Collaboratory
Encyclopedia
A collaboratory, as defined by William Wulf
in 1989, is a “center without walls, in which the nation’s researchers can perform their research without regard to physical location, interacting with colleagues, accessing instrumentation, sharing data and computational resources, [and] accessing information in digital libraries
” (Wulf, 1989).
Bly (1998) refines the definition to “a system
which combines the interests of the scientific community at large with those of the computer science
and engineering
community to create integrated, tool-oriented computing and communication systems to support scientific collaboration” (Bly, 1998, p. 31).
Rosenberg (1991) considers a collaboratory as being an experimental and empirical
research environment in which scientists work and communicate with each other to design systems, participate in collaborative science, and conduct experiments to evaluate and improve systems.
A simplified form of these definitions would describe the collaboratory as being an environment where participants make use of computing and communication technologies to access shared instruments and data, as well as to communicate with others.
However, a wide-ranging definition is provided by Cogburn (2003) who states that “a collaboratory is more than an elaborate collection of information and communications technologies; it is a new networked organizational form that also includes social processes; collaboration techniques; formal and informal communication; and agreement on norms, principles, values, and rules” (Cogburn, 2003, p. 86).
This concept has a lot in common with the notions of Interlock research
, Information Routing Group
and Interlock diagram
s introduced in 1984.
Therefore, collaboratories have been put into operation in response to these concerns and restrictions. However, the development and implementation proves to be not so inexpensive. From 1992 to 2000 financial budgets for scientific research and development of collaboratories ranged from US$
447,000 to US$
10,890,000 and the total use ranged from 17 to 215 users per collaboratory (Sonnenwald, 2003). Particularly higher costs occurred when software packages were not available for purchase and direct integration into the collaboratory or when requirements and expectations were not met.
Chin and Lansing (2004) state that the research and development of scientific collaboratories had, thus far, a tool-centric approach. The main goal was to provide tools for shared access and manipulation of specific software systems or scientific instruments. Such an emphasis on tools was necessary in the early development years of scientific collaboratories due to the lack of basic collaboration tools (e.g. text chat, synchronous audio or videoconferencing
) to support rudimentary levels of communication and interaction. Today, however, such tools are available in off-the-shelf software packages such as Microsoft NetMeeting
, IBM
Lotus Sametime
, Mbone
Videoconferencing
(Chin and Lansing, 2004). Therefore the design of collaboratories may now move beyond developing general communication mechanisms to evaluating and supporting the very nature of collaboration in the scientific context (Chin & Lansing, 2004).
s. Collaboration, Chin and Lansing (2004) state, is driven both by the need to share data and to share knowledge about data. Shared data is only useful if sufficient context is provided about the data such that collaborators may comprehend and effectively apply it. It is therefore imperative, according to Chin and Lansing (2004), to know and understand how data sets relate to aspects of overall data space, applications, experiments, projects, and the scientific community, identifying the critical features or properties among which we can mention:
Henline (1998) argues that communication about experimental data is another important characteristic of a collaboratory. By focusing attention on the dynamics of information exchange, the study of Zebrafish Information Network Project (Henline, 1998) concluded that the key challenges in creating a collaboratory may be social rather than technical. “A successful system must respect existing social conventions while encouraging the development of analogous mechanisms within the new electronic forum” (Henline, 1998, p. 69). Similar observations were made in the Computer-supported collaborative learning
(CSCL) case study (Cogburn, 2003). The author (Cogburn, 2003) is investigating a collaboratory established for researchers in education and other related domains from United States of America and southern Africa
. The main finding was that there have been important intellectual contributions on both sides, although the context was that of a developed country working together with a developing one and there have been social as well as cultural barriers. He further develops the idea that a successful CSCL would need to draw the best lessons learned on both sides in computer-mediated communication
(CMC) and computer-supported cooperative work (CSCW).
Sonnenwald (2003) conducted seventeen interviews with scientists and revealed important considerations. Scientists expect a collaboratory to “support their strategic plans; facilitate management of the scientific process; have a positive or neutral impact on scientific outcomes; provide advantages and disadvantages for scientific task execution; and provide personal conveniences when collaborating across distances” (Sonnenwald, 2003, p. 68). Many scientists looked at the collaboratory as means to achieve strategic goals that were organizational and personal in nature. Other scientists anticipated that the scientific process would speed up when they had access to the collaboratory.
(UCD) approach. This means a commitment to develop software in programming environments that allow rapid prototyping, rapid development cycles (Finholt, 1995). A consequence of the user-centered design
in the collaboratory is that the system developers must be able to distinguish when a particular system or modification has positive impact on users’ work practices. An important part of obtaining this understanding is producing an accurate picture of how work is done prior to the introduction of technology. Finholt (1995) explains that behavioral scientists
had the task of understanding the actual work settings for which new information technologies were developed. The goal of a user-centered design
effort was to inject those observations back into the design process to provide a baseline for evaluating future changes and to illuminate productive directions for prototype development (Finholt, 1995).
A similar viewpoint is expressed by Cogburn (2003) who relates the collaboratory to a globally distributed knowledge work, stating that human-computer interaction (HCI) and user-centered design
(UCD) principles are critical for organizations to take advantage of the opportunities of globalization
and the emergence of an Information society
. He (Cogburn, 2003) refers to distributed knowledge
work as being a set of “economic activities that produce intangible goods and services […], capable of being both developed and distributed around the world using the global information and communication networks” (Cogburn, 2003, p. 81). Through the use of these global information and communications networks, organizations are able to take part in globally disarticulated production, which means they can locate their research and development facilities almost anywhere in the world, and engineers can collaborate across time zones, institutions and national boundaries.
