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Collaboratories at a GlanceC@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

DigitalLibraries, E-Pub

access toinformation

access to facilities

people-to-peopleCommunication,

GroupwareServices

Distributed,media-richinformationtechnology

Interaction withthe Physical

World

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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@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@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