VOSS: HRCT Scanning as Glue: Sociotechnical Analysis and Support of a Loosely-Coupled Virtual Organization of Emergent Distributed Projects

VOSS：HRCT 扫描作为粘合剂：紧急分布式项目的松耦合虚拟组织的社会技术分析和支持

• 批准号: 0838400
• 负责人: Andrea Tapia
• 金额: $ 40万
• 依托单位: Pennsylvania State Univ University Park
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2008
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2008-11-01 至 2013-07-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0838400&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: VOSS; HRCT; Scanning; Glue; Sociotechnical

As the options for obtaining and sharing scientific information and problem-solving expand, there is an increasing need to understand and support the sociotechnical requirements of distributed scientific collaboration. While considerable attention has been directed at technical infrastructures for distributed science and engineering, little is known about how these entities function as virtual organizations ? how they formulate and pursue shared goals, acquire and manage resources, plan and implement tasks, and so on. This project will examine these issues in the context of a hybrid two-layer structure common in scientific communities: a persistent loosely-coupled virtual organization that itself consists of emergent distributed projects. The focal case subject is the virtual organization that has emerged around a rare piece of scientific equipment, a High Resolution Computed Tomography (HRCT) scanner, one of three such scanners worldwide. The scanner belongs to the Center for Quantitatitve Imaging (CQI), a research center associated with Penn State?s Department of Anthropology, which is used to generate three-dimensional internal maps of physical structures for human and animal subjects. The availability of these high-quality images has promoted many cross-institution and international research collaborations within the scientific community of physical anthropology. The HRCT virtual organization (henceforth HRCT-VO) is complex because it has a two-layer structure that is constantly changing shape. In one layer it provides persistent support for managing the scanning tasks and resulting data; in the other, it supports emergent projects that overlap in timeline, personnel, and resources. This study of the HRCT-VO is guided by these research questions: (1) What sociotechnical practices have emerged for coordinating access to, interaction with, maintenance of, and dissemination from the HRCT scanner and its datasets? (2) How do these practices vary as a function of different distributed project needs and characteristics (e.g., size, project age, research goals and methods)? (3) How can these practices be better supported or enhanced through information and communication technology (ICT)? (4) How does the sociotechnical system evolve in response to new ICT support? The project will yield a rich qualitative account of the dependencies and coordination practices of virtual organizations that leverage a shared resource among diverse and overlapping distributed projects, including how these practices evolve in the presence of customized technology support. A direct impact will be improved practices for accessing and managing scientific resources in physical anthropology and more broadly to virtual organizations with similar two-layer structures in other domain areas. Finally the project will train undergraduate students in methods for analyzing and addressing real world socio-technical problems in the research domain.

随着获取和共享科学信息和解决问题的选择的扩大，越来越需要了解和支持分布式科学合作的社会技术要求。虽然相当多的注意力已经针对分布式科学和工程的技术基础设施，很少有人知道这些实体如何作为虚拟组织的功能？他们如何制定和追求共同的目标，获取和管理资源，计划和执行任务，等等。这个项目将在科学界常见的混合两层结构的背景下研究这些问题：一个持久的松散耦合的虚拟组织，本身包括紧急分布式项目。 焦点案例主题是围绕一种罕见的科学设备出现的虚拟组织，这种设备是高分辨率计算机断层扫描（HRCT）扫描仪，世界上有三种这样的扫描仪。该扫描仪属于定量成像中心（CQI），一个与宾夕法尼亚州立大学？人类学系，用于生成人类和动物对象物理结构的三维内部地图。这些高质量图像的可用性促进了体质人类学科学界的许多跨机构和国际研究合作。HRCT虚拟组织（以下简称HRCT-VO）是复杂的，因为它具有不断变化形状的两层结构。在一个层中，它为管理扫描任务和结果数据提供持久支持;在另一个层中，它支持在时间轴、人员和资源方面重叠的紧急项目。这项研究的HRCT-VO是由这些研究问题的指导：（1）出现了什么社会技术的做法，协调访问，互动，维护和传播的HRCT扫描仪及其数据集？ (2)这些实践如何根据不同的分布式项目需求和特征（例如，规模、项目年限、研究目标和方法）？(3)如何通过信息和通信技术更好地支持或加强这些做法？(4)社会技术系统如何演变以应对新的信通技术支持？该项目将产生一个丰富的定性帐户的依赖关系和协调的虚拟组织，利用共享资源之间的不同和重叠的分布式项目，包括这些做法如何在定制的技术支持的存在演变的做法。一个直接的影响将是改进获取和管理自然人类学科学资源的做法，更广泛地说，将是改进其他领域具有类似双层结构的虚拟组织的做法。最后，该项目将培养本科生在研究领域分析和解决真实的世界社会技术问题的方法。