1. Simon Buckingham Shum David De Roure Marc Eisenstadt Nigel Shadbolt Austin Tate

2. CoAKTinG partners BT Exact Napp Pharmaceuticals Comb-e-Chem NASA

3. Overview  Component approaches  Integration  Current work on application of tools  Future work (but needs funding!)

4. CoAKTinG Background  “The CoAKTinG Project aims to support and enhance e-Science collaborations.”  Exploiting technologies, tools and methodologies where already available…  …and augment these with novel ones where necessary.  2 year project - started June 2002:  Funded by UK e-Science Programme.  Involves a total of ~15 PIs, Researchers, Students.

5. Access Grid  Room based videoconferencing with large format display  supports group-to-group interactions across the Grid.  supports interaction and visualisation.  nodes in 150 institutions worldwide.  routine use in UK e-Science programme.  Also available as single machine solution Personal Interface to the Grid (PIG).  Can also use Virtual Rooms VideoConferencing System (VRVS).  In fact collaboration can use any video- and teleconferencing facilities.

7. …to Support and Enhance e-Science Collaborations mapping real time discussions/group sensemaking enacting decisions/ coordinating activities synthesising artifacts recovering information from meetings awareness of colleagues’ ‘presence’ virtual meetings

8. BuddySpace  Presence: “an aggregated view of an entity’s dynamically changing attributes”:  Availability (“I’m logged on for a videoconference”)  Preference (“Only my boss can interrupt me now”)  Capability (“My current device can accept video calls”)  Location (“I’m in Munich…urgent calls only”)  BuddySpace - enriched ‘instant messaging’ client:  Awareness of people…and other resources.  Editable maps for better visualisation of presence.  Advanced group chat facilities with voting, attention meters…  Provides lightweight communications channel (based on Jabber IM protocol). awareness of colleagues’ ‘presence’

9. BuddySpace BuddySpace awareness of colleagues’ ‘presence’

10. Compendium  Tool for real-time capture and visualisation of argumentation (“collective sense-making and group memory”).  Based on gIBIS notions: issues (questions), answers, arguments (pros/cons), decisions, etc.  Connecting ideas: visually, by sets, metadata and hypertext links.  Free-form and template-driven discussions.  Underlying XML representations: interoperable with other tools via Jabber. mapping real time discussions/group sensemaking

11. Compendium: mapping arguments and decision rationale mapping real time discussions/group sensemaking

12. Compendium: meeting template mapping real time discussions/group sensemaking

13. enacting decisions/ coordinating activities I-X  I-X technology provides an environment for handling issues, performing activities, placing constraints, etc.  Founded on generic activity ontology.  CoAKTinG roles:  Support meeting environment set-up activities;  Support ‘meeting process’ activities;  Networked ‘To-Do’ lists for issue-handling and activity tracking. synthesising artifacts

14. Process Panel (I-P 2 ) Domain Editor (I-DE) Activity Editor Messenger I-Space enacting decisions/ coordinating activities synthesising artifacts I-X

15. Record and Replay  Capturing meetings, experiments, visualisations…  Many potential information streams: video, audio, Powerpoint, Jabber, Compendium…  …for context-rich playback.  Ontology-based approach - annotation of streams allows synchronised playback, ‘smart’ navigation, etc…  Interlinks information using Semantic Web technologies. recovering information from meetings

16. Meeting replay by time, speaker, contribution to discussion, and decision

17. …to Support and Enhance e-Science Collaborations mapping real time discussions/group sensemaking enacting decisions/ coordinating activities synthesising artifacts recovering information from meetings awareness of colleagues’ ‘presence’ virtual meetings BuddySpace NetMeeting Access Grid Node Compendium Replay I-X Tools

18. Interim Results September 2003

19. Integration work  Conceptual  Extending the AKT Reference Ontology  Mapping and cross-fertilisation between two issue- management ontologies  Technical  Off-the-shelf Jabber-based integration  3 tools freely available for download  Intelligent team rosta management  Integration between Compendium, I-X, BuddySpace, Meeting replay tool Key Contributions Support variable levels of formality in communication Real time semantic annotation of discussions Events ontology for e-Science collaboration Context-driven collaboration tools

20. Conceptual integration: Extending the Reference Ontology Extensions to support: generation of multimedia presentations (e.g. millisecond representations of time) meetings distributed across several (physical and virtual) locations exhibition of information objects as events (e.g. slides; videos; documents) meeting-specific (compound) information bearing objects (versions of resources used in meetings) annotation events (e.g. verbal comments, creation of Compendium nodes)

22. Technical integration: Jabber interoperability BuddySpace Compendium I-X Process panels Meeting Replay BuddySpace Compendium I-X Process panels Jabber Server

23. Current Activities April 2004

24. NASA Scenario Compendium maps from trained compendium astronaut Remote Science Team (RST) on earth e.g. geologists Video and Science Data 2. Virtual meeting of RST using CoAKTinG tools Plan for next Day’s EVA 1. Astronauts debrief on EVA Mars

25. Image from NASA

26. NASA Press Release Collaborative and Assistant Systems Research Area Work Systems Design and Evaluation Group MOBILE AGENTS PROJECT COMPLETES OPERATIONAL READINESS TEST AT AMES "MARSCAPE“ … In addition, the Mobile Agents work involves a collaboration with the Knowledge Media Institute (KMi) of the Open University and the Intelligence, Agents and Multimedia group (IAM) of the University of Southampton in the UK, led by Dr. Simon Buckingham-Shum from KMi and Dr. Danius Michaelides from IAM. The collaboration also includes the ScienceOrganizer team from Code IC, led by Dr. Dan Berrios. The collaboration with these three teams evolves around the development of tools for science collaboration between a Mars Crew and a distributed Earth-based Remote Science Team. The Earth-based Remote Science Team is led by Shannon Rupert of the Mars Society.

27. Comb-e-Chem  Shallow integration  Deployment of generic tools  Deep integration  Buddyspace shows status of equipment and results  Process panels for experimental processes in the lab  Record and replay can be applied to lab experiments  Compendium to support scientific discourse  All interaction is recorded and interlinked

28. Comb-e-Chem

29. www.smarttea.org

30. Scenarios – eResponse  Storyboard / talk-piece  Facilitate a team of experts to coordinate a response to a disaster  An oil spill in the Solent  I-X Process Panels  Coordinate activities via SOPs  Buddyspace  Access to online scientists  Compendium  Record argumentation  Meeting Replay

31. Future work  Deploy these tools as part of the collaborative e-Research environment  Customise tools to particular applications  Perform user evaluation  Additional tools  Fully integrate with e.g. Comb-e-Chem research agenda  “Chain ReAKTinG” – ready to go  Many important Semantic Web challenges  Coupling with pervasive devices  Apply in new areas such as performing arts  Apply to other collaboration technologies

32. CoAKTinG Links  CoAKTinG Project:  www.aktors.org/coakting  BuddySpace:  kmi.open.ac.uk/projects/buddyspace  Compendium:  kmi.open.ac.uk/projects/compendium  I-X:  i-x.info  Replay:  www.iam.ecs.soton.ac.uk/projects/hystream

33. www.aktors.org/coakting