Reviewing the governance structure of end-user support in e-science infrastructures

Abstract

The research into e-Science infrastructures has changed the face of traditional scientific methods. The maturity of grid technology to get the data distributed around the globe has raised possibilities to perform ground-breaking research within a specific scientific community. However, the governance and management of user support services of e-Science infrastructures yet remain an under-studied topics. Currently, there is hardly a study undertaken to see what governance approach may be suitable to enrich the user support services that an e- Science infrastructure may provide. In this paper, the governance context of the user support services of a use case of a climate e-Science infrastructures: Earth System Grid Federation (ESGF) is taken as a case study. Amongst the plethora of challenges that the user support process in ESGF face, we focus on its governance and make recommendations to improve it. The recommendations are based on an empirical study conducted to find out the current state of user support governance.