Collaboratory life: Observations on scholarly work via the Internet Thomas A. Finholt Collaboratory for Research on Electronic Work School of Information The University of Michigan

Collaboratory for Research on Electronic Work - CREW Finholt As we may work... electronic resources (e.g., the Web) represent a tremendous opportunity gains for scholars are possible...but not automatic the challenge: How to maximize the likelihood of positive change?

Collaboratory for Research on Electronic Work - CREW Finholt A testbed for research over the Internet “a laboratory without walls” support for work among geographically distributed scholars 1993 National Academy Report –National Academy Press 2101 Constitution Ave., NW Washington, DC fund several prototype systems

Collaboratory for Research on Electronic Work - CREW Finholt The collaboratory vision Digital libraries & documents groups-to-information groups-to-facilities people-to-people Communication, Collaboration Services Distributed, media-rich information technology Remote instruments

Collaboratory for Research on Electronic Work - CREW Finholt Digital libraries and documents APSI -- the Advanced Papyrological Information System The Journal Storage Project (JSTOR) -- online back archives of scholarly journals Neodat II -- an online database of resources about neotropical fish

Collaboratory for Research on Electronic Work - CREW Finholt Advanced Papyrological Information System A consortium of Michigan, Duke, Columbia, Berkeley, Yale, and the American Society of Papyrologists Over 10,000 ancient documents Only 20% have been previously published Searchable and readable -- via Web browsers

Collaboratory for Research on Electronic Work - CREW Finholt JSTOR Mellon/Michigan/Princeton effort to build an online back archive of scholarly journals 198 universities, colleges, and foundations 60 journals in the humanities and social sciences; over 1 million pages of text searchable, readable, and printable -- via Web browsers

Collaboratory for Research on Electronic Work - CREW Finholt Neodat II NSF/AID-funded effort to build a multi-institutional collection catalog in ichthyology 17 institutions in Europe, North America, and South America 450,000 records; 6000 species; 74,000 geographic localities 800 uses per month

biodiversity.bio.uno.edu/~neodat/

Collaboratory for Research on Electronic Work - CREW Finholt Access to remote instruments UARC -- the Upper Atmospheric Research Collaboratory Collaboratory for Environmental Molecular Sciences

Collaboratory for Research on Electronic Work - CREW Finholt Upper Atmospheric Research Collaboratory (UARC) NSF funded, 1992 to present an experimental system for collaborative research over wide-area networks focused on data from ground-based observatories, spacecraft, and real-time supercomputer models

Collaboratory for Research on Electronic Work - CREW Finholt The UARC testbed Chat window Radar displays TING model Session manager Polar UVI

Collaboratory for Research on Electronic Work - CREW Finholt UARC scope, 1998

Collaboratory for Research on Electronic Work - CREW Finholt Collaboratory for Environmental Molecular Sciences U.S. Department of Energy-funded effort to build remote access to instruments at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory Tools: WebTour, TeleViewer, chat, Electronic Notebook, video conferencing Ultimately: remote control of instruments

Collaboratory for Research on Electronic Work - CREW Finholt Challenges Quality of service -- the contemporary Internet is slow and unreliable Paradigms for collaboration -- we lack good social and psychological models to explain group effort by dozens or hundreds of researchers Supporting informal communication -- collocation and face-to-face interaction are still superior to alternatives