Life Within the "Empire" A Framework for Using the Internet as a Research Collaboration Space

The authors acknowledge that knowledge creation is a collaborative process by nature and attempt to leverage current IS methods and technology to recreate the classical salons that yielded philosophical discourse. Research has demonstrated physical proximity as a key indicator of both the undertaking and successful completion of research, yet this physical proximity has not shown analogous carry-over into virtual domains – namely the virtual space provided via the Internet. A non-threatening framework is described that enables temporary virtual team creation in a double-blind environment for many-to-many collaboration. Furthermore, this framework is parsimonious with the greater epistemological orientation of modern publication-oriented research.