Jon Udell's Internet Groupware for Scientific Collaboration (Software Carpentry
Project, June 2000) discusses pros and cons of various types of online collaborative tools. Jon's claim is summarized: "the Internet empowers today's working scientist in ways only dreamed of even a decade ago. Yet our use of it often remains rooted in pre-Web idioms and habits -- partly because we don't fully exploit today's Internet communication tools, but mainly because we're still missing key tools and infrastructure. " His observations are applicable to other group activities and professions. (Read more ... )
He discusses particular applications as used for:
* Event Coordination
* Group Discussion
* Broadcasting and Monitoring News
* Scientific Publishing
Event Coordination.
He presents a detailed comparison of:
invites.yahoo.com
www.evite.com and
www.timedance.com
as tools to create "event objects" and manage invitations to access them.
Group Discussion.
He addresses disadvantages of mailing lists, including those with web-based archives, such as Yahoo Groups (successor to the EGroups mentioned in the paper).
Alternatives he discusses include:
* NNTP (Net News Transfer Protocol) servers and clients, ("underappreciated" and able to be secured)
* Quicktopic (its "instant discussion is ad-hoc, lightweight and disposable, yet more focused, more centralized, and more accessible than a mailing list.")
* Roundup ("powerful because it leverages, and adds value to, existing tools and habits")
* WikiWiki (Hawaiian for "fast") tools ("prefers hypertextual structure to thread structure" -- "Some groups find Wikis baffling; others take naturally to them")
Broadcasting and Monitoring News
Udell addresses the increasing problem of information overload, and the practice of weblogging that contributes to it (quoting one blogger: "There was once a hope that the weblog could become a powerful tool for reaching out and connecting with the world. Instead, it has become a powerful tool for self-gratification and self-absorption.")
"But underlying the weblogging movement are two technological trends," says Udell, "--- RSS headline syndication, and pushbutton Web publishing -- that lay the groundwork for better ways to publicize, and monitor, the activities of professional groups."
Udell provides an extremely informative review of the development of the XML-based RSS vocabulary and the client tools that use it, including Dave Winer's channel-authoring tool called Manila and O'Reilly Network's "open wire service," called Meerkat. He notes that: "All this adds up to a new kind of information ecology inhabited by RSS authors, sites that syndicate RSS content, and services that aggregate, select, refine, and republish RSS content." These same tools enable simplified Web publishing.
Udell summarizes the challenges and opportunities in this segment: "Information overload is a severe problem, and there isn't a single best solution. Weblogs syndicated on the RSS network are no more inherently immune to signal degradation than the Usenet was. XML, in and of itself, doesn't change anything either. What is new, and hopeful, is the notion of a standard format for content syndication. That standard is enabling a new class of information-refinement tools. These tools in turn enable people to search, select, annotate, and reorganize the Web's chaotic flow more easily and more effectively than is otherwise possible."
Scientific Publishing
Udell discusses the need for improved tools to present math and SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics on the Web to fully utilize it for scientific publishing, with hopeful references to variations of XML in continuing development.
Udell ends his report with two final messages:
"First, we're closer to the two-way Web than we realize. Services such as TimeDance, QuickTopic, Manila, and Meerkat are already making it easier than ever to create and use shared information spaces."
"Second, the roadmap to the future is coming more sharply into focus. * * * The emerging consensus around XML, as a universal way both to interconnect services and to represent many different kinds of information, is the key to a next-generation Web that may finally start to deliver on the collaborative vision of the original."
See the full report at: Internet Groupware for Scientific Collaboration
Please, contribute your Comments and Trackback on Udell's paper and this topic.
Posted by dougsimpson at October 7, 2003 09:30 AM | TrackBack