top

Started in 1992 as the Upper Atmospheric Research Collaboratory (UARC), the Space Physics and Aeronomy Research Collaboratory (SPARC) has become one of the Internet's premier collaborative research efforts.  This is the setup: space physics researchers around the world can sit down to their computers in the comfort of their offices and call up a screen that allows them to control and gather data from more than a dozen instruments located around--and above--the globe. Along with this smorgasbord of live data comes direct access to the most advanced supercomputer models of upper atmospheric phenomena, and a set of state-of-the-art communication tools, including ''chat rooms'' and a shared white-board utility.  And all of this is recorded for replay, annotation, or asynchronous collaboration.

In short, SPARC allows space physicists to conduct team science on a global scale.  It is the realization of the ''net''--real-time access to a world of instruments, models, and colleagues.

In this virtual laboratory, space physicists study phenomena such as magnetic storms that originate on the sun.  Such storms send massive numbers of charged particles to Earth, where they interact with the magnetosphere to bring about the aurora borealis and aurora australis.  On a less pyrotechnic level, the arrival of so much energy in Earth's ionosphere can interfere with radio and television reception, disrupt electrical-power transmission, and threaten orbiting spacecraft and astronauts.

One of the great benefits space physicists have realized from SPARC/UARC comes from having simultaneous access to both observations and predictive models: they can now use these models to predict the ''space weather'' and can within minutes compare these predictions with live data, using this analysis to refine their models with much less of a lag time than was possible in pre-UARC days.

In SPARC, Michigan has assembled a core team of computer scientists, space scientists, and behavioral scientists who have accumulated more than 50 person-years of experience with this iterative approach to designing collaborative systems.

top

During the years of SPARC's operation, though, CREW investigators have also been conducting a sociological and longitudinal study on the effects of the adoption of this technology on the SPARC community itself--what can be labeled the ''second-order effects.''  What has the collaboratory done to the science that comes out of SPARC?  And what has it done to the research practice of space physicists?  Here are just two of the initial findings.

First, this type of collaboration--which can be both asynchronous and long-distance--reduces the cost of accessing complementary expertise (e.g., bringing together the radar experts with the optical experts), partly by relieving scheduling difficulties and the strain of travel.

Second, such collaboration has created more opportunities for students to get involved in high-level research.  Grad students who, a few years back, would have waited until their third or fourth year to experience real-time data collection and collaborative interaction, can now do so starting in their first year.

The long-term study of SPARC/UARC has also brought about more general contributions to the field of behavioral science.  For example, by serving as a laboratory for testing quick, informative evaluation strategies, SPARC has given behavioral scientists data to help them select and apply evaluation methodologies that can be used broadly in the field of human-centered design.

top

• Successful operation of the first multi-site, multi-investigator space science experiment using Java-based collaboration tools over the Internet
• Successful demonstration of the functionality and reliability of Java-based collaboration tools for scientific research
• Assessment of the usefulness of real-time general circulation model predictions and real-time data from other sources in optimizing real-time experimental modes
• Successful demonstration of a prototype telescience capability for linking NSF-sponsored radar sites
• Successful demonstration of a multi-server data transport to overcome performance bottlenecks associated with high Internet loads

If SPARC has helped push the envelope in the development of online collaboration systems, it has also certainly benefited from the phenonmenal growth of the World Wide Web.   A 1993 overview of UARC's (SPARC's predecessor) direction seems prescient.

top

CREW