2.2.4 Participation and Collaboration
Collaboration is, of course, impossible without participation. Participation is developed only through hard work on the part of the team members, and especially the members placed in leadership positions. Participation is encouraged by several mechanisms, among them professional ethos, pay, emotional commitment, curiosity, altruism, recognition and avoidance of the negative consequences of non-participation.

2.2.4.1 Participation as a Covering Term for Interaction  

Participation: n. 2b. A taking part, association, or sharing (with others) in some action or matter [emphasis provided].

-- Oxford English Dictionary

Obviously nothing happens in a group effort unless people interact. The activities are the dimensions of participation. The word in links the activity with the object of the action. The object of the activity may be decision making, learning or scholarly research, or any other activity that humans or their surrogates engage in. The principal terms used to describe the dimensions of participation are: collaboration, communication, coordination, cooperation and contribution.

Even in the scientific literature, the terms collaboration and cooperation are used loosely. Sanderson notes the close relationship between collaborative and cooperative research (Sanderson 1996). Both forms of participation are working together to a common end, but collaboration calls for a much more dedicated relationship between the participants marked by the creation of new knowledge. Cooperation is a less intense relationship marked by the sharing of resources. The boundary between collaboration and cooperation is seamless. I believe another distinction may be made, by denying that organizations can collaborate, since collaboration is a synthetic intellectual action joined only by individuals. Representatives of organizations may collaborate, but the organizations can only cooperate.

As an illustration of the confusion between the terms collaboration, and cooperation, the "Nairobi partnership" is a pastiche of programs that has grown over the years as a vehicle for studying and attacking the problem of AIDS in Kenya. Some of the institutions involved are universities at Nairobi, Winnipeg, Toronto, Antwerp, Ghent, Oxford and Seattle. Funding comes from various sources and totals over $4.8 millions per year. In the over twenty years of its existence the partnership has produced nearly 300 papers. In a recent Science article (Cohen 2000), the partnership is referred to as a collaboration, yet the Kenyans involved complained at a retreat held in 1998 that key collaboration practices were underdeveloped. Specifically cited was a need to incorporate Kenyans when they draft research proposals, manuscripts, and conference presentations. Also, University of Nairobi staff that currently does not work with the project should have more opportunities to participate.

Of additional interest to this discussion are some parallel relationships: that of objects or symbols of communication -- data, information and knowledge; and terms describing representations -- analogy, metaphor and model (Leatherdale 1974). Of particular interest is a modern model of the participating social group: the model of distributed artificial intelligence (DAI) (Thagard 1993). Artificial intelligence (AI) is an interesting model in that it is based on the reality of individual human thought, yet treats that thought as a network of separated activities within the mind. DAI adds to the model the concept of interactions between intelligent entities (human or machine).

Why introduce a model using artificial intelligence to the discussion of a very venerable and intelligent human activity? First, DAI is a simplification of the bewildering complex of human collaboration; and second, it allows us to include, as actors, non-human agencies such as organizations, cultures, and yes, even computers. By identification and inclusion of these non-human agents we can better understand the activities of the humans participating in the collaboration.

2.2.4.2 Communication as Participation  

Communicate:
v. trans. 2. To impart (knowledge, information and the like); to impart or convey the knowledge of, inform a person of, tell.

-- Oxford English Dictionary

Path is described in terms of impedance of the linkage between two linked nodes. Direct connection is the most effective, and the effectiveness of indirect connections is proportional to the number of intervening nodes and the transformations that may occur in those nodes. Extremely indirect connections are very unreliable and ineffective. Complete lack of connection is possible. Links are directed, that is they are either one way or bi-directional. The impedance in a bi-directional link is not likely to be equal in both directions due to differences in productive or receptive capabilities.

Participation by communication need not be interactive. People often participate passively in discussions, simply reading the interactions of others. This sort of participation is a mode favored by those interested in the topic, but not prepared to engage in the discussion. The reasons for failure to engage may be unwillingness to invest the time required, insecurity (evaluation anxiety), or a conscious recognition that their contributions may not be up to the standards of the group. This behavior is commonly termed lurking, and is often wrongly equated with non-participative behavior ( free-riding, social loafing, self-censorship, or surrender to authority). Lurking is quite often used to learn about the community, its language, problems, and methods of dialog (McKendree and Mayes 1997). Toleration of lurking by the active and elite members of a group is in fact the most democratic example of legitimate peripheral participation (Shrage 2000, 206). Lurkers are given the privilege of listening to the dialog in hopes that they may eventually join the group as a qualified participant.

Within a Research web, the social ties of the members are strong to weak, but certainly are not non-existent. As time passes, and as the occasional face-to-face meetings occur, the team's social ties will become stronger. Gächter and Fehr note that theory suggests that desire for social approval and avoidance of social disapproval are the mechanism for maintaining custom (Gächter and Fehr 1999, 343). They note the weak empirical support for the suggestion that custom encourages participation; but then show in experiments (ibid., 362) that while free-riding is only slightly and insignificantly affected by social approval, within a group with at least weak ties, social incentives give rise to large and significant reductions in free-riding.

2.2.4.3 Cooperation as Participation  

Cooperate:
v. intr. To work together toward a common end or purpose.

-- American Heritage Dictionary

Cooperation from academic institutions has, for interdisciplinary projects, often been poor. Disciplinary parochialism has been cited as a problem (Younglove-Webb et.al. 1999). For collaborations beyond two-author papers, institutional support is necessary, even if it's only favorable notice in tenure reviews (Damrosch 1995, 195).

2.2.4.4 Coordination as Participation  

Coordinate:
v.trans. To work together harmoniously.

-- American Heritage Dictionary

Coordination is managing dependencies between activities.

Communicating task descriptions can result in healthy discussion of the team's overall plans. Criticism of tasks may eliminate unnecessary tasks and point out new requirements. The work performed in coordinated tasks may be thought of as efficient use of resources. To the extent that efficiency declines so does the quality of the product. Very large projects do have plenty of routine work that can benefit from coordination by management. Collaboration, on the other hand, is seldom routine so has little need for coordination.

2.2.4.5 Contribution as Participation  

Contribute:
v. intr. To give or supply in common with others; give to a common fund or for a common purpose.

-- American Heritage Dictionary

2.2.4.6 Collaboration as Participation  

Collaborate:
v. intr. To work together, especially in a joint intellectual effort.

-- American Heritage Dictionary

2.2.4.6.1 Contribution of Content  
Content is King, no matter if the site is a Research Web studying marriage among the Lesser Andaman Islanders or is a commercial site selling shoes. This mantra originated in teaching and is now well established among managers of WWW sites. The Research Web site is a collection of conscription devices (Henderson 1991, 452) for all researchers studying the issue domain. If there is little content, or if the content is static, there is little incentive for returning to the site or for participating. There must be a critical mass of content as well as a critical mass of participants since a small number of participants cannot be expected to contribute at a uniformly high rate.

