Scientific Collaboration On The Internet

Modern science is increasingly collaborative, as signaled by rising numbers of coauthored papers, papers with international coauthors, and multi-investigator grants. Historically, scientific collaborations were carried out by scientists in the same physical location--the Manhattan Project of the 1940s, for example, involved thousands of scientists gathered on a remote plateau in Los Alamos, New Mexico. Today, information and communication technologies allow cooperation among scientists from far-flung institutions and different disciplines. Scientific Collaboration on the Internet provides both broad and in-depth views of how new technology is enabling novel kinds of science and engineering collaboration. The book offers commentary from notable experts in the field along with case studies of large-scale collaborative projects, past and ongoing. The projects described range from the development of a national virtual observatory for astronomical research to a National Institutes of Health funding program for major multi-laboratory medical research; from the deployment of a cyberinfrastructure to connect experts in earthquake engineering to partnerships between developed and developing countries in AIDS research. The chapter authors speak frankly about the problems these projects encountered as well as the successes they achieved. The book strikes a useful balance between presenting the real stories of collaborations and developing a scientific approach to conceiving, designing, implementing, and evaluating such projects. It points to a future of scientific collaborations that build successfully on aspects from multiple disciplines.

Modern information and communication technologies, together with a cultural upheaval within the research community, have profoundly changed research in nearly every aspect. Ranging from sharing and discussing ideas in social networks for scientists to new collaborative environments and novel publication formats, knowledge creation and dissemination as we know it is experiencing a vigorous shift towards increased transparency, collaboration and accessibility. Many assume that research workflows will change more in the next 20 years than they have in the last 200. This book provides researchers, decision makers, and other scientific stakeholders with a snapshot of the basics, the tools, and the underlying visions that drive the current scientific (r)evolution, often called ‘Open Science.’

Increasingly, teams are working together when they are not in the same location, even though there are many challenges to doing so successfully. Here we review the latest insights into these matters, guided by a framework that we have developed during two decades of research on this topic. This framework organizes a series of factors that we have found to differentiate between successful and unsuccessful distributed collaborations. We then review the kinds of technology options that are available today, focusing more on types of technologies rather than specific instances. We describe a database of geographically distributed projects we have studied and introduce the Collaboration Success Wizard, an online tool for assessing past, present, or planned distributed collaborations. We close with a set of recommendations for individuals, managers, and those higher in the organizations who wish to support distance work.

Research 2.0 is now a critical component in research management. This book describes how Web 2.0 technologies can help researchers collaborate. It contains examples of web portals including MyNetResearch and discusses critical aspects of research management.

Science is increasingly defined by multidimensional collaborative networks. Despite the unprecedented growth of scientific collaboration around the globe – the collaborative turn – geography still matters for the cognitive enterprise. This book explores how geography conditions scientific collaboration and how collaboration affects the spatiality of science. This book offers a complex analysis of the spatial aspects of scientific collaboration, addressing the topic at a number of levels: individual, organizational, urban, regional, national, and international. Spatial patterns of scientific collaboration are analysed along with their determinants and consequences. By combining a vast array of approaches, concepts, and methodologies, the volume offers a comprehensive theoretical framework for the geography of scientific collaboration. The examples of scientific collaboration policy discussed in the book are taken from the European Union, the United States, and China. Through a number of case studies the authors analyse the background, development and evaluation of these policies. This book will be of interest to researchers in diverse disciplines such as regional studies, scientometrics, R&D policy, socio-economic geography and network analysis. It will also be of interest to policymakers, and to managers of research organisations.

This book examines how digital technologies enable collaboration as a way for individuals, teams and businesses to connect, create value, and harness new opportunities. Digital technologies have brought the world closer together but also created new barriers and divides. While it is now possible to connect almost instantly and seamlessly across the globe, collaboration comes at a cost; it requires new skills and hidden ‘collaboration work’, and the need to renegotiate the fair distribution of value in multi-stakeholder network arrangements. Presenting state-of-the-art research, case studies, and leading voices in the field, the book provides academics and professionals with insights into the diverse powers of collaboration in the digital age, spanning collaboration among professionals, organisations, and consumers. It brings together contributions from scholars interested in the collaboration of teams, cooperatives, projects, and new cooperative systems, covering a range of sectors from the sharing economy, health care, large project businesses to public sector collaboration.

Science is increasingly defined by multidimensional collaborative networks. Despite the unprecedented growth of scientific collaboration around the globe – the collaborative turn – geography still matters for the cognitive enterprise. This book explores how geography conditions scientific collaboration and how collaboration affects the spatiality of science. This book offers a complex analysis of the spatial aspects of scientific collaboration, addressing the topic at a number of levels: individual, organizational, urban, regional, national, and international. Spatial patterns of scientific collaboration are analysed along with their determinants and consequences. By combining a vast array of approaches, concepts, and methodologies, the volume offers a comprehensive theoretical framework for the geography of scientific collaboration. The examples of scientific collaboration policy discussed in the book are taken from the European Union, the United States, and China. Through a number of case studies the authors analyse the background, development and evaluation of these policies. This book will be of interest to researchers in diverse disciplines such as regional studies, scientometrics, R&D policy, socio-economic geography and network analysis. It will also be of interest to policymakers, and to managers of research organisations.

The increasingly sophisticated and powerful information technology we are creating plays an ever more prominent role in facilitating interaction and cooperation in everyday life. The time has come to harness it in the service of scientific research. This pathbreaking book describes the technical and social challenges and opportunities of electronic collaboration and offers specific examples of the ways in which it has not only facilitated but in some cases enabled work by scientists. Key players all, the chapter authors illuminate the general issues with their first-hand accounts. Very few researchers today can work in isolation. Electronic Collaboration in Science provides the first clear road map for all whose investigations are leading them into this fascinating new multidisciplinary domain.