Science gateways serve as connection points, assembling the various components of advanced cyberinfrastructure - data collections, instruments, supercomputers, clouds, and analytical tools - behind streamlined, user-friendly interfaces. They are typically a community-developed web portal or a suite of desktop applications. Gateways can provide scalable access to many things: a highly-tuned parallel application running on a supercomputer; a remote instrument like a telescope or electron microscope; a curated data collection; tools to create workflows and visualizations linking these different resources; and collaborative venues to discuss results, share curricula and presentations and more. Gateways enable not only researchers with a common scientific goal but also students and members of the broader community by providing access to top-tier resources. Gateways provide both a user-centric and a community-centric view (with social networking) of the cyberinfrastructure. There is much that is common in gateway development regardless of the domain area.
This special issue targets submissions in the area of science gateways. Topics include but are not limited to:
- Science gateway enabling technologies and development frameworks
- Ready to use science gateways in different areas and disciplines
- Management of high-throughput data via science gateways
- Portal technology and portal construction methods
- Usage models and gateway tools in different disciplines
- Security aspects of science gateways
- Usability studies of science gateways
- Workflows and service composition in science gateways
- High level tools for managing grid and cloud portability