Chapter 4 COLLABORATIVE VIRTUAL ENVIRONMENTS FOR SCIENTIFIC COLLABORATION: TECHNICAL AND ORGANIZATIONAL DESIGN FRAMEWORKS

Collaboration among scientists is human behavior that facilitates the sharing of meaning and completion of tasks with respect to a mutually shared scientific goal, and which takes place in social settings. Scientific collaboration across geographic distances began centuries ago, when scientists began utilizing postal and shipping services to exchange ideas as well as samples of plants and animals. More recently, collaborative virtual environments have brought new opportunities—and challenges—for scientific collaboration across distances. This chapter discusses two different challenges: designing collaborative virtual environment software tools, and designing organizational structures and practices to facilitate collaboration across geographical distances. To address the first challenge, a technical design framework that focuses on supporting situation awareness is proposed. The framework is based on research conducted by designing and evaluating a scientific collaboratory system, called the nanoManipulator Collaboratory, that allowed scientists to synchronously conduct experiments, collecting and analyzing data from an atomic force microscope. To address the second challenge, an organizational design framework based on a two-year case study of a distributed scientific organization is proposed. These two frameworks may be relevant for a wide range of distributed scientific work. Today, many scientists often use multiple collaborative virtual environment (CVE) tools in various combinations to facilitate collaboration. Examples of tools that support synchronous collaboration are the telephone, video conferencing, instant messaging, chat, shared electronic whiteboards, virtual networked computing, shared access to scientific instruments, and