Secure Synchronous Collaboration Framework
NISAC and related programs are frequently called upon for rapid turn-around analysis. The primary metrics for this high-pressure, time-constrained collaboration (which can be characterized as “collaboration in a crisis”) are time to solution and quality of solution. A primary time consumer is the time spent establishing a common analysis picture.
The overall goal of the Secure Synchronous Collaboration Framework is to facilitate collaborative interaction through a secure software framework that allows geographically-distributed decision-makers to integrate multiple perspectives and quickly converge on a shared view of the problem.
This goal can be broken down into three subgoals:
- Provide secure synchronous collaboration tools to facilitate the formation of a common analysis picture
- Chat
- Shared Whiteboard
- Shared Screen Images and Annotation capability
- File transfer
- Subgrouping and regrouping
- Collaborative content creation
- Package them for two different usage models
- Across multiple applications (packaged as standalone, cross-platform tools)
- Through a particular application (packaged as a library with a public Application Programming Interface)
- Architect them for two different deployment environments
- Within a single security domain (using Java RMI over CORBA IIOP)
- Between security domains (using Globus Grid Services)
Two components have been delivered so far.
A standalone collaboration tool called ScreenBoard, which operates in a peer-to-peer fashion over the Internet and allows participants to share and annotate the contents of their computer screens in real-time. ScreenBoard allows collaboration across multiple applications.
A programmable collaboration library with an application programming interface (API). The library enables collaboration through a particular application. The NISAC Agent-Based Laboratory for Economics (N-ABLE) 2.0 tool, an agent-based economic modeling and simulation package, is the first NISAC project to use it.