A positive correlation between interests and resources is highly favorable for collective action, as it increases the probability of there being a few highly interested and highly resourceful people who are willing and able to provide the good for everyone.

The success of the RW depends on universal access, universal adoption, and universal use (Markus 1987). Each member must possess the hardware and software necessary to make use of the RW. Each member must be willing to learn how to use the RW by browsing the WWW and becoming familiar with the contents and interactive tools of the RW. And finally, every member must use the RW by criticizing and contributing content, and by actively supporting its use.

Content for the Research Web comes through three mechanisms: commission, acquisition, and reader creation (McGovern and Norton 2002, 107). The RW depends on its members to provide content through all of these mechanisms. Authors of new materials contribute essays, position papers, and research reports in response to a commission. All team members can acquire content for the RW by contributing bibliographic references, and providing definitions of terms of the vocabulary of the dialog. As readers, the team members turn to criticism of essays, glossing definitions, engaging in e-mail dialog, and reviewing the references.

One early contribution expected from each member is a set of contributions, or perhaps a position paper, that summarizes the relationships of the issue domain to his or her discipline. Basically, this contribution makes the tacit knowledge of the member explicit and open to discussion by the other team members. Researchers engaged in interdisciplinary research projects, as the RW is likely to be, are likely to encourage each other to make the implicit explicit (Crow, Levine and Nager 1992, 739).

To hell with tacit knowledge. Go for tacit documents instead.

It is very important to remove barriers to the contribution of content. Contributors must not be burdened by needing to become facile in the technology of the WWW. A facilitator must be responsible for reformatting content for presentation on the RW. The contributor should be held responsible only for some representation of the content: word processor file, e-mail attachment, or even hardcopy. Software for direct contribution of commentary and annotation must be designed for novice use.

As one becomes known as a scientist by publishing science, so one becomes a collaborator by contributing content to the RW. Scholarly publications are basically any recorded document that can be accessed by other scholars interested in the topic; similarly, contributions are documents available to the members of the research team. Scholarly publication is a process that has a very restricted set of document genres, so the contributor cannot participate in scholarly publication as fully as one can contribute to the RW with its much fuller set of document genres.

Contributions are organized knowledge and information that include all publications and extend into ephemera such as lectures, performances, and conversation. Contributions of very special importance are documents that exist on the far boundary of conventional publication: criticism. Criticism in the form of reviews is firmly within the bounds of conventional publication, but letters to the editor are on the boundary, and direct criticism of documents such as might be directed to the author, or discussed in workshops or seminars is infrequent in conventional publication. Yet this criticism is the fuel of scientific progress and the hone that puts the edge on our canonical documents . The reward systems have considered authorship of research papers and books almost exclusively, and have not adequately accounted for smaller contributions, such as collaborative behavior and criticism (Cronin 1995).

Contributions may form the basis of valuation of collaborative effectiveness. The primary difficulties in establishing the value of a contribution are the vast range of the individual contribution and the difficulties in establishing a fungible unit of measurement. Rewards are based on the value of one's contribution. Since evaluation has a large subjective and even political component, it is clear that rewards are not always distributed equitably: how many revered teachers are Nobel Laureates? How many penetrating commentaries equal authorship of a paper? How many annotations does it take to earn an acknowledgment? And, how are acknowledgments valued in a tenure defense?

Commentary that expresses support or disagreement is not valueless, for such commentary does influence the behavior of the author and other contributors. So most commentary is of some value, even if it is merely reinforcing the recognition of a team effort. Sadly there are comments of negative worth that occasionally emerge, such as unwarranted attacks or senseless graffiti.

While valuation of contributions may appear to be a hopeless task, such is not the case. A skilled collaboration leader, if aided by evaluation tools can evaluate the collaborative performance by team members much better than an unaided novice leader. The collaborators and other team members can also contribute to the evaluation. Intangible bases of evaluation can be incorporated along with automated measurement tools, such as word counts, to develop a well-rounded, largely rational evaluation. This evaluation can be forwarded to the member's employers or can form the basis of letters of recommendation or nominations for awards.

2.2.4.6.2 Collaboration in Development of Content  

The performance of cognitive tasks that exceed individual abilities is always shaped by a social organization of distributed cognition.

In the Research Web environment, collaboration always results in the development of content. Content ranges from Research Web Essays on the high side, through critical commentary, e-mail communication, reports of meetings or phone calls, to the information gathered in the more tedious tasks of literature research. Certainly all content is not equal in importance, nor is all collaboration on a professional level. All members of the research team from principal investigators to data analysts contribute to the success of the RW, but the rewards and credit are dispensed in accordance with the nature of individual contributions.

The modern research environment is, for three principal reasons (Maienschein 1993), a collaborative environment. First, the scope and quality of scholarship has advanced to the point where individual labor is insufficient. Second, collaboration provides credibility, especially for students and less well-known researchers. And finally, the times are right for creation of communities of specialized scholars, and for tightly defined interdisciplinary research topics. The means for collaboration are communication and resources, and the ends are knowledge expressed in documents.

A Research Web must, like all medium-to-large scale human enterprises, be managed. Management is responsible for maintaining an environment that fosters collaboration: all members need to be granted respect and rewards for what they contribute. All members should adhere to some standards of conduct, as participation is social interaction. In the Research Web, that social interaction is dialog, usually asynchronous. The goal of dialogic behavior in the RW is to attain the ideal speech situation proposed by Habermas and modified by Webler to incorporate competence and responsibility.

1. Every potential discourse participant must meet minimal societal standards for cognitive and lingual competence.
2. Every discourse participant must have access to the knowledge needed to make validity claims and criticize others.
3. Speakers must verify the results of any attempt to translate expressive claims.
4. Judgments about conflicting validity claims must be made using the most reliable methodological techniques available.

Pröpper's Model Procedure for Discussion (Pröpper 1993, 82) (Table II below) holds dialog on a professional level to an even more stringent standard. Keeping in mind that research may be viewed as an argumentation process (Eisenhart and Borko 1993, 93), we can adopt a set of behavior elements designed to ensure professional dialog that includes the basis for translation of dialog into formal argumentation. The table below provides rules that not only will bring order into the dialog, but will also enable measurement of the quality of the dialog.

1.1 One is committed to the objective of the discussion.
1.2 One is committed to the things one has said and implied therewith
1.3 One is committed to the arguments being solid

2.1 Every participant in a discussion supports his or her statements with the help of arguments, when other participants (may be expected to) demand this, unless he or she gives plausible reasons justifying a refusal.
2.2 When one doubts the arguments relating to the point of view of another participant in the discussion, one may only challenge these if one gives counterarguments.

