CONTINUING VISION

C/C: Collaboration/Communication

Activities in the Collaboration and Communication support area will
focus on expanding and enriching the information infrastructure
supporting the CEWES MSRC PET team and MSRC users.  General areas of
effort include the CEWES MSRC PET web site, and both asynchronous
and synchronous collaboration tools.

The CEWES MSRC PET website is an important vehicle for the
dissemination of information from the PET team to the user
community. To facilitate this important function, we will participate
in an initiative to increase the consistency and usability of the PET
web sites across all four MSRCs, thus making is easier for the content
providers (the PET team) refer to useful information at other sites,
and making it easier for users to navigate the sites and locate the
information they desire from any or all such sites.  We will also work
on enriching the types of information that can be offered via the web
site by making it easier to couple commercial databases to the web
server to provide novel services such as the domain-specific WWW
search engine which was prototyped this year.

Asynchronous collaboration tools, as the name suggests, are those
which facilitate the interactions of groups (i.e. PET team members or
users) which do not have to take place in real-time, such as a
web-accessible threaded discussion space.  Basic capabilities of this
sort have been available at the CEWES MSRC, but have not been greatly
used.  We plan to promote increased use of these tools by transitiong
to a new state-of-the-art asynchronous collaboration environment
(Lotus Notes) and simultaneously taking a more active role in studying
and encouraging the use of these tools.

Synchronous collaboration tools compliment other aspects of the
information infrastructure, providing the for real-time interaction
using audio and video conferencing, shared whiteboard, and other
tools.  The Tango collaboratory environment was used successfully for
distance education and distance consulting projects, and will now be
deployed more widely for use by PET team members and MSRC users.  This
will be accomplished by establishing a supported and advertised Tango
server at the CEWES MSRC, and by offering trainings classes on the
Tango system.

In addition, there is a close relationship between many of the tools
used in C/C and those used for asynchronous and synchronous electronic
training.  The C/C team will coordinate closely with activities in the
electronic training area, both at the CEWES MSRC and across the PET
program to help insure a consistent overall vision.