The vast majority of the evaluations performed thus far are concentrating mainly on the usage statistics (e.g. total number of members, hours of use, amount of data communicated) or on the immediate role in the production of traditional scientific outcomes (e.g. publications and patents). Sonnenwald (2003), however, argues that we should rather look for longer-term and intangible measures such as new and continued relationship among scientists, and subsequent, longer-term creation of new knowledge.
Regardless of the criteria used for evaluation, we must focus on understanding the expectations and requirements defined for a collaboratory. Without such understanding a collaboratory runs the risk of not being adopted.
Collaboration readiness is the most basic pre-requisite for an effective collaboratory, according to Olson, Teasley, Bietz, and Cogburn (2002). Often the critical component to collaboration readiness is based on the concept of “working together in order to achieve a science goal” (Olson, Teasley, Bietz, & Cogburn, 2002, p. 46). Incentive
s to collaborate, shared principles of collaboration, and experience with the elements of collaboration are also crucial. Successful interaction between users requires a certain amount of common ground. Interactions require a high degree of trust or negotiation, especially when they involve areas where there is a cultural difference. “Ethical norms tend to be culturally specific, and negotiations about ethical issues require high levels of trust” (Olson, Teasley, Bietz, & Cogburn, 2002, p. 49).
When analyzing the collaboration infrastructure readiness Olson, Teasley, Bietz, and Cogburn (2002) state that modern collaboration tools require adequate infrastructure to operate properly. Many off-the-shelf applications will run effectively only on state-of-the-art workstations. An important piece of the infrastructure is the technical support necessary to ensure version control, to get participants registered, and to recover in case of disaster. Communications cost is another element which can be critical for collaboration infrastructure readiness (Olson, Teasley, Bietz, & Cogburn, 2002). Pricing structures for network connectivity can affect the choices that users will make and therefore have an effect on the collaboratory’s final design and implementation.
Collaboration technology readiness, according to Olson, Teasley, Bietz, and Cogburn (2002), refers to the fact that collaboration does not involve only technology and infrastructure, but also requires a considerable investment in training. Thus, it is essential to assess the state of technology readiness in the community to ensure success. If the level is too primitive more training is required to bring the users’ knowledge up-to-date.
A comprehensively described example is the Biological Sciences Collaboratory (BSC) at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (Chin & Lansing, 2004). This collaboratory enables the sharing and analysis of biological data through metadata
capture, electronic laboratory notebooks
, data organization views, data provenance
tracking, analysis notes, task management, and scientific workflow management
. BSC supports various data formats, has data translation capabilities, and is able to interact and exchange data with other sources (e.g. external database
s). It offers subscription capabilities (to allow certain individuals to access data), verification of identities, establishes and manages permissions and privileges, and has data encryption
capabilities (to ensure secure data transmission
) as part of its security package.
BSC also provides a data provenance
tool and a data organization tool. These tools allow a hierarchical tree
to display the historical lineage of a data set. From this tree-view the scientist may select a particular node
(or an entire branch) to access a specific version of the data set (Chin & Lansing, 2004).
The task management
provided by BSC allows users to define and track tasks related to a specific experiment or project. Tasks can have deadlines assigned, levels of priority, and dependencies. Tasks can also be queried
and various reports produced. Related to task management
, BSC provides workflow management
to capture, manage, and supply standard paths of analyses. The scientific workflow may be viewed as process templates that captures and semi-automate the steps of an analysis process and its encompassing data sets and tools (Chin & Lansing, 2004).
BSC provides project collaboration by allowing scientists to define and manage members of their group. Security and authentication mechanisms are therefore applied to limit access to project data and applications. Monitoring capability allows for members to identify other members that are online working on the project (Chin & Lansing, 2004).
BSC offers community collaboration capabilities: scientists may publish their data sets to a larger community through the data portal. Notifications are in place for scientists interested in a particular set of data and when that data is modified the scientists get a notification via email (Chin & Lansing, 2004).
on widely distributed computers (distributed computing
), including supercomputers; web accessible data archiving capabilities for sharing graphical experimental or modeling data; electronic notebooks
and shared workspace
s for facilitating collaboration; visualization of combustion
data; and videoconferencing
and data conferencing
among researchers at remote sites” (Pancerella, Rahn, & Yang, 1999, p. 1).
The collaboratory design team defined the requirements to be (Pancerella, Rahn, & Yang, 1999):
Each of these requirements had to be done securely and efficiently across the Internet. Resources availability was a major concern because many of the chemistry simulations could run for hours or even days on high-end workstations and produce Kilobytes to Megabytes of data sets. These data sets had to be visualized using simultaneous 2-D plots
of multiple variables (Pancerella, Rahn, & Yang, 1999).
The deployment of the DCC was done in a phased approach. The first phase was based on iterative development, testing, and deployment of individual collaboratory tools. Once collaboratory team members had adequately tested each new tool, it was deployed to combustion researchers. The deployment of the infrastructure (videoconferencing
tools, multicast
routing
capabilities, and data archives) was done in parallel (Pancerella, Rahn, & Yang, 1999). The next phase was to implement full security in the collaboratory. The primary focus was on two-way synchronous and multi-way asynchronous collaborations
(Pancerella, Rahn, & Yang, 1999). The challenge was to balance the increased access to data that was needed with the security requirements. The final phase was the broadening of the target research to multiple projects including a broader range of collaborators.
