Conducting research in the cloud

Web 2.0 research is a term for research that uses Web platforms and tools for collaboration, communication, and knowledge generation by researchers who may be geographically dispersed. The new tools allow additional forms of synergistic collaborations between ad-hoc groups of researchers, crowdsourcing of new ideas, and to represent innovative platforms for sharing knowledge more rapidly. In parallel with these new research developments, cloud computing has emerged as a new way to provision and use IT resources to all types of computer users. With cloud computing, computer services are accessed over the Internet in a scalable fashion, and users are abstracted from the actual hardware and software, paying only for resources they use. This chapter discusses how current and future research will make use of cloud computing and how Web 2.0-based research models are transforming how research is conducted globally. It examines these new IT infrastructure models and explores how they can be deployed by organizations and individuals. It then discusses the benefits of cloud computing to the research enterprise and future directions for cloud computing-based research.