The International Workshop entitled "The Role of Social Network Research in Enabling Cyberinfrastructure and the Role of Cyberinfrastructure in Enabling Social Network Research" brings together leading researchers and practitioners in social network analysis with key scientists and engineers who are in the process of developing cyberinfrastructure for their respective communities. The Workshop will help acquaint the scientific and engineering community with the potential of social networking tools to enhance the communication and knowledge networks within the communities supported by cyberinfrastructure. Traditionally, social network analysis has focused on small and "single mode" or bimodal affiliation networks. The workshop will help the social network analysis community in identifying a research agenda for extending existing theory, methodology, and computational tools to enable large-scale and multidimensional networks. By bringing together leading social network researchers and leading developers of cyberinfrastructure in diverse science and engineering communities, the Workshop will also promote: (i) the specification of new mathematical and statistical models with broad application in the social and behavioral sciences, (ii) the development and extension of scalable algorithms to analyze and visualize the large scale and multidimensional networks that exist within these cybercommunities, and (iii) the development and extension of advanced user-driven software and web services that implement these algorithms to help members of a cybercommunity leverage their communication and knowledge networks. Broader impacts: The Workshop will offer a unique means for a symbiotic exchange of insights between the social network analysis research community (which cuts across many disciplines, but especially sociology, psychology, communication, organizational science, information science and economic) and the key developers of cyberinfrastructure (which cuts across many disciplines including atmospheric sciences, geo sciences, environmental engineering, ecological research, and public health). The Workshop will help network scholars and students identify the challenges as well as the opportunities of social networking to enable research and education within a cyberinfrastructure. This will result in a direct transfer of knowledge and results from the fields of specialist social network research to wider scientific communities exploring the development of cyberinfrastructure in their fields. The workshop will also assess the viability and contours of developing a Social Network Analysis Cyberinfrastructure for advancing network analysis, modeling, visualization research and education. The broad mix of researchers from these various communities has the potential to unleash a new generation of theory, education, and practice on the role of social networking and 21st century cyberinfrastructure.
