[Sigsti-l] Report from NASA's AISRP Annual Workshop

[Joe Hourcle]

>From last year's solicitation for proposals:

	The purpose of the Applied Information Systems Research (AISR)
	Program is to exploit advances in information science and
	technology to enhance science productivity of the three science
	programs sponsored by the Science Mission Directorate.

Basically, the workshop was for the investigators in the program to share
the work they're doing, as both a status update, and to try to foster more
cross-discipline collaboration.

Although many of the current research is on mathematics to process data,
there was some work specifically on information systems to store,
distribute and process data.  Most of these were in some way related to
the various 'Virtual Observatory' efforts (which I've since discovered the
roughly equivalent library concept is the 'Virtual Union Catalog'), and
grid computing.  There were also a few presentations on data visualization
work, and one presentation on the development of an astrophysics ontology
for automating data analysis.

Due to the heavy math and computer science focus of the various
presentations, I specifically asked the NASA official in charge of the
program (Joe Bredekamp) if they would consider library and information
science research if it had the potential for benefit to NASA's science
missions, and he said yes, and asked me to specifically reach out to this
community.


So, as I understand it, the basic rules for proposals:

	* 1-3 years in length.
	* A low TRL (technology readiness level) ... bascially this is for
	  prototyping novel ideas, not for polishing existing proven
	  work.**
	* It needs to partner with one or more NASA funded investigations
	  (as they would effectively 'use' the work done to better their
	  investigations)

	** You may propose novel new features / extensions to existing
	   technology, though.

(I might be mixing up bits from what Jim Fischer presented on ... slides
from the presentations should be posted on the AISRP website soon:
http://aisrp.nasa.gov ... and see the draft in ROSES ... link is below)

And, for those adverse to risk -- we were told that there's about US$5
million available, and in the last round there was US$35M in proposals,
and 38 of 175 proposals were accepted.



If you're interested in the work done, especially for the possibility
of coordination with the researchers, the abstracts that were submitted in
advance of the conference are available at:

	http://aisrp.nasa.gov/abstractBooklet.doc


If you'd like more information about the program guidelines, there is a
draft in ROSES (Research Opportunities in Space & Earth Sciences) 2006,
appendix E, part 2:

	http://nspires.nasaprs.com/external/solicitations/summary.do?method=init&solId={307FF8D5-59A9-E2E0-0637-6ED8AB166C4F}&path=open

Solicitations are due in January, but in looking at ROSES, there's a
notice of intent required by the end of November.  (I've never been
involved in the proposal process, so I'm not sure what all of the
processes are).


----
Joe Hourcle


ps.  I know this is from Jim Fischer's slides (Discussion Period: Gaps
     and Opportunities for HEC), so I'm not sure if it's about AISRP, or
     other research programs at NASA ... you'll want to look for the
     slides to be posted, because he flipped by faster than I could write,
     but he said that 'data management' was in scope, and he had a really
     long slide with various brainstorming ideas, which included 'improve
     documentation technology'.