Innovation and Transformation

The DNA of Internet2 is helping institutions identify and act upon common challenges and opportunities that are best taken on in the collective and/or can’t be taken on as a single institution. This founding genetic material can easily be observed in the current portfolio of services and capabilities that Internet2 provides and curates. In 1998, the community came together to build and operate a national network to support the mission specific needs of research universities. Within the next ten years, research universities came together again to define and build a “trust network” called InCommon. Most recently, many of the same universities initiated the creation of cloud service capabilities, NET+ Cloud Services. In each case, universities observed the same challenges at the same time and perhaps most importantly saw the benefit in creating new capabilities together.

While each existing service (network, trust, and cloud services) has changed and adapted many times over since their founding, no new capability areas have been identified since 2011 when NET+ was founded. The landscapes in which traditional Internet2 stakeholders operate have changed dramatically over the last ten years. On top of that, there is a very large cohort of new Internet2 stakeholders. Their landscapes have also changed, and they have a need for an organization such as Internet2 to continue to explore new capabilities — for both traditional and new stakeholders.

Status: Internet2 senior management is exploring avenues to create this group and its intended outcomes. Community leaders will be consulted to define requirements, expectations. Target for creation is Q3 2024.

Significant policy drivers in the European Union (EU), and recently in the United States, have propelled open access to on-line scholarly research materials and the data that supports the research. The research domains include both physical sciences and social sciences, libraries and cultural institutions, and medical and governmental outputs. These open science initiatives have a substantial set of challenges to consider, including addressing changes to the elements of the publishing infrastructure and workflow, resolving publishing fees and publisher economic models, implementing Findability, Accessibility, Interoperability, and Reuse of digital assets (FAIR) principles in practice, dealing with existing various national content embargoes, measuring policy impacts, and protecting privacy for both researchers and for data subjects. 

In addition, while the EU has created a common policy across countries and research areas, within the United States each science agency is creating its own open science protocols, adding to the complexity. Organizations such as universities and research facilities that need to comply with these initiatives have an equally daunting set of tasks ahead, from repositories for content and data to management of metadata about that content, from security of the depositing and editing processes to protecting the privacy of the data and of the researchers accessing the content and data.

Many, though not all, of the requirements being established by the open science initiatives could be well-served by a community-oriented approach. Sharing guidance and baselines for compliance and fostering consistency in policy interpretations are obvious examples. Other requirements seem able to scaffold on top of existing Internet2 activities. For example, the FAIR compliant storage requirements of open science can build on existing NET+ storage activities with enriched metadata mechanisms. Those institutions using institutional repositories to respond to open science offer an opportunity to align federated repositories with identity federations.

Some open science requirements may be uniquely met by Internet2 scholarly infrastructure such as InCommon and associated schema. There is a growing awareness that open access will need to be managed. Numerous use cases have emerged where managed open access will be needed to protect privacy, comply with other regulations, provide accessibility, respect the rules of copyright holders or other conditions that affect to whom and how content is made available. Examples abound in the special collections departments of our libraries where donors have set rules; in the artifacts held in our museums but owned by indigenous communities; in university presses and how they produce collections; in medical schools where patient privacy rules must be integrated; in Anthropology and Psychology departments that might interact with protected groups. Fortunately, and perhaps uniquely, InCommon offers the scholarly infrastructure that can do this. Leveraging the eduPerson schema for attributes that help control access and then sharing those between InCommon members while preserving privacy could be a cornerstone of managed open science.

Moreover, with the advances in digital humanities, new communities and anchor tenants become opportunities for partnerships. Cultural institutions on campus, from museums to fine arts, could benefit from more active use of the T&I infrastructure. Organizations like Lyrasis have a large overlap of their membership with InCommon but represent very different parts of the campus.  And with these new participants could come new involvement with their typically non-government funders such as the Gates Foundation, Mellon, Getty, and others. These funders have expressed their desire to measure the effectiveness of open science, and again InCommon capabilities might be part of the solution. 

