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Readiness level framework for co-development of virtual labs on the NaaVRE platform

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Version 0.0.2

The NaaVRE platform facilitates data- and computing-centric research activities by enabling scientists to create customizable virtual labs for specific scientific purposes. This is achieved through a collaborative co-development approach, bringing together domain specialists, computational scientists, data scientists, and development and operations engineers.

This readiness level framework assists researchers in virtual lab co-development by:

  • Introducing the content of virtual labs.
  • Defining stakeholder roles.
  • Describing the progression of a virtual lab through readiness levels, highlighting requirements, milestones and responsibilities.

Content of a virtual lab

To successfully develop a reusable and maintainable virtual lab, it is important to understand what a virtual lab is made up of. A NaaVRE virtual lab provides a collection of research tools and assets customized for a specific research need:

  • Assets created in the virtual lab.
  • Documents that support the usability of the virtual lab.

Assets

Three types of assets can be created in a virtual lab:

  • The codebase: Any code written for the virtual lab. The codebase interacts with external resources such as software libraries and external data.
  • Internal data: Produced in the virtual lab by data processing, data analysis, and simulations.
  • Containerized cells and workflows.

Documents

Besides assets, we encourage the developers of a virtual lab to create documents that aid the FAIRness and maintenance of the virtual lab:

  • Metadata.
  • Documentation, including a tutorial.

Stakeholder roles

NaaVRE aims to be a virtual research environment (VRE) that enables experts in computational ecology and ecological data analysis to create virtual labs. Stakeholders are organized into multiple roles to facilitate the collaboration that enables innovative research methods. Some people will only have one role for the virtual lab, while others might have multiple of the following roles:

  • Virtual lab usage roles: Roles for the domain scientists using the virtual lab for their own research.
    • Golden user: Provides a scientific scenario that be well investigated in NaaVRE. Is involved in developing a new virtual lab and conducts the first research in that virtual lab.
    • Silver user: Starts using a virtual lab developed by others for their own scientific scenarios in a workshop, training or hackathon. Learns how to use the virtual lab through a workshop, training or hackathon.
    • Ivory user: Other users that visit or use the virtual lab in a later stage.
  • Virtual lab development roles: Roles involved in the creation of a new virtual lab.
    • Virtual lab core developers: Develop a new virtual lab in NaaVRE. Often the virtual lab owner will be one of the core developers. Core developers are provided or hired by the golden user.
    • Virtual lab code reviewers: Provide feedback during co-development on the user-friendliness, maintainability, and robustness of the source code and other assets.
    • Scientific steering board: Coordinates the development of the virtual lab with a scientific vision.
  • Virtual lab support roles: Roles to support development and use of virtual labs.
    • Community supporter: Forms connections between users and the virtual lab.
    • Virtual lab trainer: Knows the lab from a user viewpoint and provides trainings to new users.
    • Virtual lab coordinator: Knows the lab from a technical perspective and pushes the lab to the next readiness level if there is a user community. Often, this will be an employee at LifeWatch ERIC VLIC
    • Virtual research environment development and operations (VRE DevOps) engineer: Maintains NaaVRE. Often, this will be an employee at LifeWatch ERIC VLIC.
    • VRE researcher: Contributes state-of-the-art components to the NaaVRE and can publish technical papers that demonstrate the relevance of NaaVRE in the field of networked systems.
    • User supporter: Can support users. Knows the potential and limitations of the lab and can help out when problems arise.
    • Infrastructure supporter: Ensures there is infrastructure that allows the virtual lab to be used by multiple users.
    • Infrastructure provider: Organisation that provides infrastructure for the virtual lab.

Readiness levels

We discern five readiness levels in the development of a virtual lab. Virtual labs evolve through these readiness level by improving and expanding the assets and documents of the virtual lab. Higher readiness levels increase the usability of the lab for others, reducing reliance on core developers and the VRE DevOps team.

  • [Initial proposal](L0_initial_proposal):
    The initial proposal of a virtual lab, with conceptual definition but no technical setup.
  • [Co-development](L1_co-development):
    A provisioned virtual lab that is ready for the core development team to implement the virtual lab functionality, e.g. new components, workflows, or experiments.
  • [Validation phase](L2_validation_phase):
    A provisioned virtual lab with developed components. It is ready to run scientific experiments to validate the virtual lab and write scientific publications.
  • [Workshop use](L3_workshop_use):
    A provisioned virtual lab with validated components and scientific stories. It is ready to engage more users through training and hackathons under controlled conditions.
  • [Operational service](L4_operational_service):
    A provisioned virtual lab on operational infrastructure. It is ready to be operational for serving users from the general public.
Level Name Duration Developers Users Context dissemination Entering condition Exit condition
L0 initial proposal 1-12 months 0 0 A good idea & Available resources. Set up a concrete lab on the platform.
L1 Co-development 3-6 months Core developers 6-12 FTE 0 Metadata publication A lab & a core development team. A lab ready for scientific experiments.
L2 Validation phase 3 months A team of core developers 1 Paper publication A lab ready for writing a scientific paper. One or two papers submitted to publication.
L3 Workshop use 3 months Core developers or users 10-25 Workshops, trainings, hackathons A working lab with documentation and training material. The lab has been tested in workshops / hackathons, and has an emerging community.
L4 Operational service Core developers or users 10+ The lab is operational, and can be managed on research infrastructure.

Table 1: Summary of readiness levels, with duration, number of developers and users, how the context of the lab is communicated with the outside world, and what conditions per transition should be met.

images/NaaVRE_development_cycle.drawio.png not found
Figure 1: The virtual lab moves through the readiness levels, from initial proposal to operational service. Users coming up with ideas for new experiments that can not be done in the existing virtual labs, can, in collaboration with LifeWatch, create a new virtual lab that fits their needs.

images/Timeline.drawio.png not found
Figure 2: Timeline per readiness level showing the timing of role involvement. See roles pages for details.

Sources

Potential ToDos for LifeWatch VLIC

To be able to cycle through the entire readiness cycle described here, LifeWatch VLIC needs to provide the following:

Feedback

Any feedback on this document is appreciated. Please contact the LifeWatch VLIC team if you have any questions or comments on the document.