The collaboratory team found that the highest impact was perceived by the geographically separated scientists that truly depended on each other to achieve their goals. One of the team’s major challenges was to overcome the technological and social barriers in order to meet all of the objectives (Pancerella, Rahn, & Yang, 1999). User openness and low maintenance security collaboratories are hard to achieve, therefore user feedback and evaluation are constantly required.
Special consideration should be attributed to TANGO (Henline, 1998) because it is a step forward in implementing collaboratories, as it has distance learning and health care as main domains of operation. Henline (1998) mentions that the collaboratory has been successfully used to implement applications for distance learning, command and control center, telemedical bridge, and a remote consulting tool suite.
The use of collaborative technologies to support geographically distributed scientific research is gaining wide acceptance in many parts of the world. Such collaboratories hold great promise for international cooperation in critical areas of scientific research and not only. As the frontiers of knowledge are pushed back the problems get more and more difficult, often requiring large multidisciplinary teams to make progress. The collaboratory is emerging as a viable solution, using communication and computing technologies to relax the constraints of distance and time, creating an instance of a virtual organization. The collaboratory is both an opportunity with very useful properties, but also a challenge to human organizational practices (Olson, 2002).
William Wulf
William Allan Wulf is a computer scientist notable for his work in programming languages and compilers.Born in Chicago, Illinois, he attended the University of Illinois, receiving a BS in Engineering Physics and an MS in Electrical Engineering, then achieved the first Ph.D. in Computer Science...
in 1989, is a “center without walls, in which the nation’s researchers can perform their research without regard to physical location, interacting with colleagues, accessing instrumentation, sharing data and computational resources, [and] accessing information in digital libraries
Digital library
A digital library is a library in which collections are stored in digital formats and accessible by computers. The digital content may be stored locally, or accessed remotely via computer networks...
” (Wulf, 1989).
Bly (1998) refines the definition to “a system
System
System is a set of interacting or interdependent components forming an integrated whole....
which combines the interests of the scientific community at large with those of the computer science
Computer science
Computer science or computing science is the study of the theoretical foundations of information and computation and of practical techniques for their implementation and application in computer systems...
and engineering
Engineering
Engineering is the discipline, art, skill and profession of acquiring and applying scientific, mathematical, economic, social, and practical knowledge, in order to design and build structures, machines, devices, systems, materials and processes that safely realize improvements to the lives of...
community to create integrated, tool-oriented computing and communication systems to support scientific collaboration” (Bly, 1998, p. 31).
Rosenberg (1991) considers a collaboratory as being an experimental and empirical
Empirical
The word empirical denotes information gained by means of observation or experimentation. Empirical data are data produced by an experiment or observation....
research environment in which scientists work and communicate with each other to design systems, participate in collaborative science, and conduct experiments to evaluate and improve systems.
A simplified form of these definitions would describe the collaboratory as being an environment where participants make use of computing and communication technologies to access shared instruments and data, as well as to communicate with others.
However, a wide-ranging definition is provided by Cogburn (2003) who states that “a collaboratory is more than an elaborate collection of information and communications technologies; it is a new networked organizational form that also includes social processes; collaboration techniques; formal and informal communication; and agreement on norms, principles, values, and rules” (Cogburn, 2003, p. 86).
This concept has a lot in common with the notions of Interlock research
Interlock research
Interlock research is a concept used to overcome the gaps in individual or group knowledge of which they are unaware of and which would result in incorrect action being taken, or important action not taken, leading to unintended consequences. It is based on the notion that no individual or group...
, Information Routing Group
Information Routing Group
An Information Routing Group is a component of social networks consisting of a semi-infinite set of similar interlocking and overlapping groups...
and Interlock diagram
Interlock diagram
An interlock diagram is a real or imagined diagram that plots the actual interactions, physical, political, social, environmental between all entities within human societies. Each node is a specific activity such as a power station, or a policy such as controlled rent...
s introduced in 1984.
Background
Problems of geographic separation are especially present in large research projects. The time and cost for traveling, the difficulties in keeping contact with other scientists, the control of experimental apparatus, the distribution of information, and the large number of participants in a research project are just a few of the issues researchers are faced with.Therefore, collaboratories have been put into operation in response to these concerns and restrictions. However, the development and implementation proves to be not so inexpensive. From 1992 to 2000 financial budgets for scientific research and development of collaboratories ranged from US$
United States dollar
The United States dollar , also referred to as the American dollar, is the official currency of the United States of America. It is divided into 100 smaller units called cents or pennies....
447,000 to US$
United States dollar
The United States dollar , also referred to as the American dollar, is the official currency of the United States of America. It is divided into 100 smaller units called cents or pennies....
10,890,000 and the total use ranged from 17 to 215 users per collaboratory (Sonnenwald, 2003). Particularly higher costs occurred when software packages were not available for purchase and direct integration into the collaboratory or when requirements and expectations were not met.
