Findings
As research findings we produced a variety of qualitative analyses of focus groups and interviews with lab managers and researchers together with some descriptive analysis of rating data and coded work activity logs provided by five summer internship students. The goal of these analyses was to ascertain the capabilities needed on the job by eScience Professionals, who play a critical facilitative role in the management of large scale datasets and related collaborative activities of scientists and engineers. These analyses converged on the importance of a tripartite role for eScience Professionals.
First and foremost, these professionals need to have a range of capabilities including knowledge, skills, classroom experience, and familiarity with infrastructure tools for managing large, complex, interconnected databases of research data.
Second, the eScience Professionals play critical roles in bridging communications between the research community and the IT infrastructure community. Throughout our data, communication skills repeatedly arose as an essential area of capability for these professionals.
Third, each of our internship students functioned in one or another paraprofessional role, swinging the pendulum either toward the scientist in which they were expected to conduct tasks such as literature review, data cleaning, and data mining or towards the IT professional. In this latter role, students had responsibilities such as working with content management systems, cloud computing, grid computing, and even some light duties in scripting or programming.
Finally, we have analyzed the findings to triangulate on the areas of knowledge and skill that eScience professionals must possess, and from these knowledge and skill areas have offered suggestions and possibilities for curriculum and program development..