these sources are
electronic. They encompass raw data, text,
bibliographic information, and graphic rep
resentations. Ownership and responsibility
for development and maintenance of these
sources range from individual researchers to
departmental groups, institutes, professional
organizations, and federal agencies. Each
was designed to serve specific needs and
audiences, created in many different hard
ware configurations and software applica
tions. Consequently, NCBI's mission requires
experts in both information technologies and
biotechnologies. NCBI staff must
· Provide directories to knowledge sources;
· Create useful network gateways between
· Assist users in using databases effec-
tively;
· Reduce incompatibilities in retrieval ap-
proaches, vocabulary, nomenclature and data
structures;
· Promote standards for representing in-
forrnation that will reduce redundancy and
detect inconsistencies or errors;
· Provide useful tools for manipulating
and displaying data; and
· Identify new analytic and descriptive
services and systems.
Some computing-intensive universities
(e.g., Carnegie Mellon University and Brown
University) and medical centers (e.g., Johns
Hopkins University, the University of Utah,
Baylor University, and Duke University) are
also attempting to develop instances of the
· -
vlslon.
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for amount of use, in contrast, can inhibit usage; a major inhibitor to use of
commercial databases for information searches, for instance, is the unpredict-
ability of user charges for time spent searching the databases. During the
development of network services, it seems desirable to recover costs through
fixed access charges wherever possible.
The Problem of Standards
The development of standards for interconnec-
tion makes it possible for every telephone in the world to communicate with
every other telephone. The absence of commonly held and implemented
standards that would allow computers to communicate with every other com-
puter and to access information in an intuitive and consistent way is a major
impediment to scholarly communication, to the sharing of information re-
sources, and to research productivity.
Standards for computer communication are being developed by many groups.
The pace of these efforts is painfully slow, however, and the process is intensely
political. The technologies are developing faster than our ability to define
standards that can make effective use of them. Further, standards that are
developed prematurely can inhibit technological progress; standards developed
by one group (for example, an equipment vendor) in isolation create islands of
users with whom effective communication is difficult or impossible.
Development of standards not only improves efficiency but also reduces costs.
Open interconnection standards permit competition among vendors, which
leads to lowered costs and improved capabilities. Proprietary standards restrict
competition and lead to increased costs. Federal government procurement rules
have been major sources of pressure on vendors to support open standards.
Current mechanisms for reaching agreement on standards need examination
and significant improvement. Such examination needs input from user groups,
which will have to exert pressure on standards bodies and on the vendors who
are major players in the standard-setting process.
Legal and Ethical Constraints The primary legal and ethical constraints to
wider use of information technology are issues of the confidentiality of, and
access to, data. The following discussion will only illustrate these issues; we
believe they are too important and too specialized to be adequately addressed in
a document as general as this one. In the report's final section, we recommend
the establishment of a body that will study and advise on these issues.
Information technology has made possible large-scale research using data on
human subjects. For the first time, researchers can merge data collected by
national surveys with data collected in medical, insurance, or tax records. For
instance, in public health research, long-term studies of workers exposed to
specific hazards can be carried out by linking health insurance data on costs with
Internal Revenue data on subsequent earnings, Social Security data on disability
payments, and mortality data, including date and cause of death (Steinwachs,
1987, Position Paper: Information Technology and the Conduct of Public Health
THE USE OF
INFORMATION
TECHNOLOGY
IN RESEARCH
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INFORMATION Research). The scientific potential of such data mergers is enormous; the actual
TECHNOLOGY AND use of mergers is small, primarily because of concerns about privacy and
THE CONDUCT confidentiality.
OF RESEARCH The right to confidentiality of personal information is held strongly in our
society. Concerns about the conflict between researchers' needs and citizens'
rights have been extensively explored by a number of scientific working groups,
under the auspices of both governmental agencies (such as the Census Bureau)
and private groups (for example, the National Academy of Sciences). As more
information about individuals is collected and cross-linked, fears are raised that
determined and technically sophisticated computer experts will be able to
identity specific individuals, thus breaching promises of confidentiality and
privacy of information. The Census Bureau, in particular, fears that publicity
surrounding such breaches of confidentiality will undermine public confidence
and inhibit cooperation with the decennial censuses.
Although there have been discussions and legislative proposals for outright
restrictions on mergers of government survey or census data, a reasonable
alternative seems to be to impose severe penalties on researchers who breach
confidentiality by making use of information on specific individuals. The issue
here, as elsewhere in public policy problems, is the balance of benefits against
costs. Does better research balance the risk of compromising perceived funda
mental rights to privacy? This is a topic that will need to be debated among both
researchers and concerned constituencies in the general public.
