Building a model for virtual collaboration readiness

Abstract

Collaborations are essential for modern scientific research. Research groups cannot perform valuable scientific inquiry without working together with other researchers, due to the growth of knowledge, high specialization of scientific domains, quickly changing technology, and the appearance of complex problems. Individual scientists or single research groups do not possess enough knowledge, expertise and time to perform research which is appreciated by the funding agencies and academic publishers (Hara, Solomon et al. 2003). Nowadays research funding agencies, like the European Science Foundation prefer interdisciplinary, international and inter-institutional collaborations (Sonnenwald 2007), because these have been shown to increase the quality of research, contribute to the growth of scientific knowledge (Wray 2002).
Natural sciences and especially life sciences faced a drastic change in data management, analysis and sharing practices due to the widespread use of inquiry methods generating terabytes of data. This change is represented in the appearance of specific tools designed for life scientists to handle scientific workflows or to help computation of data (De Roure, Goble et al. 2007, Goecks, Nekrutenko et al. 2010).
Virtual Research Environments (Collaborative Virtual Environments, Collaboratories, Cyberinfrastructure, e-Infrastructure, Collaborative e-Research Communities, or Virtual Research Communities) are innovative, online, community-oriented, flexible, and secure working environments designed for scientific research groups working together (Candela, Castelli et al. 2013). VREs have the potential to change research practices, make the academic research faster, more efficient and even more transparent (Junge 2007), or even speed up the shift between fundamental research and applied science, and improve social and economic well-being (Dutton and Jeffreys 2010). Therefore, it is not surprising that research policy makers at institutional or European levels would like to develop and employ virtual research environments (Dutton and Jeffreys 2010, EU retrieved at 28-04-2015). But scientists in life sciences think differently about this topic (Allan 2009). While the EU is investing into the development of monumental VRE projects and universities build their environments separated from each other, scientists would like to use their legacy systems. Some research suggests that what they need is access to data storage and computational resources (including grid computing); as well software and services, but they do not need VREs (Allan et al. 2006).
To investigate this discrepancy between science policy makers and life science researchers, I have performed an extensive literature review, did interviews with VRE researchers, developers and users, and performed an online survey filled in by potential and actual VRE users. By generating a theoretical framework from the literature and related theories, I could rank the factors found throughout the research that determine the attitude of life science researchers towards VREs and to build a virtual collaboration readiness model. This model illustrates the requirements that need to be fulfilled to reach to a state, in which all the circumstances are given to help scientists from life sciences to adopt to virtual research environments. Finally, detailed recommendations to distinct stakeholders are listed in the Discussions.