Jonas Schulte

GATiB-CSCW, Medical Research Supported by a Service-Oriented Collaborative System

Medical research is a collaborative process in an interdisciplinary environment that may be effectively supported by a Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) system. Such a system imposes specific requirements in order to allow flexible integration of data, analysis services and communication mechanisms. Persons with different expertise and access rights cooperate in mutually influencing contexts (e.g. clinical studies, research cooperations). Thus, appropriate virtual environments are needed to facilitate context-aware communication, deployment of biomedical tools as well as data and knowledge sharing. We systematically elaborate the main requirements of a medical CSCW system and present a conceptual model, as well as an architectural proposal satisfying the demands. We design a prototypical virtual workbench to support research and routine activities in the context of the GATiB (Genome Austria Tissue Bank) initiative.

Wasabi Beans - SOA for collaborative learning and working systems

The recent developments in the scope of Web 2.0 highlight the benefits of exchanging userspsila experiences and turn the focus onto collaborative working. E-learning ecosystems and CSCW systems should aim to provide as many functionalities as needed from users in order to act as a centralized interface for their collaborative learning and daily work. Since more and more functionalities are made available as Web services, these can be adapted into a collaborative system. In contemporary collaborative systems, however, such an adaption is often a challenge. Service oriented architectures (SOAs) facilitate the adaption and linking of Web services and build an ideal platform for new e-learning ecosystems and CSCW systems. This paper presents the key aspects of turning the established CSCW system open-sTeam into a service oriented architecture (SOA). Our new flexible Wasabi framework, based on EJB 3 and JBoss, results in the next level of e-learning ecosystems and CSCW enterprise architectures which is highly adaptable due to the support of Web services.

Enhanced security management for flexible and dynamic cooperative environments

This paper deals with the challenge to create an authorization and authentication infrastructure for virtual knowledge spaces. Virtual knowledge spaces are a concept to build up flexible and adjustable environments for cooperative work and learning processes. When developing authorization concepts for virtual knowledge spaces, different boundary conditions have to be considered. Basically, we identify the specific requirements for the creation of coherent and intuitive rules to reduce the administrative complexity to a minimum and prevent mistakes. Furthermore we turn attention to flexibility of the authorization infrastructure as well as performance issues. The rights management described in this paper ought to fulfill these requirements.

LTM-SOLA - a service-oriented application to integrate high-tech laboratories and virtual knowledge spaces

High-tech laboratories are an important kind of knowledge source, nevertheless most of todays laboratory architectures consist of tight coupled devices with proprietary interfaces. Although there are several approaches to implement cross-functional and heterogeneous infrastructures, these solutions do not consider high-tech laboratories. Therefore, we developed a service-oriented architecture for laboratories called LTM-SOLA, an application to control the devices by a modern web interface based on JavaEE and Seam technologies. Furthermore, we show how to use field bus couplers instead of programmable logic controllers (PLC) to enable single laboratory devices to be used in different test environments.

Incorporating data provenance in a medical CSCW system

Medical research is a highly collaborative process in an interdisciplinary environment that may be effectively supported by a Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) system. Research activities should be traceable in order to allow verification of results, repeatability of experiments and documentation as learning processes. Therefore, by recording the provenance of data together with the collaborative context it is embedded into, novel types of provenance queries may be answered. We designed and implemented a next-generation CSCW system providing both the collaborative functionalities as well as the definition and execution of structured processes. We integrated a data provenance model recording process- and collaboration-related operations automatically and demonstrate the capabilities of the model by answering specific data provenance queries from the biomedical domain.

A Service-Oriented Framework for Distributed Collaborative Knowledge Work

Business data of a company, latest research results of an university or learning content in education – these are just some of many possible examples to illustrate that knowledge is the key factor in modern society. However, the information flood and the growing complexity of data made it more difficult to manage relevant data and distinguish between irrelevant information. Furthermore, there is now a challenge not only store data in an information system but also to remove them if desired. In this article WasabiBeans, a service-oriented framework for distributed collaborative knowledge work, is presented. WasabiBeans provides virtual knowledge spaces that are self-administrated by the users. This article outlines the framework’s powerful authentication and authorization infrastructure as well as a flexible user-driven repository integration – WasabiPipes – to build up complex knowledge networks.

Large-Scale Knowledge Management for Collaborative Work

Collaborative work is performed these days independent from organizational and geographical bounds. The number of participants and usage scenarios result in a need for large-scale distributed knowledge management. In this paper we present Wasabi as a platform for such environments by considering e-Health as an example field of application. Thee-Health scenario has specific requirements to handle complex data objects and to strictly ensure data privacy. This paper describes how to handle such complex data objects within a knowledge management system. In order to ensure data privacy, the integration of known authorization and authentication mechanisms in Wasabi and their usability for distributed knowledge environments are discussed.