3.1 The participants in a discussion are not allowed to contradict themselves.
3.2 The participants in a discussion are consequent.

4.1 The arguments one gives, and the information accompanying them, must be relevant.
4.2 when making a statement that (apparently) does not refer to the statements and arguments which are the subject of the discussion, one has to state one's reasons for making this statement, if other participants (may be likely to) expect this.

5.1 One is not allowed to prevaricate.
5.2 One is not allowed to ascribe to another person points of view that one does not support.
5.3 The points of view held must not be tendentious due to ambiguity.
5.4 The participants in a discussion are not allowed to present their own contribution(s) to the discussion tendentiously, by means of incorrect or incomplete information. Table II (continued)
5.5 One should not become personal.

6.1 It must be possible for everyone (to the same extent) to take part in the discussion.
6.2 The participants in a discussion are allowed to raise any point of view and advance any information they consider relevant for the defense or challenge of a certain point of view.
6.3 One is allowed to challenge any statement brought by another participant to the discussion to justify or refute the expression of an opinion.
6.4 The participants in a discussion are to provide as much information as necessary (for the aim of the discussion at that moment).

2.2.4.6.3 Collaboration for Labor-sharing  
Labor sharing is necessary in any project that requires more than one person by virtue of its size, breadth of disciplinary scope or scheduling pressure. The lone scientist may very well find many projects beyond his means (Endersby 1993, 377). Research Webs are always of a size that requires labor sharing. Labor sharing applies to all professional tasks: authoring, researching, computing, designing of experiments, designing of statistical analysis, and above all, controlling the quality or validity of the products. Labor sharing is a form of delegation. The delegation of the work is under the control of a scientist who is managing part of the team's efforts. The delegation determines who does the work; the rewards for doing the work seem to flow from a combination of three mechanisms: professional recognition, pay for work and legitimate peripheral participation.

The use of research assistants is almost universal in large-scale research enterprises. Research assistants may perform library research at the direction of the project's scientists. Assistance in data gathering, coding, or analysis is often assigned to research assistants. Volunteer amateurs may perform field research under the direction of the investigators: archeology is the most frequently cited example, but paleontology and astronomy now use volunteer helpers.

Another form of labor sharing is the utilization of outside technical specialists. These specialists are not necessarily professionally competent in the issue domain, especially where non-traditional tools are employed in the research. Geographic information systems (GIS) are often employed in research in fields not usually associated with the use of GIS. Maienschein cites another example: in 1895 a cytologist was compiling a text on cell fertilization; at that time most illustration was done with artistic methods, but he called on an early microphotographer to provide illustrations of the early stages of cell fertilization (Maienschein 1993).

Load sharing in the authoring of RW essays and research papers usually divides the product into sections based on the knowledge and interests of an author. Experiment design and statistical analysis may be shared among the members of the authoring team, and perhaps with other members of the RW team. Reviewing load is also shared among all members of the authoring team. Paper renderings, faxes, and /or DocReview can be employed depending on the quality of the draft. DocReview is especially useful for a "local peer review" where colleagues of the authors and RW members review the final draft before release for publication in the RW.

2.2.4.6.4 Collaboration for Credibility  
In interdisciplinary projects representatives of each discipline will provide credibility for their specialty. When a proposal is submitted for an interdisciplinary project review committees can, without regard for the capabilities of the team, reject any proposal that does not have a "certified" member from each discipline(Nyerges 1999, personal comm.). Maienschein cites several examples where the demonstration of community led to increased credibility in the eyes of funding agencies due to a stated or implied compliance with the communitarianism of the Mertonian ethos of science (Maienschein 1993, 180).

2.2.4.6.5 Collaboration for Community  
Collaboration serves several social functions (Kraut, Galegher, Egido 1988, 35). For some, engaging the research process with others is simply more enjoyable than working alone. Pre-existing social contacts are maintained and improved through collaboration. Careers can be advanced by collaboration with leaders in one's field. Some perceive that the quality of research can be improved through joint participation (Endersby 1996, 377). Poole cites interdisciplinary work as a potential savior of thinly populated specialties (Poole 1994).

In order to survive, every human system needs to reproduce itself. There is a constant turnover in personnel due to death, retirement, or changes in interests. Academic disciplines are a good example of a self-reproducing system, as they place an emphasis on creation of new professors. In the research community, there is a need to socialize new members of the community, and for established members, a need to reinforce the social bonds and professional ethos through collaborative practice. New members of the community (graduate students, post-doctoral fellows, interdisciplinary members of the RW team) are introduced to the operation of the research by a collaborative process (Endersby 1996, 377). This process is called legitimate peripheral participation.

Legitimate peripheral participation (Lave and Wenger 1991) permits the learner to participate in the work of an expert, under the tutelage of an expert, but without complete responsibility for the outcome of the work. Not only learning takes place, but also to some extent, an emotional bond is formed - to science, to the work, to the mentors, and to the team.

Types of social collaborative links

Peer Similar: professional to professional within the same discipline. These scholars may be drawn to participate in order to avoid isolation. Austin and Baldwin call this collaboration "complementary collaboration" (Austin and Baldwin 1991). This type of collaboration usually begins socially in the discussion of ideas. As soon as a kernel of a unique idea is formed the collaboration begins to take the form of a research project leading to authorship (Shreeve, et.al. 1986). The most typical contribution of peer similar collaboration is in the professional dialog operating within existing projects. Peer similar relationships usually operate on the theoretical plane (Thagard 1997, §4.3).

Peer Different: professional to professional between disciplines. This is a looser collaborative link, but often leads to the same reward as peer similar, authorship. Collaborations among specialists are termed "supplemental collaborations" by Austin and Baldwin (Austin and Baldwin 1991). They tend to be loose confederations with limited interdependency. Often the collaboration leads to a project in only one of the disciplines, the other discipline contributing only enrichment. Acknowledgment rather than authorship is often the reward in this case. Thagard points out that, as in peer similar collaborations, the relationships are more on the theoretical plane than the empirical (Thagard 1997, §4.4). Peer different collaboration also requires cross-disciplinary education. The RW contributes to this learning by encouraging each member to contribute an essay about the issue domain describing his or her discipline's relationship to the issue domain; in other words, making each member's tacit knowledge explicit and subject to criticism and query. The criticism offered by any scholar will bear the imprint of his or her discipline, offering another opportunity to see the point of view of that discipline.