Chin and Lansing (2004) state that the research and development of scientific collaboratories had, thus far, a tool-centric approach. The main goal was to provide tools for shared access and manipulation of specific software systems or scientific instruments. Such an emphasis on tools was necessary in the early development years of scientific collaboratories due to the lack of basic collaboration tools (e.g. text chat, synchronous audio or videoconferencing
Videoconferencing
Videoconferencing is the conduct of a videoconference by a set of telecommunication technologies which allow two or more locations to interact via two-way video and audio transmissions simultaneously...
) to support rudimentary levels of communication and interaction. Today, however, such tools are available in off-the-shelf software packages such as Microsoft NetMeeting
Microsoft NetMeeting
Microsoft NetMeeting was a VoIP and multi-point videoconferencing client included in many versions of Microsoft Windows . It used the H.323 protocol for video and audio conferencing, and was interoperable with OpenH323-based clients such as Ekiga, and Internet Locator Service as reflector...
, IBM
IBM
International Business Machines Corporation or IBM is an American multinational technology and consulting corporation headquartered in Armonk, New York, United States. IBM manufactures and sells computer hardware and software, and it offers infrastructure, hosting and consulting services in areas...
Lotus Sametime
Lotus Sametime
IBM Sametime is a client–server application and middleware platform that provides real-time, unified communications and collaboration for enterprises. Those capabilities include presence information, enterprise instant messaging, web conferencing, community collaboration, and telephony capabilities...
, Mbone
Mbone
Mbone was an experimental backbone for IP multicast traffic across the Internet developed in the early 1990s. It required specialized hardware and software...
Videoconferencing
Videoconferencing
Videoconferencing is the conduct of a videoconference by a set of telecommunication technologies which allow two or more locations to interact via two-way video and audio transmissions simultaneously...
(Chin and Lansing, 2004). Therefore the design of collaboratories may now move beyond developing general communication mechanisms to evaluating and supporting the very nature of collaboration in the scientific context (Chin & Lansing, 2004).
Characteristics and considerations
A distinctive characteristic of collaboratories is that they focus on data collection and analysis. Hence the interest to apply collaborative technologies to support data sharing as opposed to tool sharing. Chin and Lansing (2004) explore the shift of collaboratory development from traditional tool-centric approaches to more data-centric ones, to effectively support data sharing. This means more than just providing a common repository for storing and retrieving shared data setData set
A data set is a collection of data, usually presented in tabular form. Each column represents a particular variable. Each row corresponds to a given member of the data set in question. Its values for each of the variables, such as height and weight of an object or values of random numbers. Each...
s. Collaboration, Chin and Lansing (2004) state, is driven both by the need to share data and to share knowledge about data. Shared data is only useful if sufficient context is provided about the data such that collaborators may comprehend and effectively apply it. It is therefore imperative, according to Chin and Lansing (2004), to know and understand how data sets relate to aspects of overall data space, applications, experiments, projects, and the scientific community, identifying the critical features or properties among which we can mention:
- General data set properties (owner, creation data, size, format);
- Experimental properties (conditions of the scientific experiment that generated that data);
- Data provenanceProvenanceProvenance, from the French provenir, "to come from", refers to the chronology of the ownership or location of an historical object. The term was originally mostly used for works of art, but is now used in similar senses in a wide range of fields, including science and computing...
(relationship with previous versions); - Integration (relationship of data subsets within the full data set);
- Analysis and interpretation (notes, experiences, interpretations, and knowledge produced)
- Scientific organization (scientific classification or hierarchy);
- Task (research task that generated or applies the data set);
- Experimental process (relationship of data and tasks to the overall process);
- User community (application of data set to different users).
Henline (1998) argues that communication about experimental data is another important characteristic of a collaboratory. By focusing attention on the dynamics of information exchange, the study of Zebrafish Information Network Project (Henline, 1998) concluded that the key challenges in creating a collaboratory may be social rather than technical. “A successful system must respect existing social conventions while encouraging the development of analogous mechanisms within the new electronic forum” (Henline, 1998, p. 69). Similar observations were made in the Computer-supported collaborative learning
Computer-supported collaborative learning
Computer-supported collaborative learning is a pedagogical approach wherein learning takes place via social interaction using a computer or through the Internet. This kind of learning is characterized by the sharing and construction of knowledge among participants using technology as their primary...
(CSCL) case study (Cogburn, 2003). The author (Cogburn, 2003) is investigating a collaboratory established for researchers in education and other related domains from United States of America and southern Africa
Africa
Africa is the world's second largest and second most populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area...
. The main finding was that there have been important intellectual contributions on both sides, although the context was that of a developed country working together with a developing one and there have been social as well as cultural barriers. He further develops the idea that a successful CSCL would need to draw the best lessons learned on both sides in computer-mediated communication
Computer-mediated communication
Computer-mediated communication is defined as any communicative transaction that occurs through the use of two or more networked computers...
(CMC) and computer-supported cooperative work (CSCW).
Sonnenwald (2003) conducted seventeen interviews with scientists and revealed important considerations. Scientists expect a collaboratory to “support their strategic plans; facilitate management of the scientific process; have a positive or neutral impact on scientific outcomes; provide advantages and disadvantages for scientific task execution; and provide personal conveniences when collaborating across distances” (Sonnenwald, 2003, p. 68). Many scientists looked at the collaboratory as means to achieve strategic goals that were organizational and personal in nature. Other scientists anticipated that the scientific process would speed up when they had access to the collaboratory.
