NGCWE Expert Group EU-ESA Experts Group's vision Prof. Juan Quemada NGCWE Expert Group IST Call 5 Preparatory Workshop on CWEs 13th April 2005, Brussels

The NGCWE Expert Group NGCWE: Next Generation Collaborative Working Environments Next Generation Collaborative Working Environments Working since Spring 2004 Coordinated by Isidro Laso, Georgios Tselentis Around 30 experts Outputs: 1.Report on Next Generation Collaborative Environments Next Generation Collaborative Environments 2.Definition of 5 ICT-rich Scenarios for CWE

A User Centric Vision Users Users of NG CWEs shall have seemless access seemless access anywhere, anytime to persons, knowledge & virtualised resources persons, knowledge & virtualised resources, trusted environment in a trusted environment where groups groups can be created as needed boundaries across enterprises boundaries

Next Generation CWE 1. Worker centric Connect first the worker Derive after the type of organisation required 2. For distributed teams Organised in groups With security & privacy, integrity,.. 3. Providing access to virtualised resources Including services, assisting robotics,.. 4. Knowledge rich With semantic data compatibility 5. With seamless mobile access Available anytime, anywhere and from any terminal

Main Challenges 1. Reference Architecture 2. Ontologies for collaboration 3. Plug & Play Interoperable collaboration at work Service Orientes Architecture 4.Smooth “upper layer” middleware interaction with the underlying layer 5.Interaction among peers: robots, systems and workers

Reference Architecture Priority: very high Availability: medium term -> Long term adaptability to changes Challenge: To agree on a common reference architecture which enables the development of reusable and interoperable service and application components for collaboration at work.

Reference Architecture View Define functions, protocols, interfaces,.. as needed to assure interoperability to be implemented as middleware (open software) Build on top of existing recommendations W3C: SOA (XML, SOAP, ….), …. IETF: Multimedia architecture (RTP, SIP, SDP, …), … …. Incorporate emerging paradigms P2P, GRID, syndicated Blogs, Wikis, communities,.. New recommendations submitted to existing standards organisations (W3C, IETF, …)

Ontologies for Collaboration Priority: high Availability: medium term Challenge: to improve modelling languages and models to consider the complexity of distributed groups of workers Challenge: development of ontologies for semantic compatibility or for specific working domains

Plug&Play interoperable CWE Service Oriented Architecture Priority: high Availability: long/medium term Challenge: improve current infrastructure for more ubiquitous, secure and reliable CWEs Challenge: methods for communicating and describing collaboration service functionalities Challenge: new mechanisms and methods for collaboration at work service composition.

Smooth “upper layer” middleware interaction with underlying layers Priority: medium Availability: long/medium term Challenge: to investigate the usage of end-to-end IPv6 model for provision of new CWEs Challenge: better interfaces to manage QoS, security, VPNs, multicast, and location Challenge: mediation algorithms to manage complexity and interworking with sensor or mobile networks Challenge: overlay networks integrating network services with content services to adapt CWEs to network capabilities and context

Interaction among peers Priority: medium-high Availability: medium term Challenge: A middleware for dynamic discovery of peers, resources and services Challenge: Use of software agents, web services, etc, to implement P2P systems for collaboration at work with no central authority Challenge: New privacy and security paradigm for P2P with IPv6 connectivity features Availability: long term

5 ICT-rich domains identified design & engineering 1. Collaborative design & engineering media/content production 2. Collaboration in media/content production collaborative & remote workers 3. e-Training for collaborative & remote workers e-Professionals 4. Collaboration among e-Professionals knowledge & information workers remote & rural areas 5. Collaboration with and among knowledge & information workers in remote & rural areas

IST Call 5 IST Call 5 provides the opportunity to provide solutions to the proposed challenges and to advance towards the CWE vision provided by The NGCWE Expert Group