A first step could be to convene a community working group to sort out the several opportunities here. Fortunately, these prospects involve enough touch points with Internet2 that several might be possible to initiate. Observing upcoming regulatory deadlines, convening this group soon might be valuable.

Status: The creation of this kind of group/task force is in active discussion among Internet2 staff. The InCommon Steering Committee has also been consulted about this activity. Nascent discussions have taken place regarding the possible creation of a standard research advisory group who could adopt this as an area to continually monitor and about which to make suggestions. Target for creation is Q2 2024.

The challenges posed by big data have persisted for decades, continuously evolving alongside the ever-changing definitions of what constitutes “big” data. These challenges are compounded by market changes where major cloud service providers have shifted away from offering free and/or unlimited storage to customers. Recognizing the significance and broad impact of these issues on the Internet2 community and beyond, Internet2 has embarked on a new and cross-cutting initiative aimed at establishing a community working group. This group will assess R&E strategies to manage, curate, and access big data, aligning with the larger theme of Innovation and Transformation.

Some efforts to support enterprise and research storage needs are already underway. A Cloud Storage Working Group was created in March 2021 to deal with the technical and policy implications created by the ‘end of unlimited storage’ and the creation and sprawl of online course content during the COVID-19 pandemic. That group developed many resources, presentations, and their efforts ultimately culminated in Internet2 issuing an Request for Information (RFI) in early 2023 for cloud storage migration tools to help institutions move large data off of enterprise file sync and share solutions and other Software as a Service (SaaS) applications and to more cost-effective storage solutions.

To address these challenges comprehensively, Internet2 will leverage its existing ties to relevant communities and organizations while also establishing new connections where necessary. The primary objective is to support the formation of a working group tasked with conducting an assessment of the current state of the research data challenge. The working group will collaborate closely with various stakeholders to gather insights and perspectives. Subsequently, the group will deliver a comprehensive report to the Internet2 community, presenting its findings and recommendations.

This initiative represents a vital aspect of Internet2’s Research Engagement Program, which continually addresses the broader challenges of Research Computing and Data (RCD). The working group’s report will not only provide a detailed analysis of the research data challenge but also offer recommendations for Internet2’s future actions. It will identify potential areas for further exploration, highlight gaps in existing strategies, and suggest priority challenges that warrant attention. Moreover, the report will propose who or what organizations should take responsibility for addressing these challenges.

In addition to the report, the working group will curate and disseminate a range of resources, guidelines, and case studies. These materials will serve as valuable references for the Internet2 community and beyond, enabling researchers and educators to navigate the complexities of big data management effectively.

Given the widespread nature of discussions surrounding this topic, Internet2 acknowledges the multitude of ongoing conversations in various communities. Groups such as CaRCC, Champions, the Common Solutions Group (CSG), the Research Data Alliance (RDA), RDAP, ADSA, U.S. Research Software Engineer Association (US-RSE), EDUCAUSE, the Coalition for Networked Information (CNI), ACCESS, the Science Gateways Community Institute (SGCI), CI Compass, RRCoP, BDHubs, the Coalition for Academic Scientific Computation (CASC), the Eastern Regional Network (ERN), and more have been actively engaging in these discussions. Recognizing the expertise and involvement of libraries in data curation, Internet2 aims to foster stronger connections between the Internet2 community and their respective libraries.

As for the timeline, it will depend on the availability of resources and coordination efforts within Internet2. An Internet2 coordinator will be essential to facilitate the formation and functioning of the working group. Collaborative analysis of the research data ecosystem and identification of gaps will be crucial steps, followed by the production of the report.

While this initiative aligns with the community’s concerns, it is essential to note that the challenges of big data management are not entirely new. The primary outcome of this initiative is to provide reassurance to the individuals who raised the concerns, demonstrating that numerous groups are actively addressing these challenges. The working group will shed light on the complex nature of the issue and emphasize that it extends beyond a mere storage problem.

Despite the initiation of this particular effort, Internet2 will continue to engage with the RCD community and support ongoing projects like Nexus and CaRCC. The role of Internet2 in this space goes beyond the provision of tools; it encompasses a collaborative approach that involves network, identity, security, and cloud services.

