In the midst of the stampede to the Internet by the general public, a growing number of research scientists are working on computer network applications likely to profoundly affect the way science is conducted in the coming years. Bruce R. Schatz, one of the new breed of cyberscientists and the author of a recent article about the Internet, writes: "The revolution of the Net is just beginning."
Among the scientific network activities are two promising "virtual laboratories," cyberspaces where scientists from remote locations meet to conduct research, discuss data, and reach conclusions. These Internet tools, called collaboratories and BioMOOs, are made possible by interconnected computer networks.
In 1993, referring to the concept of collaboratories, a National Research Council report noted that tying together computing and networking technology outside computer science was not new. What was new, the report said, was "the idea that various tools and technologies can be integrated to provide an environment that enables scientists to make more efficient use of scientific resources wherever they are located."
In fact, the Internet's early purpose in the 1960s was to link a U.S. Defense Department network called the Advanced Research Projects Agency Network (ARPAnet) with a variety of other radio and satellite networks. In the 1980s, Ethernet local area networks were developed to allow computers at a single site to connect to a time-sharing computer site. These capabilities were expanded to include access to the ARPAnet. In the late 1980s, the National Science Foundation created five supercomputer centers at major universities to provide resources for scholarly research. Because researchers not located at these universities needed to tap these resources, the Internet was futher developed, and these five centers currently act as the hubs for the Internet. Thus, the development of networking tools that make the collaboratory and the BioMOO possible is the logical extension of these early and continuing efforts.
Collaboratories
The mention of a collaboratory, a "center without walls," was first made in 1989. That initial computer network collaboration led to the creation of TCP/IP, a set of data communications protocols that serve as the critical foundation of the Internet. Through advances in computer network technology, accelerated by the productive use of the Internet among scientists, researchers, and engineers, this vision of 21st century science conducted in a laboratory without physical limits is nearing reality.
One example of a collaboratory is the Environmental and Molecular Sciences Laboratory (EMSL) program at the Pacific Northwest Laboratory (PNL) in Richland, Washington. This project will bring together nearly 250 experts from many scientific disciplines to help solve the nation's environmental problems. The site of the collaboratory will contain advanced equipment allowing scientists to perform research and development activities on contaminated soils and groundwater; waste analysis, processing, and storage; and human and ecological health effects. The data gathered in the EMSL will then be shared electronically with national and international scientific communities.
One of the leaders in the virtual laboratory movement is Richard T. Kouzes, a nuclear physicist in the Computer and Information Sciences Program at the PNL who spearheaded the EMSL. For Kouzes, a collaboratory is a "meta-laboratory that spans multiple geographical areas with collaborators interacting via electronic means."A collaboratory serves a fourfold purpose: it allows close ties among scientists in a specific research area, it encourages collaborations among scientists in different areas, it speeds the evolution and distribution of basic knowledge, and it reduces the time between discovery and practical use.
Kouzes says that a collaboratory could successfully address the problem of how to integrate the roles of specialized researchers from many fields at remote sites while avoiding unnecessary duplication and unguided efforts.
In a paper he prepared with colleagues, Kouzes outlined the key elements in developing a collaboratory. Beyond the obvious issues of the cost and acquisition of computer and communications technology are psychosocial issues as well as the education of users and potential users. "The majority of scientists in the United States are isolated," says Kouzes. "The collaboratory represents an opportunity to remove that isolation and replace it with a teamwork approach to problem solving."
A number of ongoing collaborations in several different scientific communities are using this teamwork approach. For example, molecular biologists are pooling their knowledge of gene sequences and gene maps into large databases which can be accessed by scientists all over the world. Likewise, space physicists and oceanographers are compiling information on climate to be used by a broad range of researchers.
To connect to a collaboratory, a researcher requires Internet connectivity, which can be purchased at comparatively minimal cost. Many institutions, including universities and government laboratories, enjoy high-speed connections which allow the movement of audio and video as well as text data to occur almost spontaneously with commands for their retrieval.
Access to the site where Kouzes keeps his information, for example, occurs by connecting to a World Wide Web server, a popular process for distributing information over the Internet. Using a graphics user interface browser called Mosaic (they also carry names like Netscape, Cello, WinWeb, Tapestry, and BookLink), a researcher can view graphics, hear sounds, see movies, and read text.
When the first, or home, page of the collaboratory appears, titled "Collaboratory for Environmental and Molecular Science," a picture of Borromean rings, three symmetric, interlocking rings, appears in the upper left corner of the computer screen. The rings symbolize the collaboratory concept: removing one destroys the synergism of the whole, representing the symbiotic nature of collaborative work.
The text consists of a menu of choices linking the user to other data items, such as text files or graphics. The items are categorized as collaboratory developments, other places of interest, collaboratory images, PNL collaboratory collaborations, and PNL collaboratory team. Most of the team names are linked to documents which provide professional and personal information, including pictures.
Other examples of collaboratories can be found at Sandia National Laboratories, the Dendrome, which houses research on molecular genetics of forest trees, and the Upper Atmospheric Research Collaboratory, a joint venture of researchers in upper atmospheric and space physics, computer science, and behavioral science.
