Sharing Expertise Worldwide: Where does the Desktop end?
by David Duce
In the EU Telematics project MANICORAL, DCI has been successfully
investigating the use of Internet-based audio-video conferencing
tools on desktop workstations, to enable collaborative working
at the desktop as an extension to the normal working environment
of each scientist or engineer.
How do people collaborate today? Many organisations have staff
located at different sites. Many research and development activities
nowadays are collaborative ventures, involving scientists from
different disciplines, countries and cultures in laboratories
scattered around the world. Traditionally the tools of collaboration
within such ventures have been face-to-face meetings, postal mail,
telephone, fax machine and more recently e-mail and the Web. The
use of e-mail and the Web has undoubtedly made a fundamental impact
on the way some forms of collaboration are done and has opened
up new forms of collaboration. The dedicated video conferencing
suite is also proving to be effective in eliminating the need
to travel to a common location, for some kinds of meeting. Video
conferencing enables richer forms of interaction between participants
in a project than can be provided by e-mail and the web alone.
However, participation in such a conference typically involves
leaving the normal working environment and going to a separate
room equipped for this purpose.
In many fields visualization is an important way of presenting
complex information for discussion with colleagues. The project
has developed extensions to the commercial visualization system,
AVS/Express, which enable colleagues to participate in cooperative
interactive visualization and display of data sets. Participants
in a collaborative session may share the results of visualizing
their data sets and may also share control over the processes
which generate visualizations.
This approach to supporting collaborative working has been developed
and demonstrated in conjunction with a group of end-users, representatives
of a consortium of geoscientists known as AFRICAR (Altimetry For
Research In Climate And Resources), they are located in universities
and research institutions in Denmark, The Netherlands, Italy,
Austria and Greece.
How does the Scientist Benefit?
In a typical scenario, a scientist working on a problem may realise
that a colleague has complementary expertise that might help solve
the problem. Without leaving the normal working environment, audio
and video connections may be established to the colleague. These
in conjunction with a shared whiteboard space and the shared visualization
tool may be used to describe and discuss the problem, bringing
in material from other sources as appropriate.
What are the Implications for the Future?
Through this approach, the boundaries of the desktop are extended
beyond the different time, different place style of collaboration
supported by e-mail and the Web, to the same time, different place
style of collaboration which was previously the preserve of the
telephone or specialist videoconferencing suite. Seeing collaboration
as an extension of the normal working environment or desktop provides
a powerful way in which to foster new styles of cooperation within
a project or organisation. For more information see: http://www.dci.clrc.ac.uk/Activity.asp?Manicoral
Please contact:
David Duce - CLRC
Tel: +44 1235 445511
E-mail: D.A.Duce@rl.ac.uk
