Objective:

Much of NASA's earth science and space science research is conducted by distributed scientific teams working across institutional, geographic, and political boundaries. Future collaborations will include astronaut-scientists aboard the orbiting International Space Station (ISS) and on the surface of the Moon or Mars. Tools are needed for managing experiments and experimental data under the constraints of asynchronous communication and collaboration. This research task will develop an integrated information repository with support tools for remote data acquisition, entry, analysis, and sharing. Investigators will construct a testbed facility for the support and study of remote science collaboration, with related development of the ScienceOrganizer semantically based knowledge management system. It will include flexible, adaptable representations; interfaces tailored to users; and automatically captured semantic metadata to aid long-term use of heterogeneous, persistent data. Field teams will be able to interact with colleagues and with intelligent agents that assist scientists in carrying out experimentation tasks (such as monitoring and control of scientific equipment). Initial development will support astrobiologists in field studies and laboratory studies of algae mats from early earth environments.

Applications:

Testbed facility for the support and study of remote science collaboration, and related development of the ScienceOrganizer knowledge management system.

NASA Benefit:

Scientists acquire data, archive it, index it, and often share it with large numbers of collaborating scientists. This research task will advance our understanding of their information support needs, including design of software agents to aid remote science collaboration. The advances will be incorporated into ScienceOrganizer, a multi-use knowledge management system. Initial development will support astrobiologists in field studies and laboratory studies of algae mats from early earth environments. Engineers need similar information support, and ScienceOrganizer may be applied to engineering problems as NASA needs arise.

Keywords:

distributed collaborative science, knowledge management, field data capture, information sharing

Images:

PI slides.

Prior Technology:

Individual scientists maintain field notes and records in generic databases. Sharing with remote colleagues is difficult, and real-time access by field teams (e.g., astronauts) is typically impossible.

FY04 Milestone:

Final report.

FY04 Quadchart Slide:

HCC_NRA_Keller_CollSci.ppt.

Accomplishments:

Semantically based knowledge management; demonstration in multiple NASA missions; methods for rapid deployment of tailored, semantically rich information system; Space Act Award for CAIB support (ECS funding); multi-university collaboration support for astrobiology.

Related Web Pages:

Research group page.

Contacts:

Richard M. Keller (PI), Ames Research Center (Code IC).
Brad M. Bebout (Co-I), Ames Research Center (Code SSX).