Designing a Computer System to Support an Electronic Scientific Community

沙茨教授正在进行一项为期一年的研究，以了解并概述支持电子科学社区的计算机系统的设计。虽然稍后将提交支持该系统的提案，但这一项目将奠定必要的基础，使执行工作能够按计划进行。实施后，该系统应该是一种新的生物仪器形式，可以有效地操作科学数据库。将确定将适当的社区知识收集到数字图书馆中，该设计将纳入在全国网络上操纵该图书馆所需的系统技术。选定的社区是研究线虫秀丽线虫的科学家小组，线虫是分子生物学中的主要模式生物。“蠕虫社区”由全世界约500名成员组成，以不同寻常的开放程度交流和共享未发布的信息。社区知识包括正式数据，如已发表的文献和实验结果，以及非正式数据，如通讯和实验方法。设计的系统将以电子形式捕获这些知识的很大一部分，并将其编码到一个“蠕虫信息空间”中，在全国范围内的科学网络上，任何地方的科学家都可以透明地浏览这个空间。系统设计的准备工作需要了解用户需求和可用的技术。这将通过与研究人员合作来实现，这些研究人员将是该系统的初始用户，他们是现有数据和技术方面的专家。这样的调查应该使设计能够确保该系统将有助于做出有价值的科学发现。

Professor Schatz is undertaking a one-year investigation to understand and outline the design of a computer system to support an electronic scientific community. While later proposals will be submitted to support the system, this project is to lay the necessary groundwork to enable the implementation to proceed as planned. When implemented, this system should be a new form of biological instrumentation which can effectively manipulate scientific databases. Appropriate community knowledge will be identified to be collected into a digital library and the design will incorporate the systems technology necessary to manipulate this library over nationwide networks. The community chosen is the group of scientists studying the nematode worm Caenorhabditis elegans, a major model organism in molecular biology. The "worm community" consists of some 500 members worldwide, with an unusual degree of open communication and sharing of unpublished information. The community knowledge includes formal data, such as published literature and experimental results, and informal data, such as newsletters and experimental methods. The designed system will capture a significant portion of this knowledge in electronic form and encode it into a "worm information space" which can be transparently browsed by scientists anywhere on nationwide scientific networks. Preparation of the system design requires understanding user needs and available technology. this will be accomplished by working with researchers who will be the system's initial users and who are experts on the available data and technology. Such investigation should enable the design to ensure that the system will contribute to making valuable scientific discoveries.