A related issue is that of acceptable levels of informed consent for human
subjects. At present, consent is usually obtained from each respondent to a
survey; it is described as informed because the respondent understands what
will be done with responses usually, that they will be used only for some
specific research project. Data-collecting organizations protect the confidenti
THE FAR SIDE OF THE DREAM: THE
LIBRARY OF THE FUTURE
"Can you imagine that they used to have
libraries where the books didn't talk to each
other?" [Marvin Minsky, MIT]
The libraries of today are warehouses for
passive objects. The books and journals sit on
shelves, waiting for us to use our intelligence
to find them, read them, interpret them, and
cause them finally to divulge their stored
knowledge. "Electronic" libraries of today are
no better. Their pages are pages of data files,
but the electronic page images are equally
passive.
Now imagine the library as an active, intel-
ligent "knowledge server." It stores the
knowledge of the disciplines in complex
knowledge structures (perhaps in a formal-
ism yet to be invented). It can reason with this
knowledge to satisfy the needs of its users.
The needs are expressed naturally, with fluid
discourse. The system can, of course, retrieve
and exhibit (the electronic textbook). It can
collect relevant information; it can summa-
rize; it can pursue relationships.
It acts as a consultant on specific prob-
lems, offering advice on particular solutions,
justifying those solutions with citations or
with a fabric of general reasoning. If the user
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39
ality of the information obtained from respondents, but guarantee only that
information about specific individuals will not be released in such a way that they
can be identified. The extent to which informed consent can be given to
unknown future uses of survey data, in particular to their merger with other data
sources, is of great concern to survey researchers. Controlling the eventual uses
of merged, widely distributed data sets would be difficult.
Another concern that needs to be addressed is one of responsibility in
computer-supported decision making. Scientists, engineers, and clinicians more
and more frequently will use complex software to help analyze and interpret
their data. Who then is morally and legally responsible for the correctness of their
interpretations, and of actions based on them? Experiments involving dangerous
materials or human lives may soon be controlled by computers, just as many
commercial aircraft landings are at present. Computers may be capable of faster
or more precise determinations in some situations than humans. But software
designers lack strong guidelines on assignment of responsibility in case of
malfunction or unforeseen disaster, and lack the expertise to guarantee against
malfunctions or disasters. With complex software overlaid on complex hardware,
it is impossible to prove beyond a doubt in all circumstances that both hardware
and software are performing precisely as they were specified to perform.
Gaps in Training and Education
The training and education necessary for
using information technology are lacking. Two decades ago many researchers
dealt with computers only indirectly through computer programmers who
worked in data processing centers. The development of information technology
has brought computing into the researcher's laboratory and office. As a result, the
level of computing competence expected of researchers, their support staff, and
their students has increased manyfold.
can suggest a solution or a hypothesis it can
check this, even suggest extensions. Or it can
critique the user viewpoint, with a detailed
rationale of its agreement or disagreement.
. . . The user of the Library of the Future
need not be a person. It may be another
knowledge system that is, any intelligent
agent with a need for knowledge. Such a
Library will be a network of knowledge sys-
tems, in which people and machines collab-
orate.
Publishing is an activity transformed. Au-
thors may bypass text, adding their incre-
ment to human knowledge directly to the
knowledge structures. Since the thread of
responsibility must be maintained, and since
there may be disagreement as knowledge
grows, the contributions are authored (inci-
dentally allowing for the computation of roy-
alties for access and use). Knowledge base
maintenance ("updating") itself becomes a
vigorous part of the new publishing industry.
SOURCE: Edward A. Feigenbaum, 1986. Autoknowledge:
From file servers to knowledge servers. In: Med~info 86. R.
Salarnon, B. Blum, and M. Jorgensen, eds. New York:
Elsevier Science Publishers B.V. (North-Holland).
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INFORMATION Computers are changing what students need to learn. Undergraduate students
TECHNOLOGY AND of chemistry, for example, need more than the standard courses in organic,
THE CONDUCT inorganic, analytic, and physical chemistry; in the view of many practicing
OF RESEARCH chemists, they should also have courses in calculus, differential equations, linear
algebra, and computer simulation techniques, and through formal courses or
practical research experience, should be competent in mathematical reasoning,
electronics, computer programming, numerical methods, statistical analysis, and
the workings of information management systems (Counts, 1987, Position Paper:
The Impact of Information Technologies on the Productivity of Chemistry).
