The Characteristics of Influencers and Opinion Leaders of Science Gateways and Cyberinfrastructure for Innovation Diffusion

To maximize national investments in science gateways (SGs) and cyberinfrastructure (CI), understanding and harnessing the factors that enable user adoption are critically valuable. In this article, we discuss how the social science concepts of influencers and opinion leaders apply in SG/CI domains and help drive user adoption. We identify three key aspects of influencers based on a systematic analysis of 132 interviews with SG/CI users and experts from 2016–2019: who they are, what qualities they possess, and how they communicate. We find that SG/CI influencers will be most effective if they possess mentoring roles, are active and visible members of an academic or professional community, and facilitate growth within SG/CI at the individual and community levels. We also outline 12 techniques organized under four methodological approaches that SG/CI staff can employ to recruit influencers to help promote adoption.