Maienschein mentions another collaboration combining the two forms of peer collaboration: the Textbook Project (Maienschein 1993, 178). A Research Web could easily be constituted to produce such an artifact, especially if the issue domain was multidisciplinary. A more general name for such collaboration might be the Encyclopedia approach. Collaboration becomes relatively less important than coordination under a single editor. Maienschien points out that the existence of multiple or interdisciplinary authors lends considerable credibility to the project. The RW environment also contains tools to facilitate the enterprise, especially the Annotated HyperGlossary and DocReview.

Professor-Student: Sharing the workload with a student leads to several beneficial results for both the project and the participants. The student can offer skills that are professional, sub-professional, or technical. The professor in this relationship clearly is bound to train the student while the student must contribute to the scientific progress of the team (Thagard 1997, §4.2). The mechanism whereby benefits flow both to the student and to the professor, and to the team as well, is legitimate peripheral participation.

Professional-Worker: Sharing the labor load with an employee leads to more speed and allows the professional staff to work more efficiently (Thagard 1997, §4.1). Work that can be done by anyone with similar skills needs not be accorded professional rewards (Endersby 1996, 389); pay alone is sufficient reward, though of course the worker may very well gain personal satisfaction from helping the team move toward its goals. Such collaboration may be called "subauthorship collaboration" (Austin and Baldwin 1991, 23) because it is usually rewarded by acknowledgment rather than authorship.

Action Research: When the research team is engaged in the solution of a practical problem or is participating in the improvement of an existing practice, such as land use planning, they are likely to be teamed with practitioners (Austin and Baldwin 1991, 22). The feedback and reflection between theory and practice produces an enrichment of both theory and practice (Schön 1983, 202). Problems of this sort are often described as "participatory" and usually involve intervention, on the part of the practitioners, in an ongoing process. Certainly in this sort of research work, there is an "extended peer community" (Funtowicz and Ravetz 1993, 740).

"Standard" action research into a problem is practiced by looping through a cycle of fact finding, action planning, action and evaluation. McKay and Marshall suggest that the standard iteration pattern might be shadowed by a complementary research pattern that would provide the backing for action planning with a rigorous development of research questions, hypothesis development, data collection and analysis of results (McKay and Marshall 2001).

In terms of the conceptual framework of this dissertation, action research involves a rather radical methodological shift, but no great change in the substantive domain or the conceptual domain. It seems clear that the substantive domain would be much better served by the participation of those researched. The conceptual domain could also benefit from greater participation, though probably to a lesser extent. The methodological domain would be dominated by the research methodologies of participative action research (PAR). The principal impact of action research on the RW would be on the simulation model, if one exists. Since the purpose of action research is to change behavior, parts of a simulation model would be made obsolete every time action is taken to alter the behavior of those researched, the "reference group."

The prototypical Research Web is designed to serve a more conventional research team than an action research team. An RW designed to serve an action research team will need to include provisions for access of those "researched on," those "researched for," and stakeholders who may be affected as well as the researchers (Wadsworth 1998). The RW could have facilities for conducting questionnaires and voting on the WWW. Certainly some more "democratic" facilities such as chat rooms and less structured discussion forums could be valuable.

2.2.4.6.6 Collaboration for Posterity  
Collaboration for posterity is an underappreciated act. Frequently the foresight of past researchers enables future researchers to engage in longitudinal studies. The data collected in the past was frequently documented in ephemeral documents such as lab notebooks. With the constantly decreasing cost of memory, storage and maintenance of knowledge and data will soon be able to remain on a RW indefinitely. Death, retirement and loss of interest result in the loss of vast amounts of data, information and knowledge (Ruhleder and King 1991, 342); the RW can preserve most of this material.

Because many observations made in the course of research are far below the "minimum publishable unit" threshold, much data is lost forever. The nature of the Research Web is such that there is always room to save observations even though they become peripheral during the course of research. Like a good lab notebook, The RW can preserve false starts and blind alleys. Since all textual documents in the RW are in HTML, they may all be displayed in the browser. Even more important, they are all searchable as a body and individually. E-mail archives, DocReview commentary, RW Essays, all are visible.

The scholarly press has a bias against research that does not show significant statistical results, even though the research constitutes an affirmation of insignificance. In the past, results that were not "positive" were so unlikely to be published that the authors did not even submit them for publication. Fortunately, funding agencies such as the National Science Foundation now demand that data and reports from "inconclusive" research be made available. In the Research Web, there is a prominent place for such results. These studies can be made available not only for access to results and data, but to annotation from other scientists that might suggest alternative hypotheses or methods.

2.2.4.6.7 Collaboration through Criticism  
The important place of criticism in science as a basic epistemological tool is very well established by scholars such as Popper and Polyani and is far beyond argument in this dissertation. For a philosophical discussion of the issue see Miller (Miller 1994). Criticism poses problems that stimulate research and open new directions and keeps researchers from becoming complacent. Criticism can support theory by showing the errors in competing explanations.

The best way to advance knowledge, it follows, is to foment a constant stream of criticism and response.

Critical social theory suggests that research include all those affected by the research. This call to collaboration also clearly states that criticism cannot be separated from reason (Ngwenyama 1991, 269). Critical social theory also points clearly to the use of action research as a method for effecting change through inquiry. The Research Web concept is fully compatible with these ideas.

The Research Web is designed to promote criticism: of assertions in essays through DocReview; of definitions and glosses in the Annotated HyperGlossary; and of the quality of references in the Annotated HyperBibliography. Responses to the criticism may be made within the critical apparatus of the tools or by publishing new editions of the essays. As a matter of course, new editions should include a hypertext link to a "preface" that summarizes the changes made in the new edition. As criticism is received it is announced to the members automatically by notification services in DocReview and " What's New." Any e-mail dialog on a given topic can be extracted from searchable e-mail and discussion forum archives.

2.2.4.6.8 Mandated Collaboration  
Granting agencies and other organizations that sponsor research often have political policies that mandate collaboration between researchers, disciplines, or organizations. During the 1920's the Rockefeller Foundation was instrumental in encouraging a collective, communitarian, attitude in science (Maienschein 1993). More recently the National Science Foundation has very explicitly sponsored collaboration in its grants (NSF 1999). NATO's Collaborative Linkage Grants require collaboration between scientist from NATO countries and certain specified countries in Northern Africa, the Middle East and the former Soviet Union (NATO 2001).

In 1945 the United States created the Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission to study the health effects of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs. The collaboration of Japanese professionals was essential to the project, yet the cooperation of the victims of atomic war was not going to be obtained without considerable political, sociological, and psychological manipulation. In short, the occupation authorities mandated the Japanese to collaborate (Maienschein 1993, 177).

