CAREER: Collaborative Image Manipulation and Annotation in Surgical Telemedicine

本项目的目的是调查协作图像交互在分布式工作中传达专家知识方面的好处。尽管在电信音频和视频信号的压缩和传输方面已经有了很大的进步，但在分布式工作环境中提供适当的工具来传达专家知识仍然是一个巨大的挑战。外科远程医疗是一个与高度专业化的图像进行协作交互对于高效和有效地传递专家信息至关重要的领域，而合作的个人可能不具有相同的专业水平。在这项研究中，PI将系统地确定技术图像的专家分布式交流的挑战，以及协作图像交互在分布式工作中传达专家知识方面的好处。由于这项研究的结果将可翻译到其他利用图像的专家分布式环境中，以便对分布式协作工作实践产生积极影响，因此项目结果将具有广泛的影响，除了为分布式协作工作提供图像操作和注释能力以支持医疗保健的直接好处之外。该项目将通过将高中生、本科生和研究生纳入这项跨学科研究，提供多层次的教育经验。由于非政府组织将在整个项目中积极参与和指导代表人数不足的群体，这项工作还可能增加科技界代表人数不足的少数群体和妇女的数量。最后，PI将在医学和人机界面文献中广泛传播结果，并在各自的年度会议上协调研讨会，以吸引更多的研究人员和系统设计师。这项工作是PI长期努力的一部分，目的是调查图像如何在科学和医疗协作实践中发挥作用，特别是关于专业人员和非专业人员如何通过图像感知信息，进而研究感知、呈现和与这些图像交互的新机制的影响。本研究的目的是：确定在协同和分布式图像协作中传递专家知识的语言和非语言机制；开发分布式协作图像交互的原型；确定协作图像交互对专家交流过程和绩效结果的影响；以及协作图像交互对分布式工作实践的影响和反应。教育目标是培养对卫生信息系统成功的协作技术设计和社会科学评估有深刻理解的学者。这是国际和平协会长期努力的一部分，目的是让计算机和信息科学中代表性不足的群体参与开发针对现实世界问题的技术解决方案的过程。具体的教育活动将包括为高中生制定实习计划，让他们参与手术室真实世界问题的研究和系统设计，并开发一门交叉列出的远程医疗研究生课程，该课程利用基于项目的课程将来自密歇根大学三个不同研究生项目的研究生的专业知识汇集在一起：信息系统、以人为中心的计算和健康IT。

The objective of this project is to investigate the benefit of collaborative image interaction in conveying expert knowledge during distributed work. Although there have been great advances in the compression and transfer of audio and video signals for telecommunication, there is still a significant challenge in providing the appropriate tools for conveying expert knowledge in distributed work settings. Surgical telemedicine is one domain where collaborative interaction with highly specialized images is vital for the efficient and effective conveyance of expert information, and the collaborating individuals may not have the same level of expertise. In this research the PI will systematically ascertain the challenges of expert distributed communication of technical images and the benefits that collaborative image interaction has in conveying expert knowledge in distributed work. Because the findings from this research will be translatable to other expert distributed environments that utilize imagery in order to have a positive effect on distributed collaborative work practices, project outcomes will have broad implications aside from the immediate benefit of providing manipulation and annotation ability on images for distributed collaborative work to support healthcare. The project will provide educational experiences at multiple levels by including high school, undergraduate, and graduate students in this interdisciplinary research. Because the PI will actively engage and mentor under-represented groups throughout the project, the work may also increase the number of underrepresented minorities and women in science and technology. Finally, the PI will disseminate results broadly in both the medical and HCI literature, and coordinate workshops at the respective yearly conferences, in order to engage a wider audience of researchers and system designers.This work is part of a long term effort by the PI in investigating how images play a part in scientific and medical collaborative practices, particularly with regards to how both professionals and lay people perceive the information through images and, in turn, the effects of new mechanisms for sensing, presenting, and interacting with those images. The research aims are: to determine the verbal and non-verbal mechanisms for conveying expert knowledge in co-located and distributed collaboration with images; to develop a prototype for distributed collaborative image interaction; to determine the effects of collaborative image interaction on expert communication processes and performance outcomes; and to determine the effects of and the reactions to collaborative image interaction on distributed work practices. The educational objective is to produce scholars with a deep understanding of collaborative technology design and social science evaluation on health information system success. This is part of a long-term effort by the PI to engage under-represented groups in computer and information science by exposing them to the process of developing technology solutions to real world problems. Specific educational activities will include development of an internship program for high school students to participate in research and systems design on the real-world problems of the operating room, and development of a cross-listed graduate course on telemedicine that utilizes a project-based curriculum to bring together the expertise of graduate students from three different UMBC graduate programs: Information Systems, Human Centered Computing, and Health IT.