Neither students nor researchers can obtain adequate training and education
through one-time training courses. Because the numbers of new tools are
multiplying, researchers need ways to continuously learn about, evaluate, and, if
necessary, adopt these new tools. Using commercial programs and tutorial
systems only partly alleviates the problem because the technologies often change
faster than such supports can accommodate to the changes. Instructors in the
uses of information technologies within the disciplines are rare. Senior research
ers are especially hard hit. The Panel took no formal survey, but informal
discussions suggest that most senior researchers have had exposure to no more
than a one-semester programming course and have few of the skills needed to
evaluate and use the available technology.
For all researchers, learning advanced computing means taking a risk. They
must interrupt their work and pay attention to something new and temporarily
unproductive. They must become novices, often where sources of appropriate
instruction and help are unclear or inaccessible. The investment of time and level
of frustration are likely to be high. Understandably, many researchers cannot find
the time and the confidence to learn technical computing; some justify their
DOCUMENTS AS LINKED PIECES:
HYPERTEXT
The vision of computing technology revo
lutionizing how we store and access knowl
edge is as old as the computing age. In 1945
Vannevar Bush proposed MEMEX, an electro
optical-mechanical information retrieval sys
tem that could create links between arbitrary
chunks of information and allow the user to
follow the links in any desired manner. In the
early 1960s, Ted Nelson introduced "hyper
text," a fonn of Consequential writing: a text
branches and allows choices to the reader,
best read at an interactive screen. In 1968,
Doug Englebart demonstrated a simple hy
pertext system for hierarchically-structured
documents-that is, a list of sections, each of
which decomposes into a list of subsections,
each of which decomposes into a list of
paragraphs, and so on to which annotations
could be added during a multiple-workstation
conference. Today hypertext refers to infor-
mation storage in which documents are pre-
served as networks of linked pieces rather
than as a single linear string of characters;
readers can add links and follow links at will.
Nelson's XANADU system is perhaps the
most ambitious hypertext system proposed.
XANAI)U would make all the world's knowl-
edge accessible in a global distributed data-
base to which anyone can add information,
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choices with negative attitudes, for example: "I get enough communications as it
is; I don't need a computer network," or "If I put my data on the computer, others
will steal it," or "We are doing fine as things are; why change at this point?"
Given these natural but negative attitudes, organizations are sometimes slow in
responding to demands for new information technologies. Some research orga-
nizations view these attitudes as unchangeable and wait to introduce advanced
computing until existing researchers move or retire. Others are actively replacing
personnel or creating new departments for computational researchers. Still
others are attempting to change attitudes by giving researchers the necessary
time and support systems. While we have no data on changes in productivity,
there is some evidence that in organizations following the latter course, existing
researchers at all ranks can achieve as high computing competence as new
personnel (Kiesler and Sproull, 1987).
Because people are now being introduced to computing skills at earlier stages
of schooling, the lag in computer expertise is disappearing. Over time, alterna-
tives to personal expertise in the form of user-friendly software or individual
assistance from specialists will also develop.
plunks of Organizational Change
Changing an organization to make way for
advanced information technology and its attendant benefits entails real risks.
Administrators and research managers are often reluctant to incur the costs fi-
nancial, organizational, behavioral-of new technology. In some cases, adminis-
trators and research managers relegate computer resources-hardware, soft-
ware, and people-based support services- to a lower priority than the procure-
ment and maintenance of experimental equipment. The result can be a long-term
suppression of the development and use of the tools of information technology.
and in which anyone can browse or search
for information. A document is a set of one or
more linked nodes of text, plus links to nodes
already in the global database; a document
may be mostly links, constructed out of
pieces already in the database. Users pay a fee
proportional to the number of characters
they have stored. Anyone accessing an item in
the global database pays an access charge, a
portion of which is returned to the owner as
a royalty. Individuals can store private docu-
ments mat cannot have public links pointing
to them and can attach annotations to public
documents that become available to everyone
reading those documents. Documents can be
composed of different parts including text,
graphics, voice, and video. INTERMEDL\, a
hypertext system with some of these proper-
ties, has been implemented at Brown Univer-
sibr and has been used to organize informa-
tion in a humanities course for presentation
to students. Small-scale hypertext systems,
such as Apple's Hypercards for the Macin-
tosh, are available on personal computers;
their promoters claim these systems will
change information retrieval as radically as
spreadsheets changed accounting a few years
ago.
SOURCE: Peter and Dorothy Denning, personal commu
nication, 1987.
THE USE OF
INFORMATION
TECHNOLOGY
IN RESEARCH
See box on electronic
laboratory notebook,
page 42.
