Great Lakes Regional Center for AIDS Research: 1998 - 2002

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Great Lakes Regional Center for AIDS
Research1998 - 2002

• Stephanie Teasley
• and Jason YerkieSchool of InformationUniversity
  of Michigan

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Outline

• SOC functions
• Primary
• Secondary
• Description
• Goal
• History
• Organization
• Funding
• Incentives
• Collaboration needs
• Supporting needs
• Collaboration readiness

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Outline (cont.)

• Access
• Resource diagram
• Technology employed
• Successes and challenges
• Usage
• Analysis of user behavior
• Analysis of user attitudes
• Conclusions

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SOC functions

• Primary
• Distributed research center
• Secondary
• Shared instrument
• Virtual community of practice

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Description Goal

• To create a virtual center for AIDS research,
  where science at the University of Michigan,
  University of Minnesota, Northwestern University
  and University of Wisconsin is conducted as if
  these labs were co-located
• Complimentary technological or expertise-based
  services
• Educational opportunities for all members of the
  participating labs.

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History

• Extending the successes of UARC/ SPARC to the
  biomedical community
• Use only off-the-shelf technologies
• First ever NIH CFAR grant to be virtual center.

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Organization

• 10 Founding Scientists
• 2 MI
• 4 MN
• 3 NU
• 2 WI
• 110 Members
• 33 Full
• 41 Associates
• 24 Research Associates
• 9 In training
• 3 Affiliates
• 1 Behavioral Analyst Research staff

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Funding

• National Institutes of Health (NCI NIAID
  5P30CA79458)
• 19 Centers of AIDS Research
• Only geographically distributed CFAR
• approximately 5M per year, 1998-2002

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Incentives

• Funding
• No one site could have individually won a CFAR
• Recognition
• Highly visible in the AIDS community
• Novel capabilities
• Opportunity to collaborate with people that they
  may not have worked with before

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Collaboration Needs

• Communication
• Desktop video conferencing (11)
• Virtual meetings (1many)
• Data Access
• Transfer of data, databases, and images
• Application sharing
• Shared Authoring
• Document collaboration
• Distance education
• Share expertise
• Broadcast lectures and seminars

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Supporting Needs

• Virtual Lab Meetings
• Virtual Seminars

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Collaboration Readiness

• Technical
• All sites had Internet 2
• WI limited access, NU has firewall issues
• Multiple platforms WinTel, Mac, and Unix
• Email adoption similar to biologists
• On average, scientists began using email 1991
• No prior experience using other CMC
• Phone and fax primary ways of communication for
  long distance collaborations

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Collaboration Readiness (cont.)

• Social (Founding Scientists n10)
• 4 pre-existing within-site collaborations
• Communication face-to-face
• 4 pre-existing cross-site collaborations
• All between two sites
• Communication phone and email
• 3.5 anticipated new collaborations
• 1 new anticipated cross-site collaboration
• One third of new collaborations with scientists
  who did not know each other

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Access People

• Virtual Lab Meetings
• AIDS Researchers with complimentary expertise and
  interests
• Bench scientists and clinicians
• Non-human primate researchers

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Virtual Lab Meeting
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Access Information

• Virtual Seminar Series
• Presentations on pre-published work
• Website
• Directory of members and interests
• Announcements and events
• Portal for technical assistance and tips on using
  collaboration tools

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Virtual Seminars
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Access Instruments

• Microscope at Minnesota
• Real-time view of specimens from microscope
• Discussions with pathologist

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Resource Diagram
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Technology Employed (OTS)

• Virtual Lab Meetings
• Microsoft NetMeeting
• Timbuktu
• Virtual PC
• Virtual Seminars
• PlaceWare
• Desktop Video
• USB web cameras
• iVisit
• Data Sharing
• Xerox Docushare

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Success and Challenges

• Membership
• 110 members out of a possible 171 (64)
• Virtual Lab Meeting
• Clinical Protocol Development- written faster,
  got funded, study produced two high quality
  publications (so far)
• Virtual Seminars
• 75 of membership participation in at least 1
  seminar
• Developmental Awardees
• Leading to Prestigious RO1 Funding

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Case-Study of Founding Scientists

• Surveys, interviews, observations, and
  bibliographic analysis
• Focused on
• Satisfaction with tools
• Reported Collaborations
• Impact on scholarly work

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Case-Study Group Virtual Lab Meetings

• Lab site presenter 22 lab group members
• 3 local colleagues in different buildings
• 3 remote sites 2 collaborators and 1 scientific
  advisory board member (outside of the Great Lakes
  area)

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Case-Study Scientist-to-Scientist Virtual Lab
Meetings

• One-to-one interactions in real time
• Regularly scheduled meeting time
• Focused interaction over shared data
• Accelerates study design, data analysis and
  review, presentation preparation
• Trouble shoot problems as they occur (e.g.,
  protocol changes, subject recruitment, sample
  processing)

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Case-Study Satisfaction with Virtual Lab
Meetings

• Survey administered after the first 3 meetings
  (n16)

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Case-Study Satisfaction with Virtual Lab
Meetings (cont.)

