Comparative Investigation of Collaboratories

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Comparative Investigation of Collaboratories

• June 18-20, 2003
• University of Michigan
• Ann Arbor

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www.scienceofcollaboratories.org
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The Collaboratory Concept

• Collaboratory lt-- Collaborate Laboratory
• W. Wulf -- a center without walls, in
  which the nations researchers can perform their
  research without regard to geographical location
  (1989)
• NRC Report
• Three illustrative areas
• oceanography
• space physics
• molecular biology
• (1993)
• Many collaboratory initiatives
• NSF, NIH, DOE, NASA, etc.

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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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Collaboratory
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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NSF ITR Project

• Sustainable and Generalizable Technology to
  Support Collaboration in Science
• Sept. 2000 to August 2005
• 2.4M
• NSF Grant IIS-0085951
• University of Michigan, Howard University (Lucent
  Technologies)

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Principals

• G. Olson, PD
• J. Olson
• N. Bos
• S. Teasley
• T. Finholt
• J. Hardin
• D. Cogburn
• D. Atkins

• M. Hedstrom
• E. Yakel
• J. Herbsleb (CMU)
• J. Trimble (Howard)
• G. Furnas
• J. King
• M. Cohen
• D. Radev

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Project Goals

• Perform a comparative analysis of collaboratory
  projects
• through invitational workshops that bring
  together collaboratory researchers from around
  the world,
• Develop of a Collaboratory Knowledge Base
• technical and social data and detailed findings
  from existing collaboratory projects,
• Develop general principles and design methods
• with broad community participation,
• Test these principles on existing collaboratories

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Previous workshops

• 1 Social Issues (June 4-5, 2001)
• Definition of collaboratory
• Definitions of success
• Social processes
• Organizational processes

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Previous Workshops

• 2 Technical Issues (July 19-20, 2001)
• Tools technologies of collaboratories
• Capabilities needed by collaboratory users
• Technology issues facing collaboratories

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Previous Workshops

• Comparative Investigation of Collaboratories
  (Sept. 25-27, 2002)
• Collaboratories at a Glance
• In-depth studies
• UARC/SPARC
• GLR CFAR
• Bugscope
• EMSL
• Cross-cutting themes

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This Workshop

• Continuing empirical analysis of existing
  collaboratories
• Two strategies
• Collaboratories-at-a-glance
• Broad survey of whats out there
• Small basic set of facts about all of them
• In-depth studies of selected collaboratories
• Focused analysis

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In-depth Six projects

• NEESgrid
• InterMed
• GriPhyN
• iVDGL
• Alliance for Cell Signalling
• BIRN

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Goals

• What have we learned so far
• What next?
• Two-part strategy
• What next for in-depth analysis

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Cross-cutting themes From Prior Work

• Collaboration readiness
• Collaboration vs. competition in science
• Bottom-up vs. top-down origins
• Technology readiness
• Experience with collaboration tools
• Infrastructure readiness
• Both technical and social
• Common ground
• Extent of shared knowledge critical in
  interdisciplinary work
• Coupling of work
• The interdependencies among individuals

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Cross-cutting Themes from SOC Analyses

• What is success?
• Detailed discussion in June 2001 workshop
• What are the incentives for participation?
• Survey study in progress
• What kinds of collaboratories are there?
• Taxonomy presented later
• How do collaboratories evolve?
• Some ideas based on our taxonomy presented
  later

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Cross-cutting Themes from SOC Analyses

• Do collaborations have an ideal size?
• Collaboratories allow for larger ones
• How do they scale?
• What are various organizational models for how to
  structure collaboratories?
• How does the control and flow of resources affect
  collaboratory success?
• The money flow the relation to the sponsor(s)
• How much flexibility should be designed in?
• What kinds of early commitments?
• How much flexibility will funders allow?

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Cross-cutting Themes from SOC Analyses

• How important are data issues in collaboratories?
• Data seems to be a central component of all
  collaboratories
• For what kind of work do you need real-time vs.
  asynchronous interactions?
• How important is security?
• Whats the mix of tailor-made vs. off-the-shelf
  tools?

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Cross-cutting Themes from SOC Analyses

• How crucial are platform issues?
• What is the emerging role of middleware?
• What is the role of emerging infrastructure such
  as the Grid?
• How does one move from early prototypes to
  production versions of collaboratories?
• Why isnt there more reuse of collaboratory
  tools?
• To what extent are the issues specific to science
  domain or are general?

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Agenda

• Wednesday, June 18
• 900 Science of Collaboratories Project
• Gary Olson
• 1000 Collaboratories at a Glance
• Judy Olson
• 1045-1100 Break
• 1100 Discussants and General discussion
• 1200 Lunch

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Agenda

• Wednesday, June 18
• 100 300 Case 1 NEESgrid
• Chair Dan Horn
• Presenter Tom Finholt
• NEESgrid people Laura Pearlman, Charles
  Severence, Gokhan Pekcan, Paul Hubbard
• Discussants Steve Poltrock, Jonathan Cummings
• Open discussion
• 300 330 Break
• 330 500 Case 2 InterMed
• Chair Judy Olson
• Presenter Nathan Bos
• InterMed people Vimla Patel, Bob Greenes, David
  Kaufman
• Discussants Geoff Bowker, Mark Ackerman
• Open Discussion
• 645 Reception Dinner at the Portage Lake
  Yacht Club

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Agenda

• Thursday, June 19
• 900 1015 Case 3 GriPhyN iVDGL
• Chair Nathan Bos
• Presenters Erik Hofer, Gary Olson
• 1015 1030 Break
• 1030 1200
• Chair Nathan Bos
• GriPhyN iVDGLpeople Paul Avery, Mike Wilde
• Discussants Charles Severance, Michael Cohen
• Open Discussion
• 1200 Lunch

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Agenda

• Thursday, June 19
• 100 300 Case 5 Alliance for Cell Signaling
• Chair Stephanie Teasley
• Presenter Nathan Bos
• ACS people TBD
• Discussants Gloria Mark, Atul Prakash
• Open Discussion
• 300 315 Break

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Agenda

• Thursday, June 19
• 315 515 Case 6 BIRN
• Chair Tom Finholt
• Presenter Judy Olson
• BIRN people Jessica Turner, Jeff Grethe, Mark
  James, Jorge Jovicich, Deron Estes
• Discussants Jason Leigh, Diane Sonnenwald
• 600
• Dinner out in Ann Arbor, arranged groups

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Agenda

• Friday, June 20
• 9 1015 Cross-cutting themes
• Chair Margaret Hedstrom
• Presenter Gary Olson
• Discussants Jason Owen-Smith, Gillian Kerr
• Open Discussion
• 1015 1030 Break
• 1030 Future in-depth collaboratory studies
  which ones
• Chair Gary Olson
• 12 Adjourn over box lunches

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How we will do this

• Your comments
• Please make notes, suggestions, other ideas as we
  go on the colored sheets in your notebook
• OR use the form on the SOC web site
• OR, email us
• Dcooney_at_umich.edu
• Other procedural things
• Dan Cooney
• Ann Verhey-Henke
• Sharon Mahoney