Design philosophy
Finholt (1995), based on the case studies of the Upper Atmospheric Research Collaboratory (UARC) and the Medical Collaboratory, establishes a design philosophy: a collaboratory project must be dedicated to a user-centered designUser-centered design
In broad terms, user-centered design or pervasive usability is a design philosophy and a process in which the needs, wants, and limitations of end users of a product are given extensive attention at each stage of the design process...
(UCD) approach. This means a commitment to develop software in programming environments that allow rapid prototyping, rapid development cycles (Finholt, 1995). A consequence of the user-centered design
User-centered design
In broad terms, user-centered design or pervasive usability is a design philosophy and a process in which the needs, wants, and limitations of end users of a product are given extensive attention at each stage of the design process...
in the collaboratory is that the system developers must be able to distinguish when a particular system or modification has positive impact on users’ work practices. An important part of obtaining this understanding is producing an accurate picture of how work is done prior to the introduction of technology. Finholt (1995) explains that behavioral scientists
Behavioural sciences
The term behavioural sciences encompasses all the disciplines that explore the activities of and interactions among organisms in the natural world. It involves the systematic analysis and investigation of human and animal behaviour through controlled and naturalistic observation, and disciplined...
had the task of understanding the actual work settings for which new information technologies were developed. The goal of a user-centered design
User-centered design
In broad terms, user-centered design or pervasive usability is a design philosophy and a process in which the needs, wants, and limitations of end users of a product are given extensive attention at each stage of the design process...
effort was to inject those observations back into the design process to provide a baseline for evaluating future changes and to illuminate productive directions for prototype development (Finholt, 1995).
A similar viewpoint is expressed by Cogburn (2003) who relates the collaboratory to a globally distributed knowledge work, stating that human-computer interaction (HCI) and user-centered design
User-centered design
In broad terms, user-centered design or pervasive usability is a design philosophy and a process in which the needs, wants, and limitations of end users of a product are given extensive attention at each stage of the design process...
(UCD) principles are critical for organizations to take advantage of the opportunities of globalization
Globalization
Globalization refers to the increasingly global relationships of culture, people and economic activity. Most often, it refers to economics: the global distribution of the production of goods and services, through reduction of barriers to international trade such as tariffs, export fees, and import...
and the emergence of an Information society
Information society
The aim of the information society is to gain competitive advantage internationally through using IT in a creative and productive way. An information society is a society in which the creation, distribution, diffusion, use, integration and manipulation of information is a significant economic,...
. He (Cogburn, 2003) refers to distributed knowledge
Distributed knowledge
Distributed knowledge is a term used in multi-agent system research that refers to all the knowledge that a community of agents possesses and might apply in solving a problem. Distributed knowledge is approximately what "a wise man knows" or what someone who has complete knowledge of what each...
work as being a set of “economic activities that produce intangible goods and services […], capable of being both developed and distributed around the world using the global information and communication networks” (Cogburn, 2003, p. 81). Through the use of these global information and communications networks, organizations are able to take part in globally disarticulated production, which means they can locate their research and development facilities almost anywhere in the world, and engineers can collaborate across time zones, institutions and national boundaries.
Evaluation
Meeting expectations is a factor that influences adoption of innovations, including scientific collaboratories. Some of the collaboratories implemented thus far have not been entirely successful. The Mathematics and Computer Science Division of Argonne National Laboratory, Waterfall Glen collaboratory (Henline, 1998) is an illustrative example. This collaboratory had its shares of problems. There have been the occasional technical and social disasters, but most importantly it did not meet all of the collaboration and interaction requirements.The vast majority of the evaluations performed thus far are concentrating mainly on the usage statistics (e.g. total number of members, hours of use, amount of data communicated) or on the immediate role in the production of traditional scientific outcomes (e.g. publications and patents). Sonnenwald (2003), however, argues that we should rather look for longer-term and intangible measures such as new and continued relationship among scientists, and subsequent, longer-term creation of new knowledge.
Regardless of the criteria used for evaluation, we must focus on understanding the expectations and requirements defined for a collaboratory. Without such understanding a collaboratory runs the risk of not being adopted.
Success factors
Olson, Teasley, Bietz, and Cogburn (2002) ascertain some of the success factors of a collaboratory. They are: collaboration readiness, collaboration infrastructure readiness, and collaboration technology readiness.Collaboration readiness is the most basic pre-requisite for an effective collaboratory, according to Olson, Teasley, Bietz, and Cogburn (2002). Often the critical component to collaboration readiness is based on the concept of “working together in order to achieve a science goal” (Olson, Teasley, Bietz, & Cogburn, 2002, p. 46). Incentive
Incentive
In economics and sociology, an incentive is any factor that enables or motivates a particular course of action, or counts as a reason for preferring one choice to the alternatives. It is an expectation that encourages people to behave in a certain way...
s to collaborate, shared principles of collaboration, and experience with the elements of collaboration are also crucial. Successful interaction between users requires a certain amount of common ground. Interactions require a high degree of trust or negotiation, especially when they involve areas where there is a cultural difference. “Ethical norms tend to be culturally specific, and negotiations about ethical issues require high levels of trust” (Olson, Teasley, Bietz, & Cogburn, 2002, p. 49).
