Given in plenary to eResearch Australasia, 2011

1. Supporting Developers, Supporting Research
On Twitter: Paul Walk
#devcsi
@paulwalk Director, Innovation Support Centre
Deputy Director, UKOLN
p.walk@ukoln.ac.uk

2. the issue

3. the role of ‘developer’ is not valued
• very few developers make it into senior management in higher education and
research
• developers are not invited to contribute at a strategic level for fear of being
seen to be ‘technology driven’
• developers come and go, often on very junior and short-term contracts -
therefore not recognised and trusted
• we have a rich & continuous source of talent from our student cohorts
• this means that there is little investment in developers
• consequently, we don’t get the best value from our developers (through no
fault of their own!)

4. the case of the missing career path....
Higher Education Institution
?
Postgrad researcher/developer Academic
Undergraduate
Employed developer Manager
?
1 2 3 4 5
}
}
} Spontaneous technical
could happen here
Spontaneous technical
innovation does
happens here
Strategic leadership
for technical
innovation could
happen here

5. response: create conditions
to give developers a
strategic voice

6. about DevCSI
• funded by the JISC
• managed by the UKOLN Innovation
Support Centre
http://devcsi.ukoln.ac.uk

7. events - supporting research directly
• e.g.
• Semantic Web Applications and Tools for Life
Sciences Hackathon - two day event hacking
content, systems and services for the Life
Sciences
• working with Semantic Web Applications &
Tools for Life Sciences and Open Knowledge
Foundation
e SOLR
g2 Apach K
o totypin ins with mmit U
A gile Pr Quick W Tran sfer Su r Group
UK U nix Use
n g
omp uting Open Mappi ringe11
C F
Cloud s a t Repo
Bi o Geek Cha llenge
at OR11 ce
Cha llenge 11y h ackspa ntation
A e
kdays - docum
il ity Hac S oftware
Ac cessib

8. events - empowering developers
• media training to pitch ideas
• peer-peer training
• £85K of ‘free’ training to developers in
one 2-day event

9. direct challenges
• by issuing challenges to engage
developers
• we encourage developers to
collaborate with each other
• we emphasise the importance of
working with non-developers
• we Get (useful) Stuff Done
• “show us the future of repository
systems”
• http://vimeo.com/27049319

10. engaging developers early (undergraduates)
• DevXS & the University of Lincoln
• Student as Producer emphasises the
role of the student as collaborator
in the production of knowledge
• DevXS is about students sharing
their ideas, mashing up data and
building prototypes that improve,
challenge and positively disrupt
the research, teaching and
learning landscapes of further and
higher education
• http://bit.ly/nH8W4D

11. dev8D - the DevCSI developer days
• the (un)conference for developers
in higher education & research
• 4 days of knowledge exchange
and collaborative hacking
• will be in February in London, UK
• we have had great contributions
from Australian participants
before - would love to have more!

12. dev8Dau
• as you can see, dev8D has crossed the world!
• kudos to Steve Androulakis (Monash) & Jared Winton(VeRSI) for organising!

13. the future: a strategic role in
the institution?

14. survey of institutional stakeholders, 2010
• 495 respondents including developers, their managers, IT directors, vendors,
funders, users (academics, librarians, researchers)
• 75%+ agreement that local developers understand the local context and
act as a bridge between remote service providers, open source
communities, and local end users, and add value by integrating into
local contexts
• 75% agreement that local developers work closely with end users to
deliver innovation (more work needed though)
• 70% agreement that local developers are undervalued as evidenced by
short term contracts, lack of professional development or career
opportunities and poor management

15. the strategic local developer:
exploiting the cloud in the local context
Local
Systems
this is where the developer
Technical
net works with peers
Requirements Peer
Developer
this is where economies of
Organisational
End User scale and cost reduction is
Requirements
Requirements achieved
Remote,
User/ Strategic Remote
(commercial)
Domain Local System
technical (SaaS)
expert Developer
contacts
}
} this is where local
innovation happens
local context
this is where the cost of
outsourcing is mitigated
remote context

16. "If the UK's creative businesses want to thrive in
the digital future, you need people who understand
all facets of it integrated from the very beginning.
Take a lead from the Victorians [...]: bring
engineers into your company at all levels,
including the top."
Eric Schmidt, Chairman of Google

17. thank you for listening!
thanks to Dr Ann Borda & VeRSI for supporting my visit
http://devcsi.ukoln.ac.uk
#devcsi @paulwalk