Date post: | 12-Jan-2015 |
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The difficulty faced by many research organisations is how it will create and manage a process by which its various collaborators feel valued and significant within a research community despite the geographical disconnection, and be able to engage effortlessly in advance collaborative research as if they were within the same geographical location.
Virtual Research Environments/OrganisationsRussell Butson – Higher Education Development Centre (HEDC)
I am interested in online collaborative environments, particularly intellectual environments designed to support academic practice (HEDC + eRAG)
Members each with their copies of documents, notes and evidence
Communication P2P- Phone- email- meetings
Poor groupsynchronization
Current Collaborative Practice
Deliverable/s
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Central storage of documents, notes, evidence and communication
P2P Communication is available via - Phone- email- meetings
High groupsynchronization
Emerging Collaborative Practice…the use of web services
Deliverable/s
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So… as researchers
What are we to centralise ?
What is it that we actually do ?
An Overview of a Virtual/Collaborative Research EnvironmentA review of USA & UK research/practice
What are we to centralise ?
Key elements to consider when virtualizing a research group/project.
Personal & Group identityEngagement – commitment - purpose
Knowledge Managementstorage and sharing of information – including sourced and created
Project ManagementReduced slippage – increased productivity – increased quality
Co-construction of KnowledgeIdea development, position papers, presentations, working documents and co-authored articles
The Key Elements
Group Research ProcessWhat is it that we do ?
• Wiki’s – These were only useful for ‘idea development’• Blogs – These did not work well with groups
• Groove – Only useful for single projects using Win OS• Collaber – Like Groove but allowed both Mac & Win OS
What we needed was a system that could aggregate new technologies into one environment
+That allow for multiple projects
+Was first and foremost people-centric
Initial exploration…Starting back in 2005
BeSTGRID – Virtual Research Environment Auckland University – Funded by Ministry of Research Science & Technology
VRE
VRE Project…1.Build a prototype environment
that can be developed on the fly
2.Work with a research groups to identify practices / processes
3.Support researchers to adopt new technologies / approaches
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