NCP meeting Brussels, 2 June 2005

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NCP meetingBrussels, 2 June 2005

• SO 2.5.9 Collaborative Working Environments
• 6th EU Framework Programme for Research
• Isidro Laso Ballesteros
• IST Programme

"The views expressed in this presentation are
those of the author and do not necessarily
reflect the views of the European Commission"
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SO Collaborative Working Environments. Goal

• To develop next generation collaborative working
  environments (NGCWE), thereby
• increasing creativity and
• boosting innovation and
• productivity.
• NGCWE will enable seamless and natural
  collaboration amongst a diversity of agents
  (humans, machines-robots, etc).

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SO Collaborative Working Environments.
Characteristics of NGCWE

• NGCWE will be
• distributed,
• knowledge-rich and
• virtualized working environments.
• Professional virtual communities and nomadic
  personal access to knowledge should be supported.

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SO Collaborative Working Environments. Objective

• NGCWE environments should provide collaboration
  services to make possible the development of
  worker centric, flexible, scalable and adaptable
  tools and applications.

Applications for collaboration
Collaboration tools
Collaboration services
Collaboration environments
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SO Collaborative Working EnvironmentsWhere is
this SO positioned at?
At the crossroad of
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Research and development activities on NGCWE

• Theoretical research Collaborative Working
  concepts and methods
• Research and development on Core Services for
  distributed collaboration
• System integration into collaboration tools
• Development of complex validating applications
• Support for internationally agreed reference
  architecture for CWE

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Work to be done within SO 2.5.9
Three layered tasks following a systems approach
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1st Focal Layered taskTheoretical research (I)

• Methods and concepts to
• To reduce failures in diverse teams in particular
  when the cultural diversity is high..

Innovation

• To improve work practices in Collaborative
  Working Environments. (Innovative workplace
  practices in manufacturing accounted for as much
  as 89 of the growth in multifactor
  productivity, i.e. beyond ICT increases. San
  Francisco Fed, 2004)

Productivity
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1st Focal Layered taskResearch and development
on Services Components (II)

• Research and development of core collaboration
  service components to complement existing
  middlewares and platforms, such as
• synchronisation and persistence of distributed
  group workspaces
• discovery and allocation of group resources
• group identification, traceability and security
  
• management and interfacing between groups of
  physical materials and digital representations
• and environment group awareness, with a special
  emphasis on mobility.
• This collaboration services components layer will
  deliver a high quality experience to co-workers
  based on flexible management of services and
  should be customizable to different communities,
  making use of different (mobile) devices.

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Collaborative Work Environment providing core
collaboration services
Group identification
Digital representation of physical objects
Environment awareness
Group Security
Group resources Discovery and allocation.
Synchronization and Persistence of Distributed
workspaces
Group Traceability
Technology Pillars
Middleware (SOA)
Network Access (IP v6, wireless, )
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2nd focal layered task Research on tools for
collaborative work

• Bringing together core collaboration services
  (layer 1) into collaboration tools.
• These tools will offer sophisticated services.
• Focus on
• Group management,
• Visualization services,
• Augmented group presence,
• Sharing support,
• Seamless interaction,
• Semantic modeling of complex groups of workers,
• Service composition.

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Collaborative Work Environment providing core
collaboration services
Group identification
Digital representation of physical objects
Environment awareness
Group Security
Group resources Discovery and allocation.
Synchronization and Persistence of Distributed
workspaces
Group Traceability
Technology Pillars
Middleware (SOA)
Network Access (IP v6, wireless, )
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3nd focal layered task Development of Complex
applications (I)
Innovative validating applications for
collaborative work in content-rich, mobile and
fixed collaborative environments in ICT rich
domains.

• ICT-rich domains mentioned in the text where
  large demonstrators (EARs) are expected
• Collaborative design and engineering, in
  particular rapid prototyping and simulation in
  the context of virtual manufacturing
• Collaboration in media/content production
  workers
• Collaboration among e-Professionals
• Collaboration with and among knowledge and
  information workers in remote and rural settings.
• e-Training for collaborative and remote workers
  (horizontal)

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Collaborative Work Environment providing core
collaboration services
Group identification
Digital representation of physical objects
Environment awareness
Group Security
Group resources Discovery and allocation.
Synchronization and Persistence of Distributed
workspaces
Group Traceability
Technology Pillars
Middleware (SOA)
Network Access (IP v6, wireless, )
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3nd focal layered task Development of Complex
applications (II)

• Cross domain fertilization domain would enrich
  these applications.
• These applications should leverage, where
  appropriate, on experience from collaborative
  games (disruptive approaches).

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Other tasks (I)

• To promote joint research activities with
  national programmes,
• To define future research agendas,
• To identify emerging topics and research groups
  world wide.
• Instruments CAs/SSAs

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Other tasks (II)

• To achieve internationally agreed reference
  architecture for collaborative work (guidelines),
  including core components providing seamless
  collaboration.
• Through Collaboration with international research
  and standardization activities.
• Build on international RTD activities in
  particular USA, Canada, Korea and Japan.
• Linked to international standardization
  activities, including W3C and IETF.
• Instruments CAs/SSAs

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SO 2.5.9. ERA activities

• Aim
• strengthen and complement research carried out
  under ESA, EUREKA and national initiatives.
• In particular, links to Eureka ITEA projects
  related to Nomadic and Cyber-Enterprise domain
  applications should be described to assess
  synergies and inter-dependencies in terms of
  timing and funding.

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S.O. 2.5.9 Instruments for layer
CAs
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SO 2.5.9. Integrated Projects (I)

• Budget 70
• Integrated, goal-oriented RD
• Cut across the 3 layered focal tasks, including
• Work on
• innovative concepts and methods,
• core collaboration services,
• tools for collaboration, AND
• validation on testbeds and large demonstrators.
• Critical mass is required to have impact

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SO 2.5.9. Integrated Projects (III)
EARs

• The use of Experience and Application Research
  (EAR) approach is encouraged.
• EAR is defined by the ISTAG they are designed
  for an early involvement of users and to create
  links to structures, business processes and
  workplace practices of the organisations.
• EARs are expected in the ICT rich domains
  mentioned in the text.
• Examples of EARs budget 700,000

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SO 2.5.9. Targeted RTD Projects

• Only in the 1st and 2nd layers.
• Tasks
• To explore emerging
• alternatives to pave the
• way for additional technological advances in the
  field.
• Disruptive approaches are welcome.

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SO 2.5.9. Co-ordination Activities

• Aim
• to promote and support the networking and
  coordination of research and innovation
  activities needed for European leadership in
  ICT-enabled Collaborative Working Environments.
• To ensure that the work is consistent across IPs
  and STREPs.

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SO 2.5.9. SMEs

• Actions targeting SMEs developing collaborative
  tools and application are encouraged (2nd and 3rd
  layers)
• Aim
• To achieve better interoperability of
  complementary services and tools.
• To leverage on innovative SMEs.

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For More Information...

• Sources of information
• Strategic Objective Web site http//www.cordis.l
  u/ist/so/collab-work/home.html
• New working Environments Unit web site
• www.amiatwork.com

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The End
Thank you for your attention!

• Isidro LASO-BALLESTEROS
• Isidro.laso_at_cec.eu.int