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Weekly Updates1. BACKGROUND
The notion of collaborative research has been a growing subject of discussion during the last few decades (Subramanyam, 1983; Katz and Martin, 1997; Smith and Katz, 2000; Laudel, 2002). As with any other collaboration, management of collaborative research projects demands extensive resources and proper infrastructure. With the advancements of modern information and communication technologies, the internet in particular, the possibilities of meeting such demands has increased significantly. Accordingly, the concept of Virtual Research Environments (VREs) has gained the popularity among researchers as a tool to manage collaborative research projects (Yang and Allan, 2007; Singh, 2008). A VRE in its simplest form, is a set of web applications developed to manage collaborative research activities across distance. It helps researchers to manage a complex range of tasks involved in carrying out collaborative research (Down, 2008).
Current academic discussions on VREs seem to be heavily focused on technological aspects. The majority of current literature on VREs discusses how modern technologies can be used to develop VREs to establish the resource base and the infrastructure to conduct collaborative research (for example see: Fraser, 2005; Yang and Allan, 2006; Yang and Allan, 2007; Singh, 2008). To ensure proper take up of the VRE concept within research communities, it is essential to assess whether VREs cater for the actual needs of their users. Despite increased number of research papers related to VREs published recently, the issue of user satisfaction has not been addressed adequately in current literature. Accordingly, the research presented within this paper aimed at addressing this gap by developing and testing a framework to assess VREs from user's point of view. Achieving this aim, this paper discusses the development of a framework to assess a custom built VRE, the Virtual Environment for Built Environment Research--VEBER developed as a part of the collaborative research project, EURopean and ASian Infrastructure Advantage--EURASIA. Further, the paper presents the outcomes of the assessment of VEBER conducted using the developed assessment framework. The paper is structured as follows.
Firstly, the paper reviews current literature on the challenges faced by collaborative research projects and the use of VREs as a mean of overcoming those challenges. Secondly, it discusses the common methodologies used in developing VREs and their short comings. Thirdly, the user expectations of VREs are discussed while establishing the main elements to determine user satisfactions of VREs. Fourthly, the main elements of VRE user satisfaction assessment framework is discussed followed by the methodology adopted in EURASIA to assess its custom built VRE. Finally the results of the VEBER user evaluation is discussed as a mean of testing the framework developed.
2. RESEARCH COLLABORATIONS AND USE OF VIRTUAL RESEARCH ENVIRONMENTS
Laudel (2002) states that, "A research collaboration is a system of conducting research activities by several actors related in a functional way and coordinated to attain a research goal corresponding with these actors' research goals or interests". In practice sense, research collaborations can be viewed as a system to functionally relate a group of researchers together to conduct research which brings in mutually beneficial outcomes to all. The main feature of collaborative research is its broad boundary, which often extends beyond the geographical barriers. Modern research collaborations often involve partnerships among research groups from various geographical locations who are seeking solutions for globally applicable research issues.
In addition to the drive created by globally applicable research issues, collaborative research initiatives seem to have been influenced by numerous other social, economical and political factors. For an example, the European Commission has been the main driver of collaborative research in Europe. Within its successive Framework Programmes (FP), the average number of organisations per project doubled from framework 5 (7.2) to framework 6 (15.1) (Katsouyanni, 2008). As Katz and Martin (1997) highlight, this strategy of the funding organisations may have been influenced by potential benefits, such as the possibility of reducing research costs through resource pooling, and less international travel. International research collaborations have the potential of utilising local resources within respective countries for research activities such as data collection in various locales, which would have involved international travel if a single organisation was to conduct the same research. On the other hand, this approach may have been influenced by the revised agendas and objectives of the funding organisations to reflect international associations, and a change of global priority issues, such as climate change and disaster management.
Moreover, the ever increasing demand for diversified expertise within a single research project has also made research collaborations popular both among researchers and funding organisations. This is especially true for multidisciplinary research projects, where the project activities demand expertise from more than one field or domain. In these circumstances, research collaboration between multidisciplinary parties have been shown to be more productive than employing experts from different disciplines to the project (Stokes and Hartley, 1989). Katz and Martin (1997), further highlight that the fall-in-real-term cost of communication is a major influential factor for research collaborations. Indeed, the introduction of World Wide Web, email and other related technologies have drastically reduced the costs of long distance communication and information sharing capabilities, enabling functional relationships among researchers to work within a research project.
3. VIRTUAL RESEARCH ENVIRONMENTS
VREs are a relatively new application area of modern web technologies and has largely arisen through a series of research projects funded by the UK Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC), starting in 2004. According to JISC, VREs aim at helping "researchers in all disciplines manage the increasingly complex range of tasks involved in carrying out research". In its current form, a VRE can be broadly classified as a group of web applications. Within a collaborative research project, researchers from different geographical locations can use a web browser in their personal computers to interact with other partner researchers through a VRE.
Current literature discusses various technologies used for the development of VREs. Most of the VREs that have been developed to date have taken existing applications of a similar nature, such as Virtual Learning Environments (VLE), to use as its foundation (for example see: Adler et al., 2004; Yang and Allan, 2006; Yang and Allan, 2007; Singh, 2008). Consequently, the development of VREs has been technology driven, rather than demand driven. As discussed in the "ICT productivity paradox" (see: Solow, 1987), this may lead to a state where the VREs are not sufficiently end user (researcher) focused. It was identified by the authors that an investigation was needed to ensure that current VREs address the demands of collaborative research projects and its users. In order to achieve this, the framework described in the remainder of this paper is developed to assess user perspectives of VREs.
3.1. The structure of a VRE
Derived from the above discussion, the following figure illustrates a typical structure of a VRE.
As shown in the Figure 1 below, a VRE integrates various research partners who are often geographically separated through a human-computer interface. All the partners are seeking to achieve a common set of research objectives by completing various research activities. The VRE links the partners to the research objectives through a human computer interface and helps partners to achieve the common objectives of the research collaboration. Accordingly within this structure, two main items emerge as key elements of a VRE; the human--computer interface and the functionalities embedded to achieve success factors of collaborative research. The next two sections explore these two areas to identify their position in evaluating VREs from user a perspective.
[FIGURE 1 OMITTED]
4. HUMAN-COMPUTER INTERACTION (HCI)
Dix et al. (1992) defines Human Computer Interaction as "discipline concerned with design, evaluation and implementation of interactive computing systems for human use and with the study of major phenomena surrounding them." As the above definition emphasises, the main focus of HCI is to study the interactions and the relationships between the users (humans) and computers. In the past, HCI has focused mainly on interfacing issues such as designing user friendly graphical user interfaces (GUIs) for computer programmes. At this stage, the "I" of HCI represent "Interface" and it was only in 90's this was switched from "Interface" to "Interaction" to represent the expanding range of digital technologies (Hinze-Hoare, 2007). However, in modern context, HCI is more than about interfacing issues and concentrate on issues which are more than "screen-deep" (Computer Science and Telecommunications Board, National Research Council, 1997). Reflecting of this, Myers (1998) states areas such as Gesture recognition, Multi-media, Virtual reality and 3-D technologies as upcoming areas of modern HCI research.
Helander et al. (1997) view HCI is a multidisciplinary field expanding its usability in many areas where human-computer interactions are valued. Hinze-Hoare (2007) reaffirms this multidisciplinary nature of HCI as he indicates, "HCI has become an umbrella term for number of disciplines, including theories of education, psychology, collaboration efficiency and ergonomics".
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