Collaboratories at a Glance CG

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Collaboratories at a GlanceC_at_G

• Judy Olson
• Nathan Bos
• Erik Dahl

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Card model of how a technical field develops
Point system Dimensions
Relationships Laws
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Goal

• To understand the space of collaboratories
• Compare and contrast
• Distill successes and challenges
• Theory of collaboratories as organizational
  entities
• Practical prescription including best practices

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Secondary goal

• In our endeavor, we will decide which
  collaboratories to investigate in depth
• By understanding the space of possibilities, we
  can choose wisely

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Method

• Collect a large set of collaboratories
• We have identified 77 possible candidates
• See handout
• Collect a basic set of information
• Note similarities and differences on both
  technical and social dimensions

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Method

• Examine the existing literature on what drives
  successes and challenges in organizations
• Dimensionalize the space
• Hypothesize causal relationships
• See what you see!

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Early view of collaboratories
people-to-people
Communication, Groupware Services
access to information
access to facilities
Distributed, media-rich information technology
Interaction with the Physical World
Digital Libraries, E-Pub
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Definition

• A collaboratory is
• An organizational entity
• That links a community of individuals
• Working at a distance
• On common problems or tasks

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Definition

• that contains
• Electronic tools that support
• Rich and recurring human interaction and
• Provides common access to resources, including
  information and instrumentation, needed to engage
  in the problems or tasks.

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The Science of Collaboratories project

• Focuses on SCIENCE and ENGINEERING
  collaboratories
• So the task is primarily research
• Or design
• Same framework might generalize to other kinds of
  tasks
• e.g. developing policy, securing expert
  consultation, pursuing education

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Kinds of Collaboratories

• Research focus
• Distributed Research Center
• Shared Instrumentation
• Product Development
• Community Data Systems
• Practice focus
• Virtual Community of Practice
• Virtual Learning Community
• Expert Consultation

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Distributed Research Center

• Functions like a University research center, but
  at a distance.
• Project is unified by a topic area of interest,
  and includes a number of joint projects in that
  area.
• Most communication human-human
• No well specified product as the focus
• Alliance for Cell Signaling

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Shared Instrument

• Increases access to a scientific instrument
• Often remote access to an expensive instrument
• Often supplemented with other technology to
  support communication
• Keck observatory

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Product Development

• Focuses on the building of a product
• Instrument
• Infrastructure
• Policy
• Research methodology
• More time-bounded than others
• Intermed

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Community Data System

• Information resource that is created, maintained,
  or improved by a distributed community
• Information is semi-public, of wide interest.
• Zebrafish Information Network

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Virtual Community of Practice

• A network of individuals who share a research
  area and communicate about it online
• Share news of professional interest, advice,
  techniques.
• Not focused on joint projects
• Ocean US

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Virtual Learning Community

• Main focus is on increasing the knowledge of the
  participants
• Not to do original research
• Can be inservice or professional development
• Ecology Circuit Collaboration

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Expert Consultation

• Provides increased access to an expert or set of
  experts
• The flow of information is mainly one way, rather
  than two way as in a distributed center
• TeleInViVo

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Progress to date

• Data collected on 38 Collaboratories
• Clustered according to the major functions they
  serve
• Allows comparison across collaboratories for
• What technology did they use
• How might money flow have affected the work
• What successes and challenges were involved
• Small set of data elements
• see handout of big table

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Resource Diagrams

• Representation of
• Participants, both organizations and individuals
• Instruments
• Shared data
• Communication flow
• Resource flow (money)

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Key
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Distributed Center
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Shared Instrument
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Product Development
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Community Data System
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Virtual Community of Practice
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Virtual Learning Community
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Expert Consultation
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Comparisons within a category
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Comparisons within a category
Bugscope
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Beginning to mine the data

• What technologies are in use?
• Find out what different types of collaboratories
  use
• Suite of technologies
• Find technologies used in environments with
  different constraints
• Bandwidth available for video
• Low versus high resources available

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Technology types

• Synchronous conversation
• Synchronous object sharing
• Asynchronous conversation
• Asynchronous object sharing
• Support for the transitions among modes of work
• Special computational needs
• Management of the technical resources
• See handout

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As listed in the database
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Findings on technology use

• Video
• CFAR
• Off the shelf, NetMeeting
• Cell signaling
• Polycom desk and room systems
• Access Grid (future)

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Findings on technology use

• Shared instrument
• Bugscope
• Children can zoom and move the view
• SPARC
• Because of safety issues, only the operator can
  move the view

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Findings on technology use

• Community data systems
• Cell signaling molecule pages
• Managed as a vetted contribution
• Visible Human
• One group provided the information for many to
  use
• Awareness system
• No collaboratories mention using this!

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Where are the data?

• SOC database
• C_at_G is one of its components
• Pages accessible
• In the future we will become a Community Data
  System
• You and others can contribute entries

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Data base
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Data base
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Data base
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Beyond C_at_G

• For a smaller number of collaboratories
• We collect more in-depth information
• Staffing and management
• History
• Incentives
• Usage data
• Cultural aspects of the community
• Detailed functionality
• Details of the technology
• Readiness
• Impact on the field