A Review of its Uses at the University of Michigan

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Data Collaboration in the Wild

• A Review of its Uses at the University of Michigan

Erik C. Hofer ehofer_at_umich.edu Collaboratory for
Research on Electronic Work School of
Information University of Michigan
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Overview

• The challenge ahead
• Confronting the Tsunami
• Some specimens from the Wild
• Some lessons

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The challenge

• Why this talk? Why now?
• Many reasons
• An exploding market
• An exploding demand
• We have to sort this all out for our users

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The tsunami

• A convenient metaphor
• Web conferencing and data collaboration products
  are a giant wall of water, headed straight for
  us, that will cause great destruction if we are
  not prepared
• We have to understand how this wave is going to
  hit us

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Some tsunami background

• A series of massive waves
• Energy is constant
• function of height and speed
• grow rapidly in size as they approach shore
• Caused (typically) by earthquakes or other
  seismic activity
• Can cause massive destruction

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Our tsunami

• There are seismic changes underway in how
  research and education are conducted
• Forces have been building for a long time, but we
  are about to see major motion as those forces
  release
• To prepare for this tsunami, we must understand
  the source of the wave, more so than the wave
  itself

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Seismic changes

• There is wide belief that the education and
  research community is poised to embrace new
  applications enabled by advanced IT
  infrastructure
• The cyberinfrastructure perspective has some
  concrete thoughts on how this should work for
  higher ed.
• Atkins et al., 2003
• K-12 is not far behind
• Fortunately, there have been some tremors that we
  can look to to understand what lies ahead

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Some examples

• Remote instrumentation
• UARC/SPARC and NEESgrid
• Data discussion
• GLR CFAR and NEES ES-TF
• Distance education
• GIS Global Graduate Seminar and Anthrax Virtual
  Briefings

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A note about the examples

• Standing on the shoulders of giants
• A huge number of people have been involved in
  each of these projects and I know I will not give
  due credit to each, but Ill try

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UARC / SPARC

• NSF-funded Upper Atmospheric Research
  Collaboratory and Space Physics and Aeronomy
  Research Collaboratory projects
• Remote instrumentation of facilities for upper
  atmospheric science
• Provided simultaneous viewing of multiple
  instruments, archival data and model
  visualizations in a collaboratory environment

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UARC 5.0
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UARC 6.0
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SPARC
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NEESgrid

• Collaboratory component of the NSF-funded George
  E. Brown, Jr. Network for Earthquake Engineering
  Simulation
• Provides access to major earthquake engineering
  infrastructure at 15 research facilities in the
  US
• Enables remote participation and integration of
  numerical and physical simulation

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NEESgrid Interface
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GLR CFAR

• NIH-funded Great Lakes Regional Center for AIDS
  Research
• A virtual center connecting researchers at
• Connected through various collaboration technology

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Virtual Lab meeting
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Virtual Lab Seminar
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NEES ES-TF

• Regular virtual lab meeting for equipment sites
  in NEES
• Typically 15-20 sites
• Content ranging from roundtable discussions to
  presentations

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NEES ES-TF
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Global Graduate Seminar

• Graduate-level course taught between several
  universities
• University of Michigan, American University,
  Howard University, University of Witwatersrand,
  University of Fort Hare, University of Pretoria
• Professor spends time in each place
• Each student is a participant in a web
  conferencing session

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Global Graduate Seminar
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Rapid Response Collaboratory

• A public-health related project organized in
  October, 2001 as a response to concerns about
  anthrax
• Core group of 10 people affiliated with GLR CFAR
  organized virtual briefings
• Used Placeware and commercial conference call
  provider
• Over 1200 participants in 8 states

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Some lessons

• Not all uses of data collaboration are the same
• No silver bullet in technology choice
• Effort required depends largely on what
  activities need to be supported
• There are many ways to do this!

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Some themes

• Remote instrumentation
• Data is the focus
• Low technological barriers to entry
• Data discussion
• Conversation is the focus
• Specialized hardware may be necessary
• Distance education
• Need to be extremely fault tolerant

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Conclusion

• The tsunami is heading for us
• We have to understand the seismic changes in work
  that are sending the water our way
• Task and infrastructure requirements can yield
  very different collaborative environments for
  different users
• There is no single integrated solution right now,
  but we can piece things together

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Acknowledgments

• National Science Foundation
• SPARC - ATM-9873025
• UARC - IRI-9216848
• NEESgrid - CMS-0117853
• National Institutes of Health
• GLR CFAR - 5 P30 CA79458

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Ack GGS

• W.K. Kellog Foundation
• CSIR
• University of Michigan
• School of Information
• Center for Afroamerican and African Studies
• Alliance for Community Technology
• International Possibilities Unlimited
• Microsoft Research
• Cisco Systems
• Orbicom
• National Science Foundation

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People (not all)