Collaboratory life: Observations on scholarly work via the Internet

Thomas A. FinholtCollaboratory for Research on Electronic Work

School of InformationThe University of Michigan

finholt@umich.eduwww.crew.umich.edu

Collaboratory for Research on Electronic Work - www.crew.umich.edu

CREW

Finholt

As we may work...

• electronic resources (e.g., the Web) represent a tremendous opportunity

• gains for scholars are possible...but not automatic

• the challenge: How to maximize the likelihood of positive change?

Collaboratory for Research on Electronic Work - www.crew.umich.edu

CREW

Finholt

A testbed for research over the Internet

• “a laboratory without walls”

• support for work among geographically distributed scholars

• 1993 National Academy Report– National Academy Press

2101 Constitution Ave., NWWashington, DC 20418

• fund several prototype systems

Collaboratory for Research on Electronic Work - www.crew.umich.edu

CREW

Finholt

The collaboratory vision

Digital libraries & documents

groups-to-information groups-to-facilities

people-to-people

Communication,Collaboration

Services

Distributed,media-richinformationtechnology

Remote instruments

Collaboratory for Research on Electronic Work - www.crew.umich.edu

CREW

Finholt

Digital libraries and documents

• APSI -- the Advanced Papyrological Information System

• The Journal Storage Project (JSTOR) -- online back archives of scholarly journals

• Neodat II -- an online database of resources about neotropical fish

Collaboratory for Research on Electronic Work - www.crew.umich.edu

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Finholt

Advanced Papyrological Information System

• A consortium of Michigan, Duke, Columbia, Berkeley, Yale, and the American Society of Papyrologists

• Over 10,000 ancient documents

• Only 20% have been previously published

• Searchable and readable -- via Web browsers

www.lib.umich.edu/pap/

Collaboratory for Research on Electronic Work - www.crew.umich.edu

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Finholt

JSTOR

• Mellon/Michigan/Princeton effort to build an online back archive of scholarly journals

• 198 universities, colleges, and foundations

• 60 journals in the humanities and social sciences; over 1 million pages of text

• searchable, readable, and printable -- via Web browsers

www.jstor.org

Collaboratory for Research on Electronic Work - www.crew.umich.edu

CREW

Finholt

Neodat II

• NSF/AID-funded effort to build a multi-institutional collection catalog in ichthyology

• 17 institutions in Europe, North America, and South America

• 450,000 records; 6000 species; 74,000 geographic localities

• 800 uses per month

biodiversity.bio.uno.edu/~neodat/

Collaboratory for Research on Electronic Work - www.crew.umich.edu

CREW

Finholt

Access to remote instruments

• UARC -- the Upper Atmospheric Research Collaboratory

• Collaboratory for Environmental Molecular Sciences

Collaboratory for Research on Electronic Work - www.crew.umich.edu

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Finholt

Upper Atmospheric Research Collaboratory (UARC)

• NSF funded, 1992 to present

• an experimental system for collaborative research over wide-area networks

• focused on data from ground-based observatories, spacecraft, and real-time supercomputer models

• www.crew.umich.edu/~uarc

Collaboratory for Research on Electronic Work - www.crew.umich.edu

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Finholt

The UARC testbed

Chat window

Radar displays

TING model

Session manager

Polar UVI

Collaboratory for Research on Electronic Work - www.crew.umich.edu

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Finholt

UARC scope, 1998

Collaboratory for Research on Electronic Work - www.crew.umich.edu

CREW

Finholt

Collaboratory for Environmental Molecular Sciences

• U.S. Department of Energy-funded effort to build remote access to instruments at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

• Tools: WebTour, TeleViewer, chat, Electronic Notebook, video conferencing

• Ultimately: remote control of instruments

http://www.emsl.pnl.gov:2080/docs/collab/

Collaboratory for Research on Electronic Work - www.crew.umich.edu

CREW

Finholt

Challenges

• Quality of service -- the contemporary Internet is slow and unreliable

• Paradigms for collaboration -- we lack good social and psychological models to explain group effort by dozens or hundreds of researchers

• Supporting informal communication -- collocation and face-to-face interaction are still superior to alternatives