Simon Buckingham ShumDavid De Roure

Marc Eisenstadt Nigel Shadbolt

Austin Tate

CoAKTinG partners

BT ExactNapp Pharmaceuticals

Comb-e-ChemNASA

Overview

Component approaches Integration Current work on application of tools Future work (but needs funding!)

CoAKTinG Background

“The CoAKTinG Project aims to support and enhance e-Science collaborations.”

Exploiting technologies, tools and methodologies where already available…

…and augment these with novel ones where necessary.

2 year project - started June 2002: Funded by UK e-Science Programme.

Involves a total of ~15 PIs, Researchers, Students.

Access Grid

Room based videoconferencing with large format display

supports group-to-group interactions across the Grid. supports interaction and visualisation. nodes in 150 institutions worldwide. routine use in UK e-Science programme.

Also available as single machine solution Personal Interface to the Grid (PIG).

Can also use Virtual Rooms VideoConferencing System (VRVS).

In fact collaboration can use any video- and teleconferencing facilities.

…to Support and Enhance e-Science Collaborations

mapping real time discussions/group

sensemaking

enacting decisions/coordinating activities

synthesising artifacts

recovering information from meetings

awareness ofcolleagues’ ‘presence’

virtual meetings

BuddySpace

Presence: “an aggregated view of an entity’s dynamically changing attributes”:

Availability (“I’m logged on for a videoconference”) Preference (“Only my boss can interrupt me now”) Capability (“My current device can accept video calls”) Location (“I’m in Munich…urgent calls only”)

BuddySpace - enriched ‘instant messaging’ client:

Awareness of people…and other resources. Editable maps for better visualisation of presence. Advanced group chat facilities with voting, attention

meters… Provides lightweight communications channel (based on

Jabber IM protocol).

awareness ofcolleagues’ ‘presence’

BuddySpaceBuddySpaceawareness ofcolleagues’ ‘presence’

Compendium

Tool for real-time capture and visualisation of argumentation (“collective sense-making and group memory”). Based on gIBIS notions: issues (questions),

answers, arguments (pros/cons), decisions, etc.

Connecting ideas: visually, by sets, metadata and hypertext links.

Free-form and template-driven discussions.

Underlying XML representations: interoperable with other tools via Jabber.

mapping real time discussions/group

sensemaking

Compendium: Compendium: mapping arguments mapping arguments

and decision rationaleand decision rationale

mapping real time discussions/group

sensemaking

enacting decisions/coordinating activities I-X

I-X technology provides an environment for handling issues, performing activities, placing constraints, etc.

Founded on generic <I-N-C-A> activity ontology.

CoAKTinG roles: Support meeting environment set-up

activities; Support ‘meeting process’ activities; Networked ‘To-Do’ lists for issue-handling

and activity tracking.

synthesising artifacts

Process Panel (I-P2)

Domain Editor (I-DE)

Activity Editor

Messenger

I-Space

enacting decisions/coordinating activities

synthesising artifacts

I-X

Record andReplay

Capturing meetings, experiments, visualisations… Many potential information streams: video,

audio, Powerpoint, Jabber, Compendium…

…for context-rich playback. Ontology-based approach - annotation

of streams allows synchronised playback, ‘smart’ navigation, etc…

Interlinks information using Semantic Web technologies.

recovering information from meetings

Meeting replay by time, speaker, contribution to discussion, and decision

…to Support and Enhance e-Science Collaborations

mapping real time discussions/group

sensemaking

enacting decisions/coordinating activities

synthesising artifacts

recovering information from meetings

awareness ofcolleagues’ ‘presence’

virtual meetings

BuddySpace

NetMeeting

Access Grid Node

Compendium

Replay

I-X Tools

Interim ResultsSeptember 2003

Integration work

Conceptual Extending the AKT Reference Ontology Mapping and cross-fertilisation between two issue-

management ontologies Technical

Off-the-shelf Jabber-based integration 3 tools freely available for download Intelligent team rosta management Integration between Compendium,

I-X, BuddySpace, Meeting replay tool

Key Contributions• Support variable levels of formality in communication• Real time semantic annotation of discussions• Events ontology for e-Science collaboration• Context-driven collaboration tools

Conceptual integration:Extending the Reference Ontology

Extensions to support:• generation of multimedia presentations (e.g.

millisecond representations of time)

• meetings distributed across several (physical and virtual) locations

• exhibition of information objects as events (e.g. slides; videos; documents)

• meeting-specific (compound) information bearing objects (versions of resources used in meetings)

• annotation events (e.g. verbal comments, creation of Compendium nodes)

Technical integration: Jabber interoperability

BuddySpace

Compendium

I-X Process panels

Meeting Replay

BuddySpace

Compendium

I-X Process panels

Jabber Server

Current ActivitiesApril 2004

NASA Scenario

Compendium maps from trained compendium astronaut

Remote Science Team (RST) on earth e.g. geologistsVideo and

Science Data

2. Virtual meeting of RSTusing CoAKTinG tools

Plan for nextDay’s EVA

1. Astronauts debrief on EVA

Mars

Image from NASA

NASA Press ReleaseCollaborative and Assistant Systems Research AreaWork Systems Design and Evaluation GroupMOBILE AGENTS PROJECT COMPLETES OPERATIONAL READINESS TEST AT AMES "MARSCAPE“…In addition, the Mobile Agents work involves a collaboration with the Knowledge Media Institute (KMi) of the Open University and the Intelligence, Agents and Multimedia group (IAM) of the University of Southampton in the UK, led by Dr. Simon Buckingham-Shum from KMi and Dr. Danius Michaelides from IAM. The collaboration also includes the ScienceOrganizer team from Code IC, led by Dr. Dan Berrios. The collaboration with these three teams evolves around the development of tools for science collaboration between a Mars Crew and a distributed Earth-based Remote Science Team. The Earth-based Remote Science Team is led by Shannon Rupert of the Mars Society.

Comb-e-Chem

Shallow integration Deployment of generic tools

Deep integration Buddyspace shows status of equipment and results Process panels for experimental processes in the lab Record and replay can be applied to lab experiments Compendium to support scientific discourse All interaction is recorded and interlinked

Comb-e-Chem

www.smarttea.org

Scenarios – eResponse

Storyboard / talk-piece Facilitate a team of experts to coordinate a response to

a disaster An oil spill in the Solent

I-X Process Panels Coordinate activities via SOPs

Buddyspace Access to online scientists

Compendium Record argumentation

Meeting Replay

Future work Deploy these tools as part of the collaborative

e-Research environment Customise tools to particular applications Perform user evaluation

Additional tools Fully integrate with e.g. Comb-e-Chem

research agenda “Chain ReAKTinG” – ready to go

Many important Semantic Web challenges Coupling with pervasive devices Apply in new areas such as performing arts Apply to other collaboration technologies

CoAKTinG Links

CoAKTinG Project: www.aktors.org/coakting

BuddySpace: kmi.open.ac.uk/projects/buddyspace

Compendium: kmi.open.ac.uk/projects/compendium

I-X: i-x.info

Replay: www.iam.ecs.soton.ac.uk/projects/hystream

www.aktors.org/coakting