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INFORM`\TION In other cases, administrators are misled into underestimating the time and
TECHNOLOGY AND resources required to deploy new information technology. Efforts to develop
TElE CONDUCT effective networks have been insufficiently supported by government planners
OF RESEARCH and research institution administrators, who have been led to assume that
technology and services to provide network access are easily put in place. Some
administrators have promoted change, but without adequate planning for the
resources or infrastructure needed to support users. Problems such as these are
exacerbated by overly optimistic advice given the administrators by technological
enthusiasts. This particular impediment probably cannot be overcome. It can,
however, be alleviated by establishing collaborative arrangements to develop
plans for and share the costs of change. EDUCOM, for example, is a consortium
of research universities with large computing resources that promotes long-range
planning and sharing of resources and experiences.
Absence of Infrastructure Most fundamental of all the institutional and
behavioral impediments to the use of information technology is the absence of an
infrastructure that supports that use. Just as use of a large collection of books is
made possible by a building and shelves in which to put them, a cataloguing
system, borrowing policies, and reference librarians to assist users, so the use of
a collection of computers and computer networks is supported by the existence
LEGAL CONSTRAINTS TO AN
ELECTRONIC VERSION OF A
LABORATORY NOTEBOOK
Today, the paper laboratory notebook is
the only legally supportable document for
patent applications and other regulatory pro
cedures connected with research. Some or
ganizations, however, routinely distribute
electronic versions of laboratory notebook
information to managers and other profes
sionals who would otherwise have to visit the
research site physically or request photo
copies. The benefits of legal electronic note
books are speculative but attested to by those
using them informally (Liscouski, 1987~. First,
they would help give researchers access to
information or expertise that is otherwise lost
because people have moved or reside in dif
ferent departments. Second, they would al
low research managers and researchers to
observe and compare changes in results over
time. Third, they would eliminate or make
easier the assembly of paper versions of doc-
uments needed for government agencies. The
barrier to an electronic notebook is social
its lack of acceptance as a legal document.
Such acceptance could take place if legal
conditions for an electronic system storage,
format, security were delineated. However,
researchers, scientific associations, and gov-
ernment agencies have failed to develop such
guidelines. This failure is probably connected
to the traditions of privacy in laboratory note-
books, to the inability to forecast how an
electronic system would stand up in court,
(and related to that, the risk and unacceptable
cost to any single institution of developing a
system), and to the uncertainty of the ulti-
mate benefits on some widely accepted index
of research effectiveness. Whatever the rea-
sons, the end result is that a complete and
accepted electronic notebook remains unde-
veloped.
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43
of institutions, services, policies, and experts in short, by an infrastructure. On
the whole, information technology is inadequately supported by current infra-
structures.
An infrastructure that supports information technology applications to re-
search should provide
· Access to experts who can help;
· Ways of supporting and rewarding these experts;
· Tools for developing software, and a market in which the tools are evaluated
against one another and disseminated;
· Communication links among researchers, experts, and the market; and
· Analogs to the library, places where researchers can store and retrieve
information.
Several different kinds of experts in information technology help researchers.
Some are specialists in research computing. Some are programmers who develop
and maintain software specific to research. Others are specialists who carry out
searches. Still others are "gatekeepers," who help with choices of software and
hardware. Gatekeepers are members of an informal network of helpers centered
around advocates and specialists, experts in both a discipline and in inflation
technology who become known by reputation. Overdependence on gatekeepers
creates other problems: as with any informal service, some advice received may
be narrowly focused or simply wrong and the number of persons wanting free
information often becomes larger than the number of persons able to provide it.
As a result, the gatekeepers may become overloaded and eventually retreat from
their gatekeeping roles.
To hold on to expert help of all types, research and funding institutions must
find ways of supporting and rewarding it. While institutions and disciplines have
evolved ways of rewarding researchers publication in refereed journals, promo-
tion, tenure no such systems yet reward expert help.
Another aspect of the needed infrastructure is some formal provision for
developing and disseminating software for specific research applications. Tools
for constructing reliable, efficient, customized, and well-documented software
are not used in support of scientific research. Computer science, as a supporting
discipline, needs to facilitate rapid delivery of finished software, and easy
extension and revision of existing software. The Department of Defense has
recently pioneered the creation of a Software Engineering Institute at Carnegie
Mellon University. Efforts to create tool building and research resources for
nondefense software are worth encouraging.
Development and dissemination of scientific software could be speeded in
many cases by adoption of emerging commercial standards. These standards are
supported by many vendors for a variety of computing environments. The
temptation to narrowly match software to specific applications should be
resisted in favor of standard approaches.
THE USE OF
INFORMATION
TECHNOLOGY
IN RESEARCH
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INFORMATION Software, once developed, needs to be evaluated and disseminated. The
TECHNOLOGY AND research establishment now evaluates research Information principally through
THE CONDUCT peer review of funding proposals and manuscripts submitted for publication.
