Psycho-Social Issues of Collaboratories

A Collaboratory is a meta-laboratory that spans multiple geographical areas with collaborators interacting via electronic means. A Collaboratory must be considered as a new social system, with many psycho-social issues involved in developing an environment which will be utilized for science. The following is part of the presentation made by Jim Wise of PNL at the Collaboratory Workshop.

Collaboratory Images - Psycho-Social Issues

A Collaboratory is a Social System
In the "synthetic" place, distributed across space and time, yet maintained through loops of electronic information flows, individuals would convene, converse and cooperate on some of the most challenging scientific problems of the 21st century. The collaboratory concept is nothing less than the village square and campfire juxtaposed to the Information Age. How can it become socially sustainable?

Social Mechanisms of Cooperation
Social mechanisms of cooperation are our inheritance from the Pleistocene. Reciprocity is the key. Collaborators must gain value from a relationship in order for it to be sustained.

Props and Controls for Social Discourse
Social distance, eye contact, body language, communication aids, record resources, etc. all assist social collaboration. How do we provide the electronic equivalents of our social props?

Are People or Work the Focal Objects
Depending on the purpose and nature of the exchange, either may be much more significant.

Precedence and Ritual
Social behavior in places is organized by spatial syntax and by ritualized norms of acting.

A Sense of Place is Essential
A Collaboratory needs a "virtual sense of place" to be enduringly recognized and responded to by its members. Building a highly imagible electronic "sense of place" will push the frontiers of computer science.

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Last updated 6 January 1997

A Collaboratory is a Social System In the "synthetic" place, distributed across space and time, yet maintained through loops of electronic information flows, individuals would convene, converse and cooperate on some of the most challenging scientific problems of the 21st century. The collaboratory concept is nothing less than the village square and campfire juxtaposed to the Information Age. How can it become socially sustainable?
Social Mechanisms of Cooperation Social mechanisms of cooperation are our inheritance from the Pleistocene. Reciprocity is the key. Collaborators must gain value from a relationship in order for it to be sustained.
Props and Controls for Social Discourse Social distance, eye contact, body language, communication aids, record resources, etc. all assist social collaboration. How do we provide the electronic equivalents of our social props?
Are People or Work the Focal Objects Depending on the purpose and nature of the exchange, either may be much more significant.
Precedence and Ritual Social behavior in places is organized by spatial syntax and by ritualized norms of acting.
A Sense of Place is Essential A Collaboratory needs a "virtual sense of place" to be enduringly recognized and responded to by its members. Building a highly imagible electronic "sense of place" will push the frontiers of computer science.