SCHOOL OF INFORMATION UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN Collaboratories at a Glance G Judy Olson

SCHOOL OF INFORMATION UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN Goal To understand the space of collaboratories –Compare and contrast –Distill successes and challenges Theory of collaboratories as organizational entities Practical prescription including best practices

SCHOOL OF INFORMATION UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN Secondary goal In our endeavor, we will decide which collaboratories to investigate in depth By understanding the space of possibilities, we can choose wisely

SCHOOL OF INFORMATION UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN Method Collect a large set of collaboratories –We have identified 134 possible candidates Collect a basic set of information Note similarities and differences on both technical and social dimensions

SCHOOL OF INFORMATION UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN Method Examine the existing literature on what drives successes and challenges in organizations Dimensionalize the space Hypothesize causal relationships See what you see!

SCHOOL OF INFORMATION UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN Definition A collaboratory is –An organizational entity –That links a community of individuals –Working at a distance –On common problems or tasks…

SCHOOL OF INFORMATION UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN 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.

SCHOOL OF INFORMATION UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN Early view of collaboratories Digital Libraries, E-Pub access to information access to facilities people-to-people Communication, Groupware Services Distributed, media-rich information technology Interaction with the Physical World

SCHOOL OF INFORMATION UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN Current view of collaboratories

SCHOOL OF INFORMATION UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN The Science of Collaboratories project Focuses on SCIENCE and ENGINEERING collaboratories –So the task is primarily research –Or design Same framework might generalize to other kinds of tasks –e.g. developing policy, securing expert consultation, pursuing education

SCHOOL OF INFORMATION UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN Kinds of Collaboratories Research focus –Distributed Research Center –Shared Instrumentation –Community Data Systems –Open Community Contribution Systems Practice focus –Virtual Community of Practice –Virtual Learning Community –Expert Consultation

SCHOOL OF INFORMATION UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN Distributed Research Center Functions like a University research center, but at a distance. Most communication human-human Project is unified by a topic area of interest, and includes a number of joint projects in that area. No single product as the focus Alliance for Cell Signaling

SCHOOL OF INFORMATION UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN Shared Instrument Increases access to a scientific instrument Often remote access to an expensive instrument Often supplemented with other technology to support communication Keck observatory

SCHOOL OF INFORMATION UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN Community Data System Information resource that is created, maintained, or improved by a distributed community Information is semi-public, of wide interest. Zebrafish information network

SCHOOL OF INFORMATION UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN Open Community Contribution System Shared contribution to a project Not data, more likely software modules Strict hierarchical control over acceptance Mozilla

SCHOOL OF INFORMATION UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN Virtual Community of Practice A network of individuals who share a research area and communicate about it online Share news of professional interest, advice, techniques. Not focused on joint projects Ocean US

SCHOOL OF INFORMATION UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN Virtual Learning Community Main focus is on increasing the knowledge of the participants –Not to do original research Can be inservice or professional development Ecology Circuit Collaboration

SCHOOL OF INFORMATION UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN Expert Consultation Provides increased access to an expert or set of experts The flow of information is mainly one way, rather than two way as in a distributed center TeleInViVo

SCHOOL OF INFORMATION UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN How they relate to each other Distributed Research Center Shared Instrument Community Data System Open Community Contribution System Virtual Community Of Practice Expert Consultation Virtual Learning Community

SCHOOL OF INFORMATION UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN The relationships Wisdom Knowledge Information Data The world Shared Instruments Distributed Research Centers Practice and Expertise Community Systems

SCHOOL OF INFORMATION UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN Resource Diagrams Representation of –Participants, both organizations and individuals –Instruments –Shared data –Communication flow –Resource flow (money)

SCHOOL OF INFORMATION UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN Key

SCHOOL OF INFORMATION UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN Distributed Research Center

SCHOOL OF INFORMATION UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN Shared Instrument

SCHOOL OF INFORMATION UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN Open Community Contribution System

SCHOOL OF INFORMATION UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN Community Data System

SCHOOL OF INFORMATION UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN Virtual Community of Practice

SCHOOL OF INFORMATION UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN Virtual Learning Community

SCHOOL OF INFORMATION UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN Expert Consultation

SCHOOL OF INFORMATION UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN Comparisons within a category

SCHOOL OF INFORMATION UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN Comparisons within a category

SCHOOL OF INFORMATION UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN Findings Beyond “Distance Matters” –Evolution –Coupling –Common ground –“Readiness” Infrastructure Technology Collaboration –Incentives must be carefully aligned to support the collaboration

SCHOOL OF INFORMATION UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN Collaboratories evolve They start as one type and often migrate to include others as well –E.g. SPARC/UARC – shared instruments plus chat, then archives became a community data system –E.g. Chickscope –shared instruments to community data system.