OF RESEARCH SoDw~ needs to be dent with in a simper manner. EDUCOM has recently
announced its support of a peer-review process for certain kinds of academic
software. Other prototypes of systems for evaluating and disseminating software
already exist (see boxes on BIONET and on IBM's software market). These
See software market, box prototypes couple an electronic "market," through which software can be
disseminated, with a conferencing capability that allows anyone with access to
contribute to the evaluation of the market wares. The system provides an
extremely important feature: those contributors who are most successful in the
open market can automatically be identified and given credit in much the same
way as authors of books and research papers now are.
The infrastructure for information technology also depends on communica-
tion links. The Panel believes that one of the most important services that
computer networks can provide is the link between users and expert help.
Existing links often take the form of electronic bulletin boards on various
networks; other mechanisms also exist. Until more formal mechanisms come
about, open communication with pioneers, advocates, and enthusiasts is one of
AN EXA1MPLE OF A SOFTWARE MARKET
INFRASTRUCTURE: IBM RESEARCH
IBM's internal computer network connects
over 2,000 individual computers worldwide,
providing IBM's researchers, developers, and
other employees with communications facil-
ities such as electronic mail, file transfers,
and access to remote computers. In recent
years, software repositories and online con-
ferencing facilities have grown and flour-
ished, and become one of the primary uses of
the network. With a single command, any
IBMer has access to some 3,000 software
packages, developed by other IBMers around
the world and made available through the
network. Many of these packages are com-
puter utilities and programming tools, but
others are tools for research. They include
statistical and graphics applications, simula-
tion systems, end AI and expert system shells,
as well as many everyday utilities to make
general use of the computer simpler. The
high level of interconnection offered by the
network and the centralization of informa-
tion offered by the repositories allows scien-
tists with a particular need to see if software
to satisfy that need is available, to obtain it if
it is, and to develop it if it is not, with
confidence that they are not duplicating the
efforts of some colleague.
The online conferences (public special-
purpose electronic bulletin boards), which
are as widespread and accessible as the soft-
ware repositories, allow users of the software
(and of commercial and other software) to
exchange experiences, questions, and prob-
lems. These conferences provide a form of
peer review for the software developer. For
internally developed software, they provide a
fast and convenient channel between the soft-
ware author and the users; authors with an
interest in improving their programs have
instant access to user suggestions and to
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the best ways to allow new technologies to be disseminated and evaluated by
research communities.
A final piece of infrastructure largely missing is housing and support for the
storing and sharing of information. Such a function could be performed by
disciplinary groups or, more generally, at the university level. Many university
libraries have a professional core staff whose members hold faculty rank and
function not only as librarians but also as researchers and teachers. Some
university computer centers operate similarly. National laboratories, like astro-
nomical observatories and accelerator facilities, have a core staff of astronomers
or physicists whose main task is to serve outside users while also maintaining
their own research programs.
The existence of such a professional staff involved in the storage and retrieval
of information for a discipline would provide a means of recognizing, rewarding,
and providing status to these people. In some cases, a university might wish to
consider integrating its information science department with its computer center
and its library.
eager testers. Users with a special need or a
hard question have equally fast access to the
author for enhancements or answers.
The conferences also allow users with
common interests to exchange other sorts of
information in the traditional bulletin board
style. AI researchers debate the usefulness of
the concept of intentionality or discuss how
software engineering methodologies apply to
expert systems development; computer
graphics and vision workers talk about the
number of bits required to present a satisfac-
to~y image to the human eye.
Over 100 individual conferences support thou-
sands of separate discussions about computer
~ and software and visual all other an
peck of IBM's under. The sol repos
itories provide a "reviewed" set of tools and appli-
cations for a broad population on a wide spec-
trum of problems.
The organization that originally sets up a
repository or a conference generally provides
user support for it (answering "how to do it"
questions), and installation and maintenance
of local services is usually handled either by
an onsite group that has an interest in the
specialty served by the facility, or on a more
formal basis by the local Information Sys-
tems department.
The benefits of these repositories and con-
ferences are at least as widely distributed and
probably even harder to quantify, but the
success of these software libraries and online
conferences within IBM should serve as an
encouraging sign for others with the same
sorts of needs. A market can be made to suc-
ceed, provided that high levels of stan~iza-
tion and compatibility in both hardware and
software can be achieved. Such levels of in-
teroperability have, so far, been easier to
achieve at commercial institutions such as IBM
Research than at research universities. such as
IBM Research than at research universities.
45
THE USE OF
INFORMATION
TECHNOLOGY
IN RESEARCH
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Representative terms from entire chapter:
energy physics
