DOE2000 Research
The EMSL Collaboratory is a participant in the multi-National Laboratory DOE2000 program. The EMSL is developing publicly available tools for collaboration through several of the DOE2000 R&D projects.
Real-time Collaboration Environments
Detailed Information (5/4/00)
With Argonne National Laboratory (ANL), we're developing and integrating tools for real-time collaboration, from videoconferencing and display sharing to collaborative scientific instruments, through the real-time Collaboration Management (CM) project. The CM group has licensed the National Center for Supercomputing Application's (NCSA) Habanero environment and has integrated videoconferencing tools and the EMSL TeleViewer into it. The whole package is now available from the EMSL Collaboratory page.
A multiple whiteboard tool that helps manage multiple shared and private whiteboards was developed this summer (by Carla Campbell, a graduate student at West Virginia University who visited PNNL this summer) and is now part of the distribution.
Electronic Notebooks
Detailed Information (updated 5/5/00)
With Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) and Oakridge National Laboratory (ORNL), we're developing an Electronic Notebook system to provide a sharable, multimedia version of the traditional paper scientific notebook. In August, PNNL signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the Collaborative Electronic Notebook Systems Association (CENSA), a group of Chemical and Pharmaceutical companies promoting commercial electronic notebooks. This MOU will allow the DOE2000 notebook project and CENSA to share information on electronic notebook requirements and design. The agreement will soon be extended to include our DOE2000 notebook collaborators at ORNL and LBNL. The DOE2000 notebook group has also decided upon an "editor" application programming interface (API) that allows third parties to add new data types into notebooks without rewriting the notebook engine or client. The EMSL version of the notebook client now supports this API. The Java language specification for the preliminary API, along with sample and test code is posted in the Developer's Corner. And look for interoperable import/export features in the existing notebook prototypes in the next few months.
Frameworks for Collaborative Computing
Detailed Information (updated 5/7/00)
With ANL, LBNL, and Sandia National Laboratory (SNL), we're researching technologies for a Collaboratory Interoperability Framework to allow scientific instruments, notebooks, and real-time collaboration tools to work together. At PNNL, the collaboratory development team has completed a course on using the Common Object Request Broker Architecture (CORBA) and has begun investigating ways to use CORBA in the electronic notebook and in CORE2000. We've installed a Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) Directory Server that now receives information from our download registration webpage. This LDAP server can then provide background information (Title, phone number, etc.) on real-time session participants and notebook authors. We've also started experimenting with ways to secure and encrypt communications for remote instruments and collaborative tools such as the TeleViewer (using secure shell (ssh) or Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) for instance).