Collaboration in an externally mandated collaboration is influenced by the formal position the scientific leader, PI or convenor may have been invested with by the mandating agency. The participation of the members may be insured to some degree by what they might lose if they do not participate (Wood and Gray 1991, 152). Internal mandates are also imposed by disciplinary practice or professional ethics (Chrisman 1987, 1369). Participants are also bound by the ethos of science and funding obligations.

2.2.4.7 Cooperation in Supporting the RW  
Cooperation is the act of supporting first the objectives and operation of the RW and secondly, the support of the members of the team. The sources of support are either institutional or personal. Those with the means of production (land, labor and capital) must support the production of content. In our context, office space and a WWW site represent land. Labor includes the members of the research team and all their supporting staff. Labor must be rewarded for their efforts. While payment in intangible rewards is sufficient for those who spend little time on the research, salaries and office space must support those directly and seriously involved. Capital expenditures may be needed to purchase equipment or to hire consultants or special services, such as laboratory procedures. In University-based research these contributions are all delineated in the research proposal. For long-term collaborations, means other than grants must be assembled. Endowments may pay for laboratory operation, or for intellectual involvement. But for long-term, low budget research efforts, the leadership of the research team will depend on intangible rewards to the intellectual contributors and on the good will of cooperating institutions for facilities.

2.2.4.7.1 Institutional Support  
Institutional support of the RW can be financial, persuasive through sponsorship or endorsement, or in the provision of resources. Members of the team may be supported with salaries or grants, lab and office equipment, offices, and privileges of use of facilities such as libraries and computing. Institutions benefit from support of successful Research Webs by gaining stature or fulfilling some institutional goals or mandated duties.

The distributed nature of the RW provides some unusual resource sharing opportunities. Software licenses are often granted to institutions without restriction to the number of users. If a team member is an employee of an institution that has a license for a specialized piece of software, the RW can utilize that institution's WWW server and the software license to support the RW. For example, one major feature of the RW is the e-mail discussion group or list server. The list server software supports the discussion group by distributing e-mail, and by maintaining archives of the team's e-mail that may be searched from the WWW. That list server can reside at any institution with a site license. Courtesy accounts may be provided to team members from other institutions in order to give them access to computing power and on-line journal access.

Institutional support for the members of the research team is excellent in most industrial enterprises. University supported grants, on the other hand, usually are awarded to individuals or very small groups for the purposes of generating narrowly focused scholarship that is usually monodisciplinary. Departmental support for scholars collaborating outside their department is often lacking, even to the extent that the time required for outside collaboration is expected to be done "on the scholar's own time" (Tierney and Bensimon 1996), or as a "night job" (Bohen and Stiles 1998, 46). Faculty rewards for working collaboratively on the WWW are few, even though in the opinion of some collaborative projects are where the future lies (Foote 1999, 115).

2.2.4.7.2 Personal Support  
Personal support of the RW can be in the form of contribution of intellectual capital, criticism, resources, or endorsement. Personal support of team members can take the form of recommendations, tutoring, advice, assistance, or simple encouragement. Individuals benefit from support through association and acknowledgment, not to mention the considerable value of personal alliances.

Members should familiarize themselves with the resources available through their institutions. Often site licenses are available that can be used for the team's benefit through a member's institution. Members may have personal resources and abilities that can be applied to the team's efforts, for example the ability to compile programs in "exotic" languages, convert database formats, write programs, or create graphics.

There are three sources of personal support for team members: the scientific leader, the facilitator and each other. The scientific leader has a support role to play, one of assisting and encouraging the team members on a personal level. This sort of support is basic leadership and the ability to exercise such leadership is a basic qualification for the scientific leader. The facilitator is usually not a resource for scientific content, but should be able to help team members learn the methods required for effective asynchronous communication. This help should extend beyond teaching the use of the special tools such as DocReview and the Annotated HyperGlossary and HyperBibliography. The facilitator should be able to detect problems that a novice is experiencing and then tactfully assist the novice in learning even the most basic Internet skills. Before embarking on a mission of assistance, the facilitator should discuss the problem with the scientific leader so as to avoid potential "pride" problems. All members need to be aware of any adjustment problems anyone is having with asynchronous methods.

2.2.5 Barriers to Collaboration  

... the greatest barriers to development of effective collaborations on the World Wide Web may revolve less around advances in the technology itself than around the institutional dynamics of higher education-human and organizational barriers that are more difficult to change.

2.2.5.1 Ownership  
The commerce in ideas and services functions through exchange just as commerce in goods. Intellectual commerce is a great deal more complex than trading in goods. Just what are the objects of intellectual commerce? Who owns these objects? Who can own these objects?

Authorship of research papers and books belongs to those who wrote the work. Copyright generally is held by the author(s), though it may by contract be assigned to an employer or publisher, or to the RW if it is incorporated. Acknowledgment of contributors is the scholar's courtesy (Cronin 1995).

Models are almost always the work of the authors, but if not they should be cited and/or acknowledged. The diffuse 'ownership' of the models represents a serious threat to participation in the modeling process. As the organizing 'glue' of the RW web site, the models are communal property. The models, much more than products such as the Annotated HyperGlossary and HyperBibliography, are the products of the entire team. The RW Essays are the product of authoring teams, and the rewards will go primarily to the authoring team. Authoring teams, especially solo efforts, may be reluctant to contribute their submodels to the communally held models. Scholars that see no personal rewards from modeling may resent the granting of scarce resources to the construction and maintenance of the models. Short term thinking by authoring teams that choose to terminate their research efforts after the research has produced most or all the papers it is likely to inspire will result in damage to the modeling effort and also to the quality of the research articles by truncating the development of robustness (phase 3 of VNS, see §2.3.3.3).

Unpublished essays, substantive ideas, RW essays and annotations are owned by the author(s) on the byline. Copyright defaults to the author(s) by default. Common courtesy on the part of scholars demands that important ideas be attributed to the person who suggested them. Ideas may be cited by URL if expressed in e-mail, as personal communications, and/or mentioned in an acknowledgment section. In the RW, if annotations are made in DocReview, important critical contributions cannot only be attributed, but can be made available in full text. The RW records provide better provenance (URL) than the "personal communication" citation treatment usually given this material.

In the RW, maps, charts, graphs, photographs, other images not made by the authors can be attributed to the makers. Materials of this nature need not be attributed if done for hire. Due to the hypertextual nature of the RW, a sidebar may be made available that discusses the technical aspects of the image, including metadata, interpretive notes, and warnings. The maker may separately copyright images.

Software can be copyrighted and sometime patented. If done for hire, the sponsors may copyright it; otherwise the copyright belongs to the programmer. Certainly software critical to the research must be cited and/or acknowledged. Algorithms cannot be patented, but they can be acknowledged in the software code. With patents, the inventors of record are those who were responsible for the development. Acknowledgments are not made in the patent documentation. Ownership of patents is usually assigned.

