Designing a Computer System to Support an Electronic Scientific Community

沙茨教授正在进行为期一年的调查， 理解并概述计算机系统的设计， 支持电子科学界。 片刻后 将提交提案支持该系统， 项目的目的是奠定必要的基础， 执行工作按计划进行。 当实施时， 系统应该是一种新形式的生物仪器 它可以有效地操纵科学数据库。 适当的社区知识将被确定为 收集到一个数字图书馆，设计将 结合必要的系统技术， 通过全国性的网络传播这个图书馆 社区选择 是一群研究线虫的科学家 秀丽隐杆线虫是分子生物学研究的重要模式生物 生物学 “蠕虫社区”由大约500名成员组成 在世界范围内，以不同寻常的开放交流程度， 分享未公开的信息。 社区知识 包括正式数据，例如已发表的文献， 实验结果和非正式数据，如新闻稿 和实验方法。 设计的系统将捕获 这些知识的很大一部分是电子形式的， 将其编码到“蠕虫信息空间”中， 被全国各地的科学家透明地浏览 科学网络。 系统设计的准备 需要了解用户需求和现有技术。 这将通过与研究人员合作来实现， 是系统的初始用户，并且是 现有的数据和技术。 这种调查应 使设计能够确保系统将有助于 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"worm community" consists of some 500 members worldwide, with an unusual degree of open communication and sharing of unpublished information.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.