CyberTraining: DSE: Self-Service Training Modules for Data-Intensive Neuroscience Learning and Research

University Of Missouri-Columbia, Columbia MO

Investigators

Abstract

This project will develop cyberinfrastructure-based training modules that advance the existing training methods used for learning and research in data-intensive neuroscience communities. The project outcomes will enhance research into our understanding of both normal and abnormal brains, contributing to NSF's mission of advancing progress in both science and health. The project activities will address important gaps in existing training methods that arise because neuroscience research and education activities are increasingly becoming data-intensive. There is a growing need to integrate and analyze voluminous data being generated at multiple levels to explore the functioning of normal and abnormal brains. Consequently, research and training in the area now necessitates access to distributed resources, including multiple software packages, high-performance computing with large numbers of cores, virtual desktops with data sharing/collaboration capabilities, neuro-data archives, and also requires multi-disciplinary expertise (e.g., engineering, biology, psychology). Computational neuroscience researchers, undergraduate and graduate students and teachers (three targeted communities in this project) face challenges in accessing such resources and expertise in a scalable and extensive manner. Further, they lack the necessary training in the use of advanced cyberinfrastructure (CI) technologies and distributed resources to improve their scientific productivity and to pursue large-scale data-enabled investigations. The transformative nature of project's training modules is in the "self-service" nature planned for the modules that make them accessible to neuroscience users in an "on-demand" and "personalized" manner. The training modules development will be based on survey of training needs, and will be focused on having students/teachers/multi-disciplinary researchers use, apply and create hands-on laboratory exercises and tools that can be deployed locally (i.e., within institutional CI) and be supplemented with publicly accessible national resources such as the NSF-funded Neuroscience Gateway (NSG). The training modules will considerably enhance existing traditional neuroscience courses covering foundational concepts at undergraduate, graduate and teacher-training levels with hands-on laboratory exercises related to managing scientific workflows, CI middleware and application programming interfaces (APIs) to integrate geographically distributed resources. The proposed activities will leverage existing active training programs in cloud computing and in neuroscience, and will use NSF-supported advanced CI resources that are available locally at University of Missouri and at NSG. Project outcomes will be integrated into on-going courses (with its 50+ neuroscience faculty spanning 10 departments, and 5 colleges), into on-going NSF and NIH summer training programs, which recruit diverse participants including under-served and under-represented students, and into an on-going K-12 outreach program in neuro-robotics. The summer trainees that are being recruited in this project include over 50 students, neuroscience faculty and cyberinfrastructure engineers interested in advanced cyberinfrastructure capabilities for diverse research and education efforts. In addition, over 80 students will benefit from the training modules within formal classroom courses in existing neuroscience and cyberinfrastructure courses at the University of Missouri, and over 150 students will benefit from outreach activities that include webinars and tutorials at conferences.