What is Cyberinfrastructure?

Abstract
Cyberinfrastructure is a word commonly used but lacking a single, precise definition. One recognizes intuitively the analogy with infrastructure, and the use of cyber to refer to thinking or computing – but what exactly is cyberinfrastructure as opposed to information technology infrastructure? Indiana University has developed one of the more widely cited definitions of cyberinfrastructure: "Cyberinfrastructure consists of computing systems, data storage systems, advanced instruments and data repositories, visualization environments, and people, all linked together by software and high performance networks to improve research productivity and enable breakthroughs not otherwise possible." A second definition, more inclusive of scholarship generally and educational activities, has also been published and is useful in describing cyberinfrastructure: "Cyberinfrastructure consists of systems, data and information management, advanced instruments, visualization environments, and people, all linked together by software and advanced networks to improve scholarly productivity and enable knowledge breakthroughs and discoveries not otherwise possible." In this paper, we describe the origin of the term cyberinfrastructure based on the history of the root word infrastructure, discuss several terms related to cyberinfrastructure, and provide several examples of cyberinfrastructure.
Description
Keywords
teragrid, open science grid, infrastructure, e-science, cyberinfrastructure
Citation
Stewart, C., S. Simms, B. Plale, M. Link, D. Hancock and G. Fox. What is Cyberinfrastructure? In: Proceedings of SIGUCCS 2010 (Norfolk, VA, 24-27 Oct, 2010).
DOI
Link(s) to data and video for this item
Relation
Rights
Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. SIGUCCS’10, October 24–27, 2010, Norfolk, Virginia, USA. Copyright 2010 ACM 978-1-4503-0003-2/10/10...$10.00
Type
Working Paper