OGCE Google 2010
From Ogce
Describe your organization
The Open Grid Computing Environments (OGCE) project is an NSF-funded collaboration comprising Indiana University, San Diego State University, San Diego Supercomputer Center, and the Texas Advanced Computing Center. The OGCE develops open source software and provides advanced support for Web-based Science Gateways for the NSF's TeraGrid, a national-scale organization that links together the nation's major academic supercomputing facilities. The OGCE's architecture is based on the three-tiered model of Web applications, with Google/Open Social gadgets interacting with services and workflow composing tools that access TeraGrid middleware. Specific OGCE software components include the OGCE Gadget Container, an open social Web framework built on top of Apache Shindig; the Cyberaide JavaScript libraries for building interactive science gadgets; and the OGCE Workflow Suite. The Workflow Suite includes GFAC, a Web service factory for wrapping scientific applications and making them network accessible; XBaya, a visual workflow composer tool; and XRegistry, a Web service registry. All software is open source and maintained publicly in our SourceForge SVN repository. Software builds are performed nightly on the NMI Build and Test facility at the University of Wisconsin. This information is further described on our Web site, http://www.collab-ogce.org. For a recent overview presentation, see http://www.slideshare.net/marpierc/ogces-advanced-science-gateway-support.
We provide students with an opportunity to develop open source software in direct collaboration with end user scientific communities. For a list of organizations using OGCE software, see http://www.collab-ogce.org/ogce/index.php/Projects_Using_OGCE. These gateways include computational chemistry, drug discovery, biophysics, bioinformatics, and earthquake science. Deployed portals represent hundreds of scientists actively engaged in Web-based science. Core OGCE software is packaged for download and can be built and deployed using Apache Maven. Our software currently uses the Academic Open Source license from SourceForge. We are in the process of setting up an Apache Incubator project for the workflow tools, so these products will be relicensed with the Apache 2 license.
We have a strong track record of professional and academic development of students. The OGCE is homed at Indiana University's Pervasive Technology Institute (http://pti.iu.edu), where mentors Pierce, von Laszewski, Wang, and Marru work and are available to assist with the supervision of students. OGCE software has been designed and developed by a mixture of Ph.D. faculty and research scientists, software engineers, and graduate students. Student alumni of the project work in IBM, Microsoft Research, and Google. Students will have the opportunity to interact with both engineers and researchers. Students will also be given access to our SourceForge repository and encouraged to contribute to our Apache Incubator, which will be available in late spring.
We are also well prepared to interact remotely with students. We have access to substantial facilities, hardware, and networking resources required to perform the proposed work. These include state-of-the-art audio/video collaboration facilities and site-licensed Adobe Connect. Also through IU we have access to world-class networking capabilities.
Our news blog is http://collab-ogce.blogspot.com/.
Why is your organization applying to participate in GSoC 2010? What do you hope to gain by participating?
We are interested in collaborating on innovative technologies with high quality young developers. Web, Cloud, and related technologies move quickly, and it is difficult to find staff to implement all the ideas that we have. Furthermore, we need to remain in touch with many different technologies, monitor tools, and make sure we have an international perspective on open source software development so that we don't miss important trends. On the practical side, we are interested in several things: identifying good students for graduate recruiting, finding potential committers for our upcoming Apache Incubator project, hardening and improving the code for existing projects (such as JavaScript Cyberaide), and exploring innovative new directions (such as the Green Computing projects). Practically, we hope to gain 1-2 new graduate students who are enthusiastic about software development, and also to gain at least one new remote committer who will help us meet the graduation requirements for our upcoming Apache Incubator. We want to improve existing projects, as software becomes stronger when it is transmitted through multiple developers over time and distance. Finally, we also have projects for seeding new developments, particularly in Green Computing. These are important new directions for our project.
Did your organization participate in past GSoCs? If so, please summarize your involvement and the successes and challenges of your participation.
We have not participated in past GSoCs.
If your organization has not previously participated in GSoC, have you applied in the past? If so, for what year(s)?
We have not applied in the past.
What license(s) does your project use?
All software in our SourceForge account uses the Academic Free License. Software contributed to the forthcoming Apache Incubator will use the Apache 2.0 License.