When analyzing the collaboration infrastructure readiness Olson, Teasley, Bietz, and Cogburn (2002) state that modern collaboration tools require adequate infrastructure to operate properly. Many off-the-shelf applications will run effectively only on state-of-the-art workstations. An important piece of the infrastructure is the technical support necessary to ensure version control, to get participants registered, and to recover in case of disaster. Communications cost is another element which can be critical for collaboration infrastructure readiness (Olson, Teasley, Bietz, & Cogburn, 2002). Pricing structures for network connectivity can affect the choices that users will make and therefore have an effect on the collaboratory’s final design and implementation.
Collaboration technology readiness, according to Olson, Teasley, Bietz, and Cogburn (2002), refers to the fact that collaboration does not involve only technology and infrastructure, but also requires a considerable investment in training. Thus, it is essential to assess the state of technology readiness in the community to ensure success. If the level is too primitive more training is required to bring the users’ knowledge up-to-date.
Biological Sciences Collaboratory
Metadata
The term metadata is an ambiguous term which is used for two fundamentally different concepts . Although the expression "data about data" is often used, it does not apply to both in the same way. Structural metadata, the design and specification of data structures, cannot be about data, because at...
capture, electronic laboratory notebooks
Electronic lab notebook
An electronic lab notebook is a software program designed to replace paper laboratory notebooks. Lab notebooks in general are used by scientists and technicians to document research, experiments and procedures performed in a laboratory...
, data organization views, data provenance
Provenance
Provenance, from the French provenir, "to come from", refers to the chronology of the ownership or location of an historical object. The term was originally mostly used for works of art, but is now used in similar senses in a wide range of fields, including science and computing...
tracking, analysis notes, task management, and scientific workflow management
Workflow
A workflow consists of a sequence of connected steps. It is a depiction of a sequence of operations, declared as work of a person, a group of persons, an organization of staff, or one or more simple or complex mechanisms. Workflow may be seen as any abstraction of real work...
. BSC supports various data formats, has data translation capabilities, and is able to interact and exchange data with other sources (e.g. external database
Database
A database is an organized collection of data for one or more purposes, usually in digital form. The data are typically organized to model relevant aspects of reality , in a way that supports processes requiring this information...
s). It offers subscription capabilities (to allow certain individuals to access data), verification of identities, establishes and manages permissions and privileges, and has data encryption
Encryption
In cryptography, encryption is the process of transforming information using an algorithm to make it unreadable to anyone except those possessing special knowledge, usually referred to as a key. The result of the process is encrypted information...
capabilities (to ensure secure data transmission
Data transmission
Data transmission, digital transmission, or digital communications is the physical transfer of data over a point-to-point or point-to-multipoint communication channel. Examples of such channels are copper wires, optical fibres, wireless communication channels, and storage media...
) as part of its security package.
Provenance
Provenance, from the French provenir, "to come from", refers to the chronology of the ownership or location of an historical object. The term was originally mostly used for works of art, but is now used in similar senses in a wide range of fields, including science and computing...
tool and a data organization tool. These tools allow a hierarchical tree
Tree structure
A tree structure is a way of representing the hierarchical nature of a structure in a graphical form. It is named a "tree structure" because the classic representation resembles a tree, even though the chart is generally upside down compared to an actual tree, with the "root" at the top and the...
to display the historical lineage of a data set. From this tree-view the scientist may select a particular node
Graph (mathematics)
In mathematics, a graph is an abstract representation of a set of objects where some pairs of the objects are connected by links. The interconnected objects are represented by mathematical abstractions called vertices, and the links that connect some pairs of vertices are called edges...
(or an entire branch) to access a specific version of the data set (Chin & Lansing, 2004).
The task management
Task management
Task management is the process of managing a task through its life cycle, including planning, testing, tracking and reporting. Task management can help either individuals achieve goals, or groups of individuals collaborate and share knowledge for the accomplishment of collective goals...
provided by BSC allows users to define and track tasks related to a specific experiment or project. Tasks can have deadlines assigned, levels of priority, and dependencies. Tasks can also be queried
Information retrieval
Information retrieval is the area of study concerned with searching for documents, for information within documents, and for metadata about documents, as well as that of searching structured storage, relational databases, and the World Wide Web...
and various reports produced. Related to task management
Task management
Task management is the process of managing a task through its life cycle, including planning, testing, tracking and reporting. Task management can help either individuals achieve goals, or groups of individuals collaborate and share knowledge for the accomplishment of collective goals...
, BSC provides workflow management
Workflow
A workflow consists of a sequence of connected steps. It is a depiction of a sequence of operations, declared as work of a person, a group of persons, an organization of staff, or one or more simple or complex mechanisms. Workflow may be seen as any abstraction of real work...
to capture, manage, and supply standard paths of analyses. The scientific workflow may be viewed as process templates that captures and semi-automate the steps of an analysis process and its encompassing data sets and tools (Chin & Lansing, 2004).
BSC provides project collaboration by allowing scientists to define and manage members of their group. Security and authentication mechanisms are therefore applied to limit access to project data and applications. Monitoring capability allows for members to identify other members that are online working on the project (Chin & Lansing, 2004).
BSC offers community collaboration capabilities: scientists may publish their data sets to a larger community through the data portal. Notifications are in place for scientists interested in a particular set of data and when that data is modified the scientists get a notification via email (Chin & Lansing, 2004).
