SAP DESIGN GUILD

Book Review: Scientific Collaboration on the Internet – Overview

By Gerd Waloszek, SAP AG, User Experience – 03/04/2009

On this page, we provide an overview of the book Scientific Collaboration on the Internet, edited by Gary M. Olson, Ann Zimmerman & Nathan Bos.

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Overview of the Book

• Foreword (William A. Wulf)
• Preface
• Introduction (Gary M. Olson, Nathan Bos, and Ann Zimmerman)
  Defines collaboratories and the science of collaboratories (SOC), identifies some common questions, and provides an overview of the six parts of the book. The following short descriptions are mostly taken from this introduction and adapted as needed.

Part I: The Contemporary Collaboratory Vision

• Chapter 1: E-Science, Cyberinfrastructure, and Scholarly Communication (Tony Hey and Anne Trefethen)
  Covers the implications of e-Science technologies for open access and scholarly communication on the construction of a global research community.
• Chapter 2: Cyberscience: The Age of Digitized Collaboration? (Michael Nentwich)
  The author anticipates a future where collaboration is increasingly common, while both physical proximity and physical objects become less important to scientists.

Part II: Perspectives on Distributed, Collaborative Science

• Chapter 3: From Shared Databases to Communities of Practice: A Taxonomy of Collaboratories (Nathan Bos, Ann Zimmerman, Judith S. Olson, Jude Yew, Jason Yerkie, Erik Dahl, Daniel Cooney, and Gary M. Olson)
  Presents a seven-category taxonomy of collaboratory types that guided further research.
• Chapter 4: A Theory of Remote Scientific Collaboration (Judith S. Olson, Eric C. Hofer, Nathan Bos, Ann Zimmerman, Gary M. Olson, Daniel Cooney, and Ixchel Faniel)
  The authors propose a broad set of success measures and analyze factors that affect such measures. According to them, this is their best attempt to date to define a science of collaboratories.
• Chapter 5: Collaborative Research across Disciplinary and Organizational Boundaries (Jonathon N. Cummings, and Sara Kiesler)
  Studies a diverse set of projects with a common set of measures and comes up with some unique findings, particularly related to the interaction of organizational and distance barriers.

Part III: Physical Sciences

• Chapter 6: A National User Facility That Fits on Your Desk: The Evolution of Collaboratories at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (James D. Myers)
  Presents the ESML collaboratory that showcases the potential of collaboratories and real-time collaboration over the Internet to a wide range of scientists and educators, particularly with a downloadable Toolkit for Collaboratory Development.
• Chapter 7: The National Virtual Observatory (Mark S. Ackerman, Eric C. Hofer, and Robert J. Hanisch)
  Describes the NVO project, which not only developed a shared data resource for astronomers, but also allows exploring new types of science, providing astronomers with more data capabilities than ever before.
• Chapter 8: High-Energy Physics: The Large Hadron Collider Collaborations (Eric C. Hofer, Shawn McKee, Jeremy P. Birnholtz and Paul Avery)
  Focuses on the major organizational and technical challenges that have arisen as the HEP community has increased the scale of its scientific projects to a coordinated, global scientific investigation center.
• Chapter 9: The Upper Atmospheric Research Collaboratory and the Space Physics and Aeronomy Research Collaboratory (Gary M. Olson and Timothy L. Killeen; Assisted by Thomas A. Finholt)
  Reviews the decade-long history of a collaboratory (UARC/SPARC) project in upper atmospheric physic, which had a number of significant outcomes and influenced the development of subsequent collaboratories and of techniques that later had widespread use.
• Chapter 10: Evaluation of a Scientific Collaboratory System: Investigating Utility before Deployment (Diane H. Sonnenwald, Mary C. Whitton, and Kelly L. Maglaughlin)
  Evaluates the nanoManipulator Collaboratory System, a set of tools that provide collaborative interactive access to a specialized scientific instrument and office applications, in order to answer some fundamental questions about the development of collaboratories.