SCHOOL OF INFORMATION UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN Coupling The more partitionable the work, the easier it is to do long distance –May not want total independence –Need interaction to avoid drift –Some success with standardization Lucent CILT

SCHOOL OF INFORMATION UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN Common ground The more shared understanding, the easier it is to work long distance –Nature of the work –Vocabulary –How and when to communicate InterMed

SCHOOL OF INFORMATION UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN Technical readiness Infrastructure has to be sophisticated enough to accommodate the new technology The more uniform the infrastructure the better People can’t make too big a leap SPARC Africa Aids Worm Community

SCHOOL OF INFORMATION UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN Collaboration readiness The community has to have a spirit of collaboration. You cannot make people collaborate through the technology SPARC Africa Aids CFAR (neg)

SCHOOL OF INFORMATION UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN Incentives must be aligned Incentives must be carefully designed to encourage sustained participation Who has to do the work; who benefits (Grudin, Orlikowski)

SCHOOL OF INFORMATION UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN How this plays out Community Data Systems –An information source Created Maintained Continuously improved By geographically distributed members Four examples

SCHOOL OF INFORMATION UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN ZFIN Genetic, anatomic and other data on Zebrafish model organism –Researchers using Zebrafish Incentive –Goodwill of close-knit contributors –The number is growing –Free-riders?

SCHOOL OF INFORMATION UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN GenBank Genetic sequence data on thousands of organisms –Genetics researchers Incentive –Would-be journal authors must show proof of GenBank contribution before publication

SCHOOL OF INFORMATION UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN Alliance for Cell Signaling Molecule pages Aggregate everything known about signaling activity of one chemical –Researchers in cell signaling Incentive –Contributions are co-published in Nature –Counts in tenure decisions?

SCHOOL OF INFORMATION UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN Slashdot Postings on current technical issues –Software developers, ‘nerds’ Incentive –Postings are rated by moderators –High ratings accrue ‘karma points’

SCHOOL OF INFORMATION UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN Incentives Goodwill –ZFIN Goodwill plus Karma points –Slashdot Required contribution for other things –GenBank Equivalent to a publication –Alliance for Cell Signaling

SCHOOL OF INFORMATION UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN General issue What keeps people participating in these long distance efforts? –Mandate –Perceived benefit to the participant –….

SCHOOL OF INFORMATION UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN Analysis of Technologies What is the relationship between tasks and technologies What are the relationships among technologies

SCHOOL OF INFORMATION UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN Relation between task and capabilities Task (Open field) Task CV Capabilities CV

SCHOOL OF INFORMATION UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN Categories of Capabilities (see handout) Coordination Communication Instruments Computation Repository + attributes

SCHOOL OF INFORMATION UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN Relation between task and capabilities Task (Open field) Task CV Capabilities CV Remote meeting Meetings to coordinate distributed software development Video-conferencing (synchronous, many-many, access control) Shared Presentations ( synchronous, many-many, access control) (asynchronous)

SCHOOL OF INFORMATION UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN Technology Ontology Want to create an ontology to describe relationships among different technologies Must capture: –Generic Type –Standards –Components –Timeframe –Creating Org. –Contributing individuals –License

SCHOOL OF INFORMATION UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN Example Knowing that the NEESgrid system includes “CHEF” may not mean much But understanding how “CHEF” relates to other technologies and projects is useful –Framework approach –Jetspeed as a component Other Jetspeed-based projects –Standards based - JCP –Open source Can use for new projects

SCHOOL OF INFORMATION UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN Progress to date Data collected on 37 Collaboratories –Clustered according to the major functions they serve Allows comparison across collaboratories for –What technology did they use –How might money flow have affected the work –What successes and challenges were involved Small set of data elements

SCHOOL OF INFORMATION UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN Where are the data? SOC database – is one of its components Pages accessible to the public In the future we will become a Community Data System –You and others can contribute entries

SCHOOL OF INFORMATION UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN Beyond For a smaller number of collaboratories We collect more in-depth information –Staffing and management –History –Incentives –Usage data –Cultural aspects of the community –Detailed functionality –Details of the technology –Readiness –Impact on the field