It should be understood by all contributors that, unless otherwise stated, all commentary and email directed to the team's listserver is open to the team. If one does not wish to make any communication public, then normal communication channels are available for private use. In the normal functioning of any social group there are communications that need to be private. Constant resort to private communication within the research team is somewhat pathological. One function of the scientific leader is to lead reluctant members away from private communication of information that should be public. Not only is such communication an attack on the efficacy of the work of the team, but leads to the establishment of cliques within the team. There are significant psychological mechanisms in operation within the research team, such as the impostor syndrome, and evaluation anxiety (Dubrovski, Kiesler and Sethna 1991).

Most documents mounted on the RW have a byline. The byline establishes the ownership of copyright of the document. The byline also establishes "ownership" of an idea within the team, if the document is substantive. Ideally, a white paper will establish a topic for a RW essay. The team's commentary of that white paper should give the author some idea of who might be co-authors. As soon as a publication is planned, the author(s) and scientific leader need to establish who are the authors and the order that their names are to appear on the publication. Authors may later wish to drop out, and others may be added.

Unless legally incorporated, the research team has no legal standing. The team members cannot jointly own any copyrights unless all members agree to jointly register copyright on those documents. Copyright automatically defaults to the authors listed on the byline. The models produced by the team are the embodiment of the long-term research into the issue domain as contrasted with the constituent topics that are the subject of essays produced by authoring teams. The models should be copyrighted to the entire team, past and present.

2.2.5.2 Copyright  
At the time of writing copyright practice is in great flux, even anarchy. The law is far behind the times as it was largely drafted in the pre-internet age. We are not concerned with the obvious violations such as plagiarism, "mirroring," and unauthorized excerpting, but in the more subtle area of technical illegalities that are almost universally tolerated.

Copyright is extremely important to the Research Web, as it is likely to include copyrighted materials. The Annotated HyperBibliography is in violation of copyright law unless public availability of its abstracts is permitted by each of the abstract copyright holders. The Annotated HyperGlossary is likely to contain verbatim copies of dictionary definitions. Only a completely private RW can use the abstracts or definitions under "fair use" laws. The argument that a RW is closed to all but the research team is insufficient, as fair use is generally applicable to individual scholarship and teaching.

With the revolution now underway in scholarly publishing, copyright customs are being challenged by universities. For decades scholars have surrendered their copyright to journal publishers. Research reports produced by public funding have been ceded to publishers who then have the right to charge the public for copies of the reports that they have paid for with their taxes. Both the government and the Universities are beginning to question the status quo.

Publications arising from the RW cannot be mounted on the RW without permission of the copyright holder. This absurd situation can be easily resolved by obtaining the permission to publish on the RW prior to submission to the target journal. In the author's experience such permission has never been refused, as it is made clear that the document is a "highly augmented hypertext version of the research report that is likely to change frequently."

2.2.5.3 Tenure and Promotion  
Academic rewards are, especially for junior faculty, focused on the tenure and promotion (T&P) process. These rewards are structured to serve the academic department and the college, not the scholar, students or state. T&P are to some degree determined by score-keeping formulae. The formulae are strongly entrenched for several reasons: custom, ease of administration, and (in the United States) the presence of a defensive strategy to avoid discrimination lawsuits. With a mixture of publication categories and quality weights, a basic score for scholarly research is computed and then merged with scores for public service (outreach) and teaching to determine the eligibility for tenure or promotion. The prevailing perception of the importance of research generally leads to the devaluation of other goals of the academic institutions (Rice 1991, 8).

Solo publications are, other things equal, usually rated above multi-author publications regardless of publication quality (Baldwin and Austin 1995, 64). Review groups generally accord low value to being third or more down the author list (Stark 1995, 181). While single-author publications may arise from the RW, most publications are multi-author efforts. Acknowledgments, almost obligatory in RW works, carry no weight whatsoever in most T&P formulae (Cronin, 1995). Ruhleder reports that in the humanities, though tool-building is a scholarly activity, "developing computer-based tools is not even on the list" (Ruhleder 1995, 50). But the most corrosive barrier to collaboration erected by academic departments is the stricture to publish within the discipline and in the leading journals of the discipline (Bohen and Stiles 1998, 43), (Isserman 2000, 311). Interdisciplinary work published outside the discipline's journals is somewhat deprecated in T&P formulae. The pressure on junior faculty to publish quickly and frequently tends to promote shallow work (Wasow 1992, 486). Due to the limited time available to build a winning tenure case, few junior faculty members have the inclination to risk becoming involved in groundbreaking work (Tierney and Bensimon 1996, 66), (Woit 2002, 112). This sort of work is, of course, just the sort of work that usually requires interdisciplinary collaboration.

Collaboration itself is not valued by T&P formulations (Baldwin and Austin 1995, 65). Building and maintaining collaborations on the WWW, or helping to build the necessary infrastructure are not often rewarded (Foote 1999, 115). Bohen and Stiles are of the opinion that participation in collaborative enterprises are not usually factored into the scholar's workload, so such participation must be "night work" (Bohen and Stiles 1998, 46).

2.2.5.4 Institutional Barriers  
Each discipline nuances the language used in its science (Kahn and Prager 1994), (Stark 1995, 181). Terminological problems are one of the easiest disciplinary constraints to overcome (Dinges 1977, 139). Understanding the meanings assigned by different disciplines can be a long process. The author sat through two hours of meetings with geographers, ecologists, statisticians, worker safety specialists, and toxicologists that discussed a single term -- hazard. Interdisciplinary collaboration may also be constrained by disciplinary methodological biases (ibid., 139), (Crow, Levine and Nager 1992).

Journals, with the exception of the few major general journals, are designed to serve the needs of a single discipline. This can introduce barriers to publication of collaboratory and especially multidisciplinary research (Stark 1995,182). Journals may have a policy restricting multiple authorship, clearly penalizing collaborative work. Multidisciplinary research may be seen to not be "cutting edge" research, and publication of articles outside the discipline's dominant paradigm may threaten to lower the journal's prestige. Journals in sociology and psychology are "hard to crack" for scholars outside those disciplines (Poole 1994, 26).

In some disciplines, especially those in the humanities, scholars are socialized into a culture that customarily performs solitary research (Kennedy 1997, 148). This isolation promotes secrecy and competition rather than openness and cooperation and collaboration (Hutchens 1998, 36). This isolation and competitive environment pervades the scholar's life from primary school through undergraduate days in the form of competition for grades. The struggle for tenure is usually a solitary extension of graduate research designed to yield enough publications, preferably single author (Kahn and Prager 1994), to fulfill the requirements of the T&P formulae (Bohen and Stiles 1998, 42). Isolation is augmented by the new scholar's socialization into the department, not into the college, discipline or the larger society (Tierney and Bensimon 1996, 38).