Part IV: Biological and Health Sciences

• Chapter 11: The National Institute of General Medical Sciences Glue Grant Program (Michael E. Rogers, and James Onken)
  Describes the NIGMS glue grant program that has funded five major multilaboratory projects along with some smaller ones.
• Chapter 12: The Biomedical Informatics Research Network (Judith S. Olson, Mark Ellisman, Mark James, Jeffrey S. Grethe, and Mary Puetz)
  Describes BIRN, another major NIH initiative, which is composed of three collaboratories devoted to brain imaging, the genetics of human neurological disorders, and the associated animal models.
• Chapter 13: Three Distributed Biomedical Research Centers (Stephanie D. Teasley, Titus Schleyer, Libby Hemphill, and Eric Cook)
  This case study describes three NIH-sponsored distributed centers and provides insight into the dynamics of biomedical research collaboration from different perspectives.
• Chapter 14: Motivation to Contribute to Collaboratories: A Public Goods Approach (Nathan Bos)
  Describes a study that examines how to motivate and sustain contributions from members. It is based on game-theoretical research on common goods and focuses on Community Data Systems.

Part V: Earth and Environmental Sciences

• Chapter 15: Ecology Transformed: The National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis and the Changing Patterns of Ecological Research (Edward J. Hackett, John N. Parker, David Conz, Diana Rhoten, and Andrew Parker)
  Describes the origins of NCEAS and analyzes the network patterns and social processes of research that take place at the center.
• Chapter 16: The Evolution of Collaboration in Ecology: Lessons from the U.S. Long-Term Ecological Research Program (William K. Michener and Robert B. Waide)
  Describes the Long-Term Ecological Research program and focuses on long-term aspects.
• Chapter 17: Organizing for Multidisciplinary Collaboration: The Case of the Geosciences Network (David Ribes and Geoffrey C. Bowker)
  Describes GEON that focuses on extending science across multiple subdisciplines and includes a close cooperation with computer scientists.
• Chapter 18: NEESgrid: Lessons Learned for Future Cyberinfrastructure Development (B. F. Spencer, Jr., Randal Butler, Kathleen Ricker, Doru Marcusiu, Thomas A. Finholt, Ian Foster, Carl Kesselman, and Jeremy P. Birnholtz)
  Reports the experiences and lessons learned from the NEESgrid project, a cyberinfrastructure for earthquake engineering experts.

Part VI: The Developing World

• Chapter 19: International AIDS Research Collaboratories: The HIV Pathogenesis Program (Matthew Bietz, Marsha Naidoo, and Gary M. Olson)
  Describes a partnership between AIDS researchers in the USA and South Africa and examines the technical, institutional, and cultural barriers that collaborations between developed and developing countries can expect to face.
• Chapter 20: How Collaboratories Affect Scientists from Developing Countries (Airong Luo and Judith S. Olson)
  Presents and discusses interviews with more than thirty scientists from developing countries who have participated in collaboratories with developed countries.

Conclusion

• Final Thoughts: Is There a Science of Collaboratories? (Nathan Bos, Gary M. Olson, and Ann Zimmerman)
  The authors describe the way toward a true science of collaboratories. First they explore the roots of this proposed new science along five disciplinary areas: computer science, science and technology studies, management science, the field of information, and behavioral economics. Then they look at the recent NSF cyberinfrastructure initiative and other emerging trends.
  
• Contributors
• Index

 

Glossary

• BIRN: Biomedical Research Information Network
• ESML: Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory
• GEON: Geosciences Network
• HEP: High-Energy Physics
• NCEAS: National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis
• NEES: Network for Earthquake Engineering Simulation
• NIGMS: National Institute of General Medical Sciences
• NIH: National Institute of Health
• NSF: National Science Foundation
• NVO: National Virtual Observatory
• SPARC: Space Physics and Aeronomy Research Center
• UARC: Upper Atmospheric Research Collaboratory

 

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