BioMOOs
The BioMOO, a virtual biology center that originated at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel, represents a different approach to scientific collaboration. Less resource intensive, BioMOOs originally relied on communications using a specific type of Internet connection called telnet and a program based on MUDs (multiple user dimensions) and MOOs (multiple user dimensions, object oriented). Basically, MOO is a computer program that allows numerous users to connect simultaneously and interact personally and with the program.
BioWHO?
Biologists begin their journey through the BioMOO on this home page.
|
The BioMOO was developed by Gustavo Glusman, a graduate student at the Weizmann Institute. BioMOO was opened to the scientific community in November 1993 as virtual meeting place and has now attracted over 700 registered members worldwide. According to the Weizmann Institute, a growing number of biologists from four continents regularly visit the site to meet colleagues. Among the subjects of their real-time discussions are new ways of fighting disease and hunger, protecting the environment, and harnessing alternative sources of energy. According to the BioMOO FAQ (frequently asked questions, an electronically accessible document containing a series of basic Q&As for the new user), BioMOO is now connected to the Globewide Network Academy and allows biologists to meet colleagues and brainstorm, hold colloquia and conferences over the Internet, and explore the serious side of this new medium.
Users access the BioMOO via the Internet by making a telnet connection to bioinfo.weizmann.ac.il 8888 (URL:telnet://bioinfo.weizmann.ac.il:8888/). Upon entering the system, you must register either as a guest or with your name and a password, given at your initial visit. Once inside, the emphasis is on exploring by issuing commands; for example, "help" returns an index of topics.
Every picture tells a story
Graphics illustrate the concept behind the collaboratory.
|
Once inside you can wander, pausing to view the BioMOO 24-hour Poster Session. This represents a new addition to the original BioMOO, with the conversational MOO now tied to a World Wide Web server--a Web-MOO link--that allows the presentation of high-resolution still images, movies, and sounds. Although Poster Session is currently somewhat awkward and limited to those with the necessary equipment, it signals the direction that this technology is moving.
On the web server at the California Institute of Technology, where images for use in BioMOO can be housed, is the image of a biologist attaching images to BioMOO objects in order to present a full-color slide presentation to colleagues at remote locations. As the document notes, "You can give a seminar with pictures, build a microscope with color slides, show people what your office in BioMOO looks like, and more."
The sophisticated program is surprisingly user friendly. To see the room you are in, type the word "look." To receive information about the objects around you, type "look" and the name of the object, such as table. To get more details, you would type "examine." To learn the identity of others connected, you would type "who." Finally, to leave the system, you type "@quit."
Researchers are rapidly adapting BioMOO as a tool for their own specific studies. For example, researchers can send gene sequence data to major sequence databases to search for matches; a colony of virtual mice is being developed that can be anesthetized, dissected, and inspected; and electronic poster sessions with working models on topics such as gene transcription, DNA replication, and other cell functions are being developed. Glusman's latest project is the establishment of the GNA-Lab, a MOO dedicated to the development of the tools needed to create a virtual campus for the Globewide Network Academy.
The Future
Considering how novel the notion of collaboratory is and how fast people can learn the technology (Glusman started exploring the Internet for the first time in March 1993) the range of possible uses of the Internet among researchers seems endless. However, there are a number of issues that demand attention, which Kouzes is quick to cite. For example, there is the need to educate users on how to navigate the Internet, whose loose structure remains a major stumbling block. There are also the psychosocial issues of finding ways to simulate the spontaneous chats among researchers meeting in hallways of actual research centers, and of fostering the attitudes of teamwork. Lastly, there are the legal issues, most prominently those concerning intellectual property and foreign copyright.
But researchers are also innovators. Kouzes mentions an example where cameras were mounted in the coffee rooms at two remote sites. Researchers sitting at either site could converse using the monitor and sound system. They even held a Christmas party simultaneously, viewing it across the television screen.
What collaboratories and BioMOOs make clear, even at their present stage of development, echoes the words of Walter Gilbert, when he encouraged his colleagues in 1991 to learn computer technology: "We must hook our individual computers into the worldwide network that gives us access to daily changes in the database and also makes immediate our communications with each other."
John S. Makulowich
John S. Makulowich is a freelance journalist in North Potomac, Maryland.
Suggested Reading
Cerf VG, et al. National collaboratories: applying information technology for scientific research. Washington, DC: National Academy Press, 1993.
Comer DE. The Internet book: everything you need to know about computer net;working and how the Internet works. Englewood Cliffs, NJ:Prentice-Hall, 1994.
Gilbert W. Towards a paradigm shift in biology. Nature 349:99 (1991).
Lynch DC, Rose MT. Internet system handbook. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1993.
Quarterman JS, Carl-Mitchell S. The Internet connection: system connectivity and configuration. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1994.
Schatz BR, Hardin JB. NCSA mosaic and the world wide web: global hypermedia protocols for the Internet. Science 265:895-901 (1994).
|
Last Update: April 21, 1998