Diesel Combustion Collaboratory
Pancerella, Rahn, and Yang (1999) analyzed the Diesel Combustion Collaboratory (DCC) which was a problem-solving environment for combustion research. The main goal of DCC was to make the information exchange for the combustion researchers more efficient. Researchers would collaborate over the Internet using various DCC tools. These tools included “a distributed execution management system for running combustion modelsScientific modelling
Scientific modelling is the process of generating abstract, conceptual, graphical and/or mathematical models. Science offers a growing collection of methods, techniques and theory about all kinds of specialized scientific modelling...
on widely distributed computers (distributed computing
Distributed computing
Distributed computing is a field of computer science that studies distributed systems. A distributed system consists of multiple autonomous computers that communicate through a computer network. The computers interact with each other in order to achieve a common goal...
), including supercomputers; web accessible data archiving capabilities for sharing graphical experimental or modeling data; electronic notebooks
Electronic lab notebook
An electronic lab notebook is a software program designed to replace paper laboratory notebooks. Lab notebooks in general are used by scientists and technicians to document research, experiments and procedures performed in a laboratory...
and shared workspace
Workspace
Workspace is a term used in various branches of engineering and economic development.-Business development:Workspace refers to small premises provided, often by local authorities or economic development agencies, to help new businesses to establish themselves...
s for facilitating collaboration; visualization of combustion
Combustion
Combustion or burning is the sequence of exothermic chemical reactions between a fuel and an oxidant accompanied by the production of heat and conversion of chemical species. The release of heat can result in the production of light in the form of either glowing or a flame...
data; and videoconferencing
Videoconferencing
Videoconferencing is the conduct of a videoconference by a set of telecommunication technologies which allow two or more locations to interact via two-way video and audio transmissions simultaneously...
and data conferencing
Data conferencing
Data conferencing refers to a communication session among two or more participants sharing computer data in real time. Interaction and presentation devices such as a screen, keyboard, mouse, camera, etc. can be shared or be able to control each other computer...
among researchers at remote sites” (Pancerella, Rahn, & Yang, 1999, p. 1).
The collaboratory design team defined the requirements to be (Pancerella, Rahn, & Yang, 1999):
- Ability share graphical data easily;
- Ability to discuss modelingScientific modellingScientific modelling is the process of generating abstract, conceptual, graphical and/or mathematical models. Science offers a growing collection of methods, techniques and theory about all kinds of specialized scientific modelling...
strategies and exchange model descriptions; - Archiving collaborative information;
- Ability to run combustion models at widely separated locations;
- Ability to analyze experimental data and modelingScientific modellingScientific modelling is the process of generating abstract, conceptual, graphical and/or mathematical models. Science offers a growing collection of methods, techniques and theory about all kinds of specialized scientific modelling...
results in a web-accessible format; - Videoconference and group meetings capabilities.
Each of these requirements had to be done securely and efficiently across the Internet. Resources availability was a major concern because many of the chemistry simulations could run for hours or even days on high-end workstations and produce Kilobytes to Megabytes of data sets. These data sets had to be visualized using simultaneous 2-D plots
Chart
A chart is a graphical representation of data, in which "the data is represented by symbols, such as bars in a bar chart, lines in a line chart, or slices in a pie chart"...
of multiple variables (Pancerella, Rahn, & Yang, 1999).
The deployment of the DCC was done in a phased approach. The first phase was based on iterative development, testing, and deployment of individual collaboratory tools. Once collaboratory team members had adequately tested each new tool, it was deployed to combustion researchers. The deployment of the infrastructure (videoconferencing
Videoconferencing
Videoconferencing is the conduct of a videoconference by a set of telecommunication technologies which allow two or more locations to interact via two-way video and audio transmissions simultaneously...
tools, multicast
Multicast
In computer networking, multicast is the delivery of a message or information to a group of destination computers simultaneously in a single transmission from the source creating copies automatically in other network elements, such as routers, only when the topology of the network requires...
routing
Routing
Routing is the process of selecting paths in a network along which to send network traffic. Routing is performed for many kinds of networks, including the telephone network , electronic data networks , and transportation networks...
capabilities, and data archives) was done in parallel (Pancerella, Rahn, & Yang, 1999). The next phase was to implement full security in the collaboratory. The primary focus was on two-way synchronous and multi-way asynchronous collaborations
Collaborative editing
Collaborative editing is the practice of groups producing works together through individual contributions. Effective choices in group awareness, participation, and coordination are critical to successful collaborative writing outcomes. Most usually it is applied to textual documents or...
(Pancerella, Rahn, & Yang, 1999). The challenge was to balance the increased access to data that was needed with the security requirements. The final phase was the broadening of the target research to multiple projects including a broader range of collaborators.
The collaboratory team found that the highest impact was perceived by the geographically separated scientists that truly depended on each other to achieve their goals. One of the team’s major challenges was to overcome the technological and social barriers in order to meet all of the objectives (Pancerella, Rahn, & Yang, 1999). User openness and low maintenance security collaboratories are hard to achieve, therefore user feedback and evaluation are constantly required.
Other collaboratories
Other collaboratories that have been implemented and can be further investigated are:- Marine Biological LaboratoryMarine Biological LaboratoryThe Marine Biological Laboratory is an international center for research and education in biology, biomedicine and ecology. Founded in 1888, the MBL is the oldest independent marine laboratory in the Americas, taking advantage of a coastal setting in the Cape Cod village of Woods Hole, Massachusetts...