In conclusion, the establishment of the Community Working Group to assess R&E strategies for managing big data is a significant step for Internet2. It represents a commitment to innovation and transformation within the research and education sector. By convening relevant stakeholders, analyzing the current state of the research data challenge, and delivering a comprehensive report with actionable recommendations, Internet2 aims to shape the future of research and education in an increasingly data-driven world.

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Status:  Internet2 senior management is exploring avenues to create such a group. Some of this work is ongoing in a NET+ cloud services context and is being tracked and advised by the NET+ Program Advisory Group (PAG), the Cloud Services, Technology and Architecture Committee. Relevant NET+ Service Advisory Boards are also directly and indirectly exploring complementary solutions. Nascent discussions have taken place regarding the possible creation of a standard research advisory group who could adopt this as an area to continually monitor and about which to make suggestions.

The entire research and education community continues to be challenged with workforce development, career path enhancement, and staffing. Internet2 has a compelling opportunity to partner with the R&E community and other associations to address these challenges. Internet2 will explore sponsoring workforce and professional development opportunities that focus on the Internet2 community’s core mission components (e.g., network engineering, cloud, trust and identity, research support, and information security). Internet2 will also invite the community to join together to partner more with industry on professional development opportunities to fill gaps in technical skill development in specific technologies offered by companies that work with Internet2.

Status: Internet2 staff are exploring pathways to consolidating existing training capabilities. This area will require more and sustained requirement gathering from a broad range of community leaders.  No target for instantiation yet.

R&E institutions face unique information security and privacy challenges in their efforts to protect their institutions, while also complying with changing regulations and standards with increasingly decreasing resources. Institutions need to manage the risks associated with cyberattacks, data breaches, fraud, and other threats, also ensuring the continuity and resilience of their operations all while operating in an environment that encourages collaboration and openness. This is a difficult challenge, but one advantage R&E institutions have in this area is a long history of cross-institutional collaboration to solve key emerging challenges.

In information security, the R&E community has already built strategic collaborations and made meaningful investments in emerging areas, such as the development of the Higher Education Community Vendor Assessment Toolkit (HECVAT) and the Cloud Broker Index to address the proliferation of SaaS solutions. In most cases, the collection, management, and sharing are siloed across different community members and vendor services and not addressing all of the SaaS solutions used. Aligning on a more shared approach presents an opportunity for the community to better understand what assessments are already available and create more efficiency by reducing duplication of effort to perform assessments for all services used. This is more necessary than ever as the number of SaaS solutions in use at R&E institutions continues to grow and additional resources are required. In other words, there are more services to assess used by more campuses than ever before and the number will continue to grow.

Existing and emerging requirements also necessitate that R&E institutions move beyond the one-time collection of documentation from vendors and engage in a comprehensive risk management program across the lifecycle for SaaS solutions. Some R&E institutions are already leveraging GRC platforms or similar services to support these requirements. These services can help institutions more quickly collect required documentation, provide third-party assessments, and provide risk or trust scoring to help institutions make informed decisions on all SaaS solutions.

Based on feedback from Leadership Exchange 2022, feedback from advisory groups, and other community engagement efforts, Internet2 has already announced an effort to embark upon the development of requirements for a software solution to support the R&E community’s needs for such assessments. This effort could result in sourcing a vendor-delivered solution or developing a solution to meet the unique needs of the community. Internet2 possesses the staff experience and process in the NET+ program working on efforts such as these for over a decade and is well equipped to lead these efforts provided the right resource allocation. Any successful effort will require continuing to work alongside other R&E community groups such as EDUCAUSE, and the Research and Education Networks Information Sharing and Analysis Center (REN-ISAC) to ensure cross-community alignment as well as engaging with other community groups supporting the growing discipline of vendor risk management.

Status:  These activities and directions are in active discussion in various NET+ advisory contexts.  Changes to existing services and the addition of new services are being explored.