• "The active participation of investigators
  looking at tissues is akin to the
  free-association process of a good lab meeting.
• "Never seen such detail results of lymph tissue,
  especially on-line. Had a chance to discuss
  quality control of specimen processing
• "Major enhancement --- allows for a whole new
  level of discussion and analysis between PIs."

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Case-Study Reported Collaborations
at end of Year 3
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Case-Study Reported Collaborations (cont.)
Therapeutic R D Primary infection and
therapeutic interventions
Epidemiology Natural History Genetic
diversification of viruses
MN
MI
NU
Pathogenesis Trafficking patterns of transduced
cells in vivo
WI
Pathogenesis Pathogenesis of Kaposis Sarcoma
Pathogenesis of mucosal transmission in acute
SIV infection
Vaccine Other Prevention RD Identification
of MHC restricted epitopes
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Case-Study Impact on Scholarly Work

• Grants
• 8 new grants funded
• 1 within-site grant, collaborators had not
  previously been funded together
• 5 grants involving collaborators across two sites
• Only one of these grants involved collaborators
  who had previous funding together
• 2 grants from 3 sites.
• Prior to CFAR, there were no grants involving
  collaborators across 3 sites.
• 1 additional grant pending with collaborators
  across two sites

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Case-Study Impact on Scholarly Work (cont.)

• Publications
• 14 new papers together
• 9 papers have same-site colleagues
• all of these papers were founding scientists who
  had published together before the GLR CFAR grant
  
• 5 papers have cross-site colleagues
• one paper represents a prior co-authored
  publication

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General Membership Example of Cross Site
Authorship
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General Membership Study

• Surveys, interviews, observations, and
  bibliographic analysis
• Focused on
• Satisfaction with tools
• Impact on scholarly work

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General Membership Cumulative Membership
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General Membership Motivations for Joining

• Gain information about HIV research, contacts in
  the fields locally, and perhaps having funding
  opportunities available
• Opportunity for effective collaboration
• Participation in research activities promote
  local and regional HIV research
• To take advantage of the shared resources and to
  apply for a Developmental Award

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General Membership Scientific Productivity

• Funding
• 64 increase in NIH funded research base (context
  of 33 increase in overall AIDS-related research)
• Developmental award winners
• 8 of 9 awardees received subsequent funding
• 4 went on to receive RO1 totaling 5.6M

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General Membership Scientific Productivity
(cont.)

• Publications
• September 1998 to March 2001
• 106 Members
• 558 Publications
• Top Five Journals (28 of total pubs)
• J. Virology
• J. Infectious Diseases
• J Immunology
• AIDS
• Infectious Immunology

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General Membership Scientific Productivity
(cont.)

• Single author pub is CFAR member 5
• At least 2 authors CFAR members from same site
  14
• At least 2 authors CFAR members from different
  sites 1
• One CFAR member author 80

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General Membership Satisfaction with Virtual
Seminar
Survey administered after first 5 seminars(n36)
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General Membership Impact on Scholarly Work

• Method Pair-wise Survey (preliminary data)
• Respondents 41
• 37 of total membership
• Total within site collaborations 200
• Total between site collaborations 68
• Total number of reported collaborators 82
• 75 of total membership
• Average reported collaborators 8.17

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General Membership Impact on Scholarly Work
(cont.)
Work in progress under review accepted rejected Other Total
Within Site 157 30 100 10 42 339
Between Site 54 10 31 3 4 102
Totals 211 40 131 13 46 441
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General Membership Impact on Scholarly Work
(cont.)

• Provide ideas and access to lab techniques that
  our ACTU group doesn't have.
• We are a small service organization with limited
  sets of hands, so collaborating with others
  definitely makes our job easier.
• Colleagues with additional expertise in
  HIV/AIDS, including virology immunology.
  Colleagues with contacts to help develop and
  implement research proposals.

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Advantages and Disadvantages of Distributed
Research Center for Scientists

• Positive More data
• Negative Greater need for new ways to keep track
  of shared data
• Positive Potentially more interaction with
  colleagues
• Negative
• Greater need to coordinate schedules
• Interactions less rich than f2f
• Positive Extends access to collaborators data
• Negative Even more data!!

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Some Key Findings

• Off-the-shelf technology can be used for an
  effective collaboratory
• Where effective is
• New collaborations created
• Faster work (e.g., protocol development)
• Support for junior members
• Local technology support significantly increased
  the likelihood of use and adoption
• Participation by site PI influences behavior of
  the members at that site

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Questions

• Collaboratory support within the context of a
  Distributed Research Center
• Is it the technology or the social organization
  that influences behavior?
• Can we tease these apart, and do we need to?

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Questions (cont.)

• How to accurately assess effects
• Increase participation in assessments?
• Legitimate control group?
• Disentangle effects of participant observers?
  (blurred distinction between analysts vs. service
  providers)