This award is to the National Academy of Science/National Research Council Computer Science and Technology Board (CSTB) to convene a study committee that brings together technology developers and users to develop the specific research agenda necessary to support a national collaboratory. Collaboratory, is the term for a complete computer and communications support environment for remote and in situ scientific investigation. This includes access to distributed data bases, remote control of instrumentation, and other features to enable scientific work by teams of scientists not collocated with each other or their scientific instruments. The CSTB will identify major scientific efforts that would significantly benefit from an enhanced collaboration ability; it will assess the needs and requirements of these projects through a series of workshops involving both developers and potential users. A report summarizing the workshop findings and their implications for a national collaboratory research agenda will be prepared. It is estimated that the report will be available early in 1992.