What is the URL for your ideas page?
http://www.collab-ogce.org/ogce/index.php/Open_Topics
What is the main development mailing list for your organization?
Our public development list is ogce@googlegroups.com. Our private development list is nsf-sdci-l@indiana.edu.
What is the main IRC channel for your organization?
The IRC channel is #OGCE at irc.dal.net
Does your organization have an application template you would like to see students use? If so, please provide it now.
- Applicant Name:
- Address:
- Contact email and phone:
- Education background:
- Programming skill and project experience:
- Idea(s) interested:
- Proposed solution for the idea(s) interested:
- References to verify your excellence (if applicable):
Who will be your backup organization administrator?
Dr. Marlon Pierce and Dr. Gregor von Laszewski will serve as backup organization administrators.
What criteria did you use to select these individuals as mentors? Please be as specific as possible.
- Willingness and desire to be a mentor;
- Traceable successful teaching experience in computer science, software engineering, and related fields;
- Traceable research experience in parallel computing, distributed computing, and Web computing;
- Solid software development knowledge using popular programming languages, including Java, C, and Python;
- Demonstrated ability to lead teams;
- People-to-people communication skills;
- Demonstrated ability to collaborate with students;
- Presentation skills
What is your plan for dealing with disappearing students?
- We will set up proven and effective communication methods between mentors and students, such as an e-mail list, IRC chat, video meetings, and face-to-face meetings if needed.
- We will mitigate the effect of disappearing students by using proven mechanisms for project management and quality control, such as monitoring the SVN for source code management, the bugzilla system for quality control, and creating weekly/monthly progress reports.
- We will identify a disappearing student via management policies that include inactivity. We will be able to identify early warning signs if a student is not fulfilling the minimum set of communication.
- We will contact disappearing students via various methods such as email, a phone call, or a personal meeting if possible. If this still cannot work, we will report this case to GoSC and try to find a replacement or adjust existing programming task allocation if possible and agreed by GoSC and remaining students.
What is your plan for dealing with disappearing mentors?
- We select mentors (primary, backup) carefully based on their mentalities, personalities, and expertise.
- Our organization has access to more than 10 staff members who could function as substitute mentors.
- We will organize an effective communication mechanism between the OGCE project and mentors, such as an e-mail list, phone meetings, IRC chats, and progress reports.
- We will locate a disappearing mentor based on the management policies.
- For each student project, we will prepare a backup mentor.
- A backup mentor also joins the student daily supervision.
- When a primary mentor is disappearing, the backup mentor will replace him and take over the student supervision.
What steps will you take to encourage students to interact with your project's community before, during and after the program?
To attract students to join our development team, we will distribute our project and research ideas via various media such as workshops and conferences, research papers, email lists, and open source communities (Google code, SourceForge, Sun Developer Network, etc.). During the project development, we will organize the development team with careful schedules, milestones, and weekly meetings. Mentors and students are encouraged to communicate frequently via various means, including Skype, email discussions, and progress reports. We will encourage departing students to continue their development or start new ideas in the context of an OGCE project in their spare time. Selected students will be invited to join other research work with the mentors, such as research paper writing, or advised to pursue a higher degree in the hosting institutions.
What will you do to ensure that your accepted students stick with the project after GSoC concludes?
The OGCE community aims to develop creative solutions for modern cyberinfrastructure with state-of-the-art software technologies. Researchers and developers of the OGCE project promise to share with students their scientific knowledge and software development expertise in the field of parallel and distributed computing. The OGCE project will provide interesting research topics and an exciting development environment for students. Several possibilities exist for continued collaboration. First, interested students may apply for graduate school admission at Indiana University with recommendations from project mentors, where they can continue their collaboration in pursuit of an advanced degree. Second, to meet Apache Incubator graduation requirements, it is mutually beneficial for students and mentors to continue the collaboration. Students who continue to actively contribute to the project have a path towards becoming members of the Apache Software Foundation, which will be a valuable asset in their careers. Finally, the nature of the project is to support scientific discovery through innovative technologies. Students will have the opportunity to work directly with scientific communities and to see how information technology, computer science research, and application sciences depend on each other. The ability to help advance human understanding and to see firsthand the state of the art in many scientific fields outside the student's won field will provide a continuous attraction.
