VREs enable communities of users to focus collectively on a set of related research questions, and to facilitate a centralised access to the various resources and tools which are needed to answer these questions.
This section of the VRE Starters Kit offers a number of definitions of VREs, lists the functionalities that can be offered via a VRE, and discusses the possible benefits of web-based collaborative environments. There is also a page which explains how these various functionalities may actually be used.
