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Edward A. Fox & Chris Connolly
In this section we discuss modest low-cost immediate actions which we believe should be taken within NSF to facilitate use of the Web. We also note that as a pre- or co-requisite to implement these recommendations, NSF will need to ensure that its own Web infrastructure is capable of supporting access by NSF personnel, by the PI community, and eventually by the general public. NSF will need to adequately and appropriately educate, equip and support its personnel for use of the Web in order to implement these recommendations.
NSF should develop a Foundation-wide initiative to encourage PIs to publish information about their NSF-sponsored projects. The project Home Page should have links to all the computer-based artifacts created under the grant. This would typically include published papers and book chapters, technical reports, dissertations and theses, bibliographies, software, data sets, images, videos, audio segments, animations, interactive demonstrations, simulations, talks and lectures, the proposal for the research project, and the final report for the project. The project Home Page should also link to Home Pages for the project PI(s) and GRA(s) and to the academic unit(s) of the PI(s). The process of developing these pages will need to be evolutionary, starting with modest information content but growing over time. Implementing this Recommendation will allow researchers to access up-to-date technical information from their colleagues, and will set expectations for new PIs, as well as assist prospective PIs in formulation their research proposals.
Operationalizing this Recommendation should start in the divisions whose PIs are the most computer-literate, and could be encouraged by:
- Program directors interacting with their PIs;
- Letters sent to PIs as part of the new award package;
- Developing a comprehensive set of example templates for the Home Pages and guidelines defining appropriate content;
- Conducting a competition for the "best" set of project pages.
Home Pages should be established for each NSF division and program. Each program's Home Page should have links to the program description, to the Home Pages of each of the current and recent projects, workshops, centers, etc. supported by that program, the Home Page of the program director, and to the division Home Page.
NSF should pick a model Division, and one or more model areas, for experimentation regarding use of the WWW. Thus, the PIs working on some grand challenge application should be assisted and encouraged to make extensive use of the Web, and this whole process should be carefully studied (e.g., considering usability issues, developing a design history of the process, identifying social and organizational changes).
NSF proposal processing can become a model World-Wide Web management information system. Instead of moving tons of paper around the country to distribute announcements, pre-proposals, full proposals, reviews, and reports, they should be distributed, collated, and posted on the Web. This is the natural way for the current STIS system to evolve, and indeed it must be an evolutionary process, in order to deal with the implementation, infrastructure, and personnel training costs. The results, eventually, should decrease some current operational costs. Further, some aspects of this can't be fully implemented until security is incorporated into Web clients and servers - a trend which is already underway.
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