Disciplinary boundaries are neither eternal nor eternally useful.

Damrosch uses the cultural myth of the isolated scholar to drive home his points regarding the corrosive effects of academic culture on collaborative activities (Damrosch 1995). He points out the natural tendency of the young to collaborate and the institutionally encouraged collaboration that pervades learning from elementary school through undergraduate education. Suddenly, upon entry into graduate school the student is forced into the isolated scholar role. Collaboration takes a new name-cheating. Should the student earn a professorial appointment upon being awarded the Ph.D., the six or eight years spent earning tenure reinforces the mold. The isolated scholar often develops a tendency toward secrecy rather than urges to collaborate. Accompanying the myth of the isolated scholar is another myth especially prevalent in the humanities and social sciences: that of mentalism. Mentalism proposes that all good ideas and the publications that come from them can only be the product of a single mind (Damrosch 1995, 190).

Collaboration has suffered greatly by academic policies that have sometime produced effects that act as barriers to collaboration. Colleges and academic departments have created and maintained rules and policies that serve their interests as administrative units and instruments of implementation of public mandates such as teaching, research and public service. Unfortunately, they are often not questioned due to their canonical nature. Drawing from official documents from their University, Ervin and Fox point out numerous policy statements, both subtle and frank, that discourage collaboration in both theory and practice (Ervin and Fox 1994).

Academic culture in the humanities works against student/professor collaboration in three ways (Thagard 1997, §4.2): grant funding is often meager, allowing no support for graduate students; research in the humanities does not lend itself easily to division of labor, in sharp contrast to the social and physical sciences; and finally there is a strong tradition of solitary research in the humanities, most scholars did not work with their advisors, so they seldom work with their own students.

2.2.5.5 Scholarly Competition  
Since priority in publication is such a powerful prize, there is an understandable tendency to hide certain key pieces of information. Career advancement goals may become a disincentive to information sharing. Individuals sometimes lose sight of the team goals and press for incorporation of their own expertise into the team's research (Citera et.al. 1995, 556). Brody suggests that scientists need an easy technique for making some components of their work publicly available while making key components available to a restricted group (Brody 1996, 49). Such discrimination in information access is now available by depending on preprint distribution networks. In a RW, a public partition can be created for public information release, and restricted information can be secured by utilizing private e-mail or a passworded partition of the RW (the team partition).

2.2.5.6 Funding Mechanisms  
Funding by governmental agencies dominates support for research. Unfortunately funding by these agencies tends to support narrowly drawn goals that can easily be achieved within a short time period. Reviewers for these agencies also frequently disallow the added expenses of sustained collaboration (Kahn and Prager 1994). Short term goals and lack of support for collaboration doubly penalize research webs. Turning the RW's long-term large-scale outlook into a positive attribute is a challenge to the creative grant writer.

Committees of peers award grants; and these committees have topical biases. Jared Diamond points out disciplinary bias in grants awarded to researchers in mental disorders (Diamond 2001, 24). The National Institutes of Health award many grants for biochemical work, but only a few for 'talk therapy' despite the obvious success of counseling, for example. Fortunately for collaborative teams, there is a positive bias toward collaboration. So we see just what one would expect from a committee of peers: tendencies to select research that supports the dominant disciplinary dialog.

2.2.5.7 Human Culture  
National character affects collaboration profoundly. The principal support for this proposition is the work of Geert Hofstede that investigated IBM employees throughout the world (Geert Hofstede 1991). In a survey that produced around 117,000 answers, Hofstede found significant differences in cultural behaviors on four theoretical dimensions: power distance; uncertainty avoidance; individualism; and masculinity. Another dimension was added in 1984: Long Term Orientation/Short Term Orientation (Hofstede and Bond 1984). This dimension was found to differentiate Asian workers from the "western world", and was for a time referred to by Bond as "Confucian Dynamism".

National character is molded by the culture of that nation. For example, in the United States individualism is instilled into the children, especially males, of the society at an early age and reinforced by the national mythology. Collaboration and cooperation is also damaged by competitive customs represented in speech as Machiavellian clichés such as "Knowledge is power," and its corollaries "Don't volunteer information" and "Don't give anything away." The pervasive influence of Confucianism in Asia has been cited as an obstacle to the practice of science (Tsou 1998). Confucian training teaches the student to accept the training of his masters, leading to a scientific inertia. Hsü describes an epiphany received when he found himself disbelieving physical evidence that passed before his eyes (Hsü 1992, 88-94). The evidence, drill cores, supported sea-floor spreading, the primary evidence supporting the then new theory of plate tectonics; that theory was in conflict with the teachings of his professors. Within a given pluralistic nation, religious and ethnic communities, and class differences create a mosaic of attitudes affecting collaboration. For instance, in British Columbia, some native North Americans practice "information bartering" (Hébert 1986, 15). Asking a question is likely to be met with evasion unless some information is offered. Harvey, in comparing Geographic Information System installations in the USA and Germany, attributes the Germanic propensity for regulation to Hofstede's observation that Germanic cultures exhibit high risk avoidance (Harvey 1997, 144).

Bantz isolates four empirical difference factors that affect intercultural interaction, all embedded in communicative patterns: Language, Cultural Norms, Status, and Politics (Bantz 1993, 11 et.seq.). Arguments have been put forward that occupation is a greater determinant of behavior than nationality (Hannerz 1992) but Hofstede's data is based on behavior in a corporate culture that is a classic of conformance. I certainly would accept the degree of conformance in the international scholarly community somewhat greater than in the corporate culture of IBM. Heaton points out that occupational culture and national culture are distinct and interrelated (Heaton 1998, 214). Kurland and Egan suggest that engaging in dialog on the Internet requires a culture of accountability (Kurland and Egan 1996, 398). I do expect to see cultural differences affecting the work of Research Webs very significantly.

Bantz suggested some resolutions to the four empirical difference factors. His tactics for dealing with the language facility differential are designed for synchronous communications situations, but include one very usable in asynchronous communication: restating concepts in native languages (Bantz 1993, 12). Such restatement could find a natural place in a DocReview of a document. "Off-line" conversations between bilingual members and a member that may have language difficulties would be most helpful. Members should be sensitive to language differentials and should avoid colloquialisms and metaphors that may not convey meaning to non-native speakers. The Cultural Norm of work norms (ibid., 13) does not have as great an impact on asynchronous proceedings as it does on synchronous environments. Nevertheless, all members should be forthcoming about when they work and when they rest. Tactics for managing Status Differences (ibid., 16) are centered about making every member aware of the status of all the members and how that status might affect group communication. Fortunately asynchronous communication reduces the effects of status differential.

