Hydrologists workbench: A governance model for scientific workflow environments

Scientific workflows (SWF) are an emerging approach that enables scientists to compose and execute complex, distributed scientific processes. The approach is premised on the ability to compose, publish, share and reuse workflows across distributed communities of collaborating scientists. Scientific workflow software (SWFS) provides a technical framework to compose, publish, and reuse SWFs together with data, functionality and computational and other resources upon which they rely. Tools and components are built using service oriented architecture approaches with data and functionality exposed through services. Together, interoperable components from different initiatives form information infrastructure (which as socio-technical endeavours, present specific governance challenges. As workflows, and the resources upon which they rely are distributed and under the ownership of different people and organisations, an enabling governance framework is required. Governance comprises authority structures, roles, policies, processes, and mechanism that enable collective decision-making, and collaborative action to achieve common goals. This paper presents key challenges related to the governance of socio-technical aspects of scientific workflows and workbenches. These include the ‘human activity systems’ that enable the design, creation and sharing of workflows and the technical governance of workflows, and underlying resources throughout their lifecycles. The paper also presents a conceptual model for scientific workflow governance and discusses its application in the Hydrologists’ Workbench (HWB) project.