Virtual Teams and Infocosm: Challenges in Cooperative Information Systems

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Virtual Teams and InfocosmChallenges in
Cooperative Information Systems
Amit Sheth Large Scale Distributed Information
Systems Lab at the University of
Georgia http//lsdis.cs.uga.edu
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Infocosm
Knowledge
Cooperating Information Systems
Information Interoperablity
Data
Computing
Communication
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My personal viewReal challenges for the CoopIS

• Human involvement
• Semantics-level support by information systems

• Non-challenges
• System/infrastructure, syntax and structural
  interoperability

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Enabling Infocosm

• a society whose members (organisms) can have
  more effective decision making capability using
  information that is available whenever needed, at
  any place, and in (m)any form(s) Sheth 93
• a world where people will work, learn and play,
  unconstrained by time, place and form Ferguson
  95

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Information Heterogeneity Semantic
HeterogeneityStructural, Representational/Schemat
ic HeterogeneitySyntactic, Format Heterogeneity
Semantic Interoperability Structural
Interoperability Syntactic Interoperability System
Interoperability
System Heterogeneity Information System
HeterogeneityDigital Media Repository Management
Systems Database Management Systems,
(heterogeneity of DBMSs, data models, system
capabilities such as concurrency control and
recovery) Platform HeterogeneityOperating System
(heterogeneity of file system, naming, file
types, operation, transaction support,
IPC) Hardware/System (heterogeneity of
instruction set, data representation/coding)
Figure Heterogeneity in Information Systems
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Generation 1 concern So far (schematically),
yet so near (semantically)!
Generation 3 concern So near (schematically),
yet so far (semantically)!
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Building blocks for semantic interoperability

• Terminological transparency
• Context
• Media-independent information correlation

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Human involvement in coordination and
collaboration

• Coordination and collaboration alone are not
  adequate-- cooperation often involves both
• Not only workflow model, but organizational
  model, and ability to involve humans in many
  partially specified activities, and deal with
  numerous exceptions
• Satisfaction of humans

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Proceedings
NSF Workshop on Workflow and Process Automation
in Information Systems State-of-the-Art and
Future Directions
May 8-10, 1996 Georgia State Botanical
Gardens, Athens, Georgia
Sponsored by National Science Foundation Co-sponso
red by University of Georgia Research
Education Foundation
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Conceptual/Technical Outcome 4Work Activity
Coordination

• "Work Activity Coordination involves such
  multidisciplinary research and goes beyond the
  current thinking in contemporary workflow
  management and Business Process Reengineering
  (BPR). In particular, instead of perceiving
  problems in prototypical terms such as the
  information factory, white-collar work and
  bureaucracy, we believe that this limited point
  of view can be explained by a lack of synergy
  between organizational science, methodologies,
  and computer science.
• Multidisciplinary research projects, based on
  mutual respect and willingness to learn from
  another discipline, can help to create a thriving
  research community that builds upon the strengths
  of different disciplines, such as ....''

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Coordination and Collaboration for Virtual Teams
Adaptive and integrated Work Coordination and
Collaboration
Collaboration models
Models for static workflows
Workflow system implementation
Collaboration system implementation
Higher-level infrastructure
Correctness/validation
O-O programming,Distributed computing
infrastructure and DBMSs
Formal models and languages for distributed
computing
Agent technology,O-O programming,Distributed
computing infrastructure and DBMSs
Formal models and languages for distributed
computing
Current Environment
Proposed Environment
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Cooperative Information Systems
Collaboration
Coordination

• Video Conferencing
• Whiteboarding
• Application sharing

• Scheduling
• Workflow

Collective exploitation of complementary
technologies
InformationManagement