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VREs and the Potential for New Forms of Collaboration

Annamaria Carusi and Marina Jirotka

Why VREs?

Longitudinal study of VREs, in particular JISC Oxford e-Social Science Project Ethical, legal, and institutional dynamics of e-

sciences Embedded in larger context of virtual

organisations and virtual communities Focussing on the opportunities for collaboration

afforded by VREs

Collaborative work

Collaboration is a major area of research - CSCW, groupware, distributed systems

Work place studies, awareness, public vs private, presence, seamless movement between the real and digital environments

Collaboration and research activities / practices

Methodology

JISC VRE programme as case study Emerging vision of VREs from the research

community themselves Interviews Extensive document review Attendance of workshops Ethnographic field work Focus groups and workshops Analysis

Our focus

Potential for new collaborations in researchRelation between a mode of collaboration and typical

research activities Epistemic practices

Overlapping features across VREs Four features that participants are responding to

positively and that have the potential to re-shape research

Four features

Collaborations formed around new:

objects of research

mappings of objects of research

mappings of interactions

ways of producing, undertaking or performing

Objects of research

Niches of data

Previously excluded

Not part of the canon

Fragile or illegible texts

Canon shapes a discipline

Authoritative, standard-setting list or group of texts or documents

Challenging the canon Transformative moments in a discipline occur when the

canon is contested (eg feminism, post-colonialism)

History of Political Discourse VRE

Marginal texts (unauthorised editions or translations; pamphlets)

Excluded and marginalised texts and documents made available through digitalisation

Re-shapes a research area in a profound way

Accessibilty plus the set of relations created around them – in particular teaching relationships

Shaking up interpretive paradigms

Fragile or illegible texts

Previously geographically dispersed fragments brought together to partially re-construct the document; yet to embody in digital form some of the physical properties that are so important to deciphering their meaning (eg smell, touch)

Implications for collaboration Inter-disciplinary collaboration between researchers and

computer scientists (making visible and legible)

Questioning of ways of conducting interpretation in each discipline

Mappings of objects of research

Access to resources and mapping of the entities or processes that are being studied

Representational or organisational role

Silchester Roman Town

Connects on-site data gathering from the excavation site with collaborative research domains

With ‘picture’ the relevant part of the excavation site

Silchester: A VRE for Archaeology

Collaborative Research Domains

Silchester: A VRE for Archaeology

Collaborative Research Domains

Silchester: A VRE for Archaeology

Collaborative Research Domains

Real spatial disposition of excavation site

Mapping a physical entity

Knowledge management as well as representational role

Organisation and disposition of the map on the screen are not neutral

Mapping and knowing

Mapping interactions

Meetings

Tools and technologies to facilitate meetings

Access Grid with enhancements

MeMeTiC

Screen Streamer (participants can share computer screens)

Compendium: concept mapping tool

Self-reflectiveness

Recording and replay: making ephemeral events persistent or durable

Operating on the events: organising and mapping them

Semantic web tool for search and find disparate content relating to events such as teaching events and conferences: IUGO

Collaborative processes plus ability to analyse and monitor

Self-reflectiveness is intertwined in the process of the interaction

Neutrality of the mode of mapping or formative with respect to the way in which the event is remembered or understood.

‘Doing’ research Producing, undertaking and performing Physical interactions with objects within real

environments in sciences and in the arts Performative processes

Multi-sensoryCo-presence with objects

CSAGE - Access Grid with ‘semi-immersive stereoscopic facilities to create an increased level of ‘presence’ within the AG environment’;

Facial reconstruction and performance

Co-defining in action

There is not a pre-defined capability sought; technology and performance are co-define

Feeling of embodied co-location and co-presence

Transfer from performance to other contexts

Facilitates a more naturalistic experience

Naturalism vs artifice

Conclusions

As technologies for research emerge, some research activities are enabled and enhanced, some will be changed and some will recede in the background

Re-shaping of research landscape opens some spaces, closes others

Re-shaping is not value neutral