There is also the very important question of the differential behavior between synchronous and asynchronous social interaction. The absence of turn-taking conflict in asynchronous interaction certainly must blunt the power of status. It has been shown that e-mail weakens the power of social status (Dubrovski, Kiesler and Sethna 1991, 121). The ability to reflect at length on one's communication and the communication of others certainly reduces the power of the native reader over non-native readers; this in stark contrast to the power of native speakers in face-to-face argument (Bantz 1993, 11).

Conflict resolution presents major problems. Cultures that have a high level of respect for authority may abdicate their positions in the face of high status. Bantz observes that the behavior of members who are open and direct may introduce social difficulties when interacting with members who are oblique and indirect (Bantz 1993, 14). DeMente points out several ways how Japanese salarymen defer to authority and to the group (DeMente 1994). In the Arab culture language use is marked by indirectness and elaborateness that may frustrate those from Anglo-European cultures (Feghali 1997, 158-159).

The cultures of the communicants are important because the cultures determine the weekly cycle of activity and modify that cycle by mandating holidays determined by local religions, regional customs and national histories. The culture of the communicants also modifies the diurnal cycle by setting the length of the workday and by inserting customs such as extended mid-day mealtimes. The physical location of the communicants is important because human beings synchronize their activities to the position of the sun in the local sky. So the physical geography of synchronous communication largely determines the diurnal cycle of the collaborators, and its human geography studies the cultural modification of the diurnal cycle, the weekly cycle of the business activity and the annual cultural cycle of holidays.

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Agent -- A computer program that acts in the place of a real or theoretical entity. Agents are the basis for most complex simulation models, especially those that deal with social activities. Interactive forms provide information to agents that fulfill a known function. --- (Charlie Hendricksen)

Asynchronous -- Not coinciding in time. cf. synchronous. In the context of computer-mediated communication, communication by message rather than face-to-face or telephone. --- (Oxford English Dictionary)

Authoring team -- A team charged with the responsibility of researching a subtopic of the issue domain. This researching includes assembling literature, building models, and writing RW Essays. Each member of the authoring team is an author of any publication the team produces. --- (Charlie Hendricksen)

Canonical document -- An authoritative document. In the context of Research Webs, the canonical document is an essay that incorporates or references the accumulated knowledge about a topic as interpreted or synthesized by the research team. --- (C. Hendricksen)

Collaboration -- v. intr. To work together, especially in a joint intellectual effort. In the context of the Research Web, the creation of new shared knowledge. --- (American Heritage Dictionary, Michael Schrage)

Conceptual domain -- contains ideas, concepts, and their relations as well as the philosophical assumptions underlying them. --- (Brinberg and McGrath, Validity and the Research Process)

Conscription device -- Documents, including drawings diagrams and sketches, which enlist the participation of those who would employ them in the knowledge-building process, since they must engage in the generation, editing and correction of those documents if knowledge-building is to proceed. --- (after Kathryn Henderson (Flexible Sketches and Inflexible Data Bases, 1991 p452))

Convenor -- A founding member of the Research Web team. Generally convenors are all principal investigators. --- (Charlie Hendricksen)

Cooperation -- The act of enabling collaboration. Institutions cooperate, they cannot collaborate. Individuals can collaborate or cooperate. Cooperation usually involves the contribution of resources to a joint project. --- (Hendricksen)

Coordination -- A task-oriented activity designed to optimize the temporal sequencing of activities. --- (Hendricksen)

Critical apparatus -- The means by which scholars criticize the works of others. In the context of Research Webs, DocReview provides the critical apparatus. --- (C. Hendricksen)

Critical social theory -- A school of thought that has as its aims, finding alternatives to the existing human condition by emancipating marginalised groups by exposing and rectifying power imbalances and empowering oppressed groups. --- (Charlie Hendricksen)

Criticism -- The action, process, or result of passing judgement, evaluating or analysing documents. In the Research Web, criticism is taken to be constructive and is considered new scholarship, itself subject to criticism. --- (Charlie Hendricksen)

Document -- Any permanent recorded file of information, text, graphic, or sound, usually electronic, that teaches, warns, or serves as an example. --- (C. Hendricksen)

Facilitator -- In a Research Web, a person who is charged with the duties of creating and maintaining the RW's web site, training team members in the operation of software tools, and actively searching for ways to take unproductive cognitive load from the team members. --- (Charlie Hendricksen)

Free rider -- A person who benefits from commonly held knowledge, but never contributes to that body of knowledge. --- (Hendricksen)

Issue domain -- The topic for a research effort. The issue domain is comprehensive and defines the scope of the research effort. --- (unattributed)

Legitimate peripheral participation -- A process that provides access to the research activity for students, stakeholders, practitioners and other sub-professionals. LPP provides enculturation, learning, and bonding for the team, and mentoring opportunities for the research scientists. --- (Charlie Hendricksen)

Methodological domain -- contains the methods, designs, and research strategies used to examine concepts and phenomena. --- (Brinberg and McGrath, Validity and the Research Process)

Model -- Real or imagined representations and analogues of naturally occurring entities, structures and processes. --- (Aronson, Harré and Way, 1995, Realism Rescued, p3.)

Principal Investigator -- A researcher who is responsible for the conduct of research on a research grant. The PI is also generally the leader of most authoring teams, and often a convenor --- (Charlie Hendricksen)

Reflection -- Careful consideration of a cognitive object. Practiced during communication to formulate a message, compose a message, or understand a message. --- (Hendricksen)

Scientific coordinator -- A researcher who is delegated to oversee the management of the content of the Research Web. Those duties include responsibility for defining the boundaries of the RW's issue domain, so as to maintain interdependence of the research carried out by the authoring teams. --- (Hendricksen)

Sidebar -- In a Research Web Essay, a popup window that displays a web page that provides substantial information about the anchor term. Equivalent to a "see also" in an encyclopedia. --- (Charlie Hendricksen)

Simulation model -- A computer program, usually very complex, that when given a set of initial conditions and a script of actions (scenario), will produce an outcome that a real system would produce given the same scenario. --- (Hendricksen)

Substantive Domain -- contains the phenomena, processes, or focal problems of interest. --- (Brinberg and McGrath. Validity and the Research Process)

URL -- Uniform Resource Locator -- the address of a page on the World Wide Web. --- (C. Hendricksen)

VNS -- An acronym for the Validity Network Schema. See Brinberg, David and McGrath, Joseph E. 1985. Validity and the Research Process. --- (C. Hendricksen)