(MBL) is an international center for research and education in biology, biomedicine and ecology. - Biological Collaborative Research Environment (BioCoRE) developed at University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign – a collaboration tool for biologists (Chin and Lansing, 2004);
- Molecular Interactive Collaborative Environment (MICE) developed at the San Diego Supercomputer CenterSan Diego Supercomputer CenterThe San Diego Supercomputer Center is an organized research unit of the University of California, San Diego . Physically, SDSC is located on the east end of Eleanor Roosevelt College on the campus of UCSD....
– provides collaborative access and manipulation of complex, three-dimensional molecular modelsScientific modellingScientific modelling is the process of generating abstract, conceptual, graphical and/or mathematical models. Science offers a growing collection of methods, techniques and theory about all kinds of specialized scientific modelling...
as captured in various scientific visualization programs (Chin and Lansing, 2004); - Molecular Modeling Collaboratory (MMC) developed at University of California, San FranciscoUniversity of California, San FranciscoThe University of California, San Francisco is one of the world's leading centers of health sciences research, patient care, and education. UCSF's medical, pharmacy, dentistry, nursing, and graduate schools are among the top health science professional schools in the world...
– allows remote biologists to share and interactively manipulate three-dimensional molecular modelsScientific modellingScientific modelling is the process of generating abstract, conceptual, graphical and/or mathematical models. Science offers a growing collection of methods, techniques and theory about all kinds of specialized scientific modelling...
in applications such as drug design and protein engineering (Chin and Lansing, 2004); - Collaboratory for Microscopic Digital Anatomy (CMDA) – a computational environment to provide biomedical scientists remote access to a specialized research electron microscope (Henline, 1998);
- The Collaboratory for Strategic Partnerships and Applied Research at Messiah CollegeMessiah CollegeMessiah College is a private Christian college of the liberal arts and applied arts and sciences located in Grantham, Pennsylvania, near the capital city of Harrisburg...
- an organization of Christian students, educators, and professionals affiliated with Messiah College, aspiring to fulfill Biblical mandates to foster justice, empower the poor, reconcile adversaries, and care for the earth, in the context of academic engagement. - Waterfall Glen – a multi-user object-oriented (MOO) collaboratory at Argonne National LaboratoryArgonne National LaboratoryArgonne National Laboratory is the first science and engineering research national laboratory in the United States, receiving this designation on July 1, 1946. It is the largest national laboratory by size and scope in the Midwest...
(Henline, 1998); - The International Personality Item Pool (IPIP) – a scientific collaboratory for the development of advanced measures of personality and other individual differences (Henline, 1998);
- TANGO – a set of collaborative applications for education and distance learning, command and control, health care, and computer steering (Henline, 1998).
Special consideration should be attributed to TANGO (Henline, 1998) because it is a step forward in implementing collaboratories, as it has distance learning and health care as main domains of operation. Henline (1998) mentions that the collaboratory has been successfully used to implement applications for distance learning, command and control center, telemedical bridge, and a remote consulting tool suite.
- Collaborative architecture and Interactive architectureInteractive architectureInteractive Architecture signifies a field of architecture in which objects and space have the ability to meet changing needs with respect to evolving individual, social, and environmental demands...
, the work of Adam Somlai-FischerAdam Somlai-FischerAdam Somlai-Fischer born 1976 in Budapest is an architect and interaction designer interested in the cultural qualities of new technologies. He creates installations and experiments that blend spaces, technologies and interactivity...
and Usman Haque. - The Internet & Society Collaboratory supported by Google in Germany
Summary
To date, most collaboratories have been applied largely in scientific research projects, with various degrees of success and failure. Recently, however, collaboratory models have been applied to additional areas of scientific research in both national and international contexts. As a result, a substantial knowledge base has emerged helping us in understanding their development and application in science and industry (Cogburn, 2003). Extending the collaboratory concept to include both social and behavioral research as well as more scientists from the developing world could potentially strengthen the concept and provide opportunities of learning more about the social and technical factors that support a distributed knowledge network (Cogburn, 2003).The use of collaborative technologies to support geographically distributed scientific research is gaining wide acceptance in many parts of the world. Such collaboratories hold great promise for international cooperation in critical areas of scientific research and not only. As the frontiers of knowledge are pushed back the problems get more and more difficult, often requiring large multidisciplinary teams to make progress. The collaboratory is emerging as a viable solution, using communication and computing technologies to relax the constraints of distance and time, creating an instance of a virtual organization. The collaboratory is both an opportunity with very useful properties, but also a challenge to human organizational practices (Olson, 2002).
See also
- Information and communication technologiesInformation and communication technologiesInformation and communications technology or information and communication technology, usually abbreviated as ICT, is often used as an extended synonym for information technology , but is usually a more general term that stresses the role of unified communications and the integration of...
- Human–computer interactionHuman–computer interactionHuman–computer Interaction is the study, planning, and design of the interaction between people and computers. It is often regarded as the intersection of computer science, behavioral sciences, design and several other fields of study...
- User-centered designUser-centered designIn broad terms, user-centered design or pervasive usability is a design philosophy and a process in which the needs, wants, and limitations of end users of a product are given extensive attention at each stage of the design process...
- Participatory designParticipatory designParticipatory design is an approach to design attempting to actively involve all stakeholders in the design process in order to help ensure the product designed meets their needs and is usable. The term is used in a variety of fields e.g...