Sustaining and Strengthening the US Desk for International Science Grid This Week

iSGTW (International Science Grid This Week) is a unique international weekly online publication that covers distributed computing and the research it enables. They report on all aspects of distributed computing technology, such as grids and clouds. They also regularly feature articles on distributed computing-enabled research in a large variety of disciplines, including physics, biology, sociology, earth sciences, archaeology, medicine, disaster management, crime, and art. (Note that they do not cover stories that are purely about commercial technology) In its current incarnation, iSGTW is also an online destination where you can host a profile and blog, and find and disseminate announcements and information about events, deadlines, and jobs. What many people outside of particle physics may not know is that distributed computing played a crucial role in the race towards the discovery of the Higgs Boson at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at the CERN laboratory in Geneva, Switzerland.

At present, each issue of iSGTW includes three feature articles, a visual, and a spotlight. Visuals present opportunities to showcase something graphic in nature, such as scientific visualizations, while spotlights feature a variety of links, news articles, papers, and so forth. Both items are typically written in a more casual style, with only a small amount of text. iSGTW feature articles are typically 500 - 1,500 words, but sometimes run longer. iSGTW coverage attempts to be rigorously neutral, never favoring projects affiliated with its funding source or Advisory Board, and maintaining balance across world regions.

The iSGTW website, re-launched in January 2011, also has a number of new and exciting community service features. Readers can post announcements, advertise jobs, and add events to the calendar and everything appears on the front page. News feeds on related topics also appeal to readers looking for more background. Similarly, the website has basic social networking functionality: visitors can leave comments, share content, create profiles, and blog.

A large proportion of the news stories covering cyberinfrastructure-enabled research do not mention the computational side of the story. By publishing well-written science stories that explain the computational aspects of the research, iSGTW ensures that taxpayers, policy makers, and other interested readers understand the role of cyberinfrastructure in scientific endeavors.

As a long-established publication, iSGTW has earned the trust of a range of audiences. Furthermore, as an international collaboration with the explicit support of diverse cyberinfrastructures (such as the Open Science Grid and XSEDE), iSGTW is better able to maintain impartiality and credibility, as compared to publications from individual institutions. The general public and members of the press are more likely to give weight to the stories iSGTW runs, and news outlets are more likely to pick them up.

This theory is supported by the growing number of journalists subscribing to iSGTW. In the July 2009 reader survey, only 3% of iSGTW readers identified as journalists. In the most recent survey, that rose to 7%. The subscription list currently includes approximately 130 journalists, not counting those affiliated with foreign-language media. Publications represented include The New York Times, NPR, Science/AAAS, and the Washington Post. iSGTW's email subscriber list has grown to approximately 8,180 today. Web readership is split evenly between the US and the EU, with approximately 40% of viewers hailing from each continent. Viewers from the Asia Pacific region constitute another 13%. Four percent are from the Central and South American sub-continents. The remainder are from Western Asia, the Middle East, and Africa.