1. Introduction
When researchers decide to collaborate on-line, there can be a wide range of challenges. Team members need to be given access to the most recent versions of all documents, tasks need to be monitored closely, and team members should be encouraged to contribute actively to the process of knowledge creation within the VRE. The success of a VRE depends for a large part on the use of appropriate software. In various projects, nevertheless, it has become clear that social and organisational factors within the group are at least as important. This document provides an overview of possible obstacles and offers guidelines on how some of these issues may be addressed.
2. Characterisation of the team
A useful perspective on the factors that are critical to the success of a VRE is offered by Olson et al. (2002). They discuss three dimensions: collaboration readiness, collaboration infrastructure readiness, and collaboration technology readiness.
Collaboration readiness, firstly, is the degree to which team members are actually motivated to work together. Collaboration readiness has a number of components: “motivation to collaborate, shared principles of collaboration, and experience with the specific elements of collaboration” (p. 46). Researchers who collaborate in a VRE need to sacrifice some of their independence and should conform to the standards and rules which are agreed on by the group. Scientists need to share some “common ground” on certain methodological issues and on the use of terminology, and the goals must be aligned in each community. The following factors may influence the team’s willingness or capacity to collaborate online:
- In previous research projects, the members of the group may have shared research data already, or they may have co-authored certain articles. In some cases, manuals for the creation or the description of research data may have produced, or team members may have compiled a vocabulary list. The availability of such documents are usually indicative of a high level of ‘collaboration readiness’.
- The VRE can either be a top-down or a bottom-up initiative. In other words, it can arise from an actual need felt by the researchers themselves, or it can be a need which is enforced by management or by funders. Such different perspectives on the necessity of a VRE can evidently affect the motivation of the researchers to use the VRE. For a VRE to be successful, participants must trust each other to be reliable, to produce high quality work and to have each other’s best interests at heart.
- Collaboration readiness is normally higher when the collaboration exists in addition to an existing physical social network. If people know each other and collaborate in real life, this will also make it easier for them to collaborate online. Researchers who collaborate within a single institution on a specific research project generally know each other very well. Nevertheless, if the VRE supports a network of researchers worldwide, it can easily be the case that the researchers do not know each other personally. If researchers do not collaborate physically, it will be difficult to forge a well-functioning community through a collaborative environment alone. As Olson et al. (2008, p. 2) argue, collaborations that involve geographically dispersed participants present some additional social and organizational challenges, and they have a higher likelihood of failure or underperformance (Olson and Olson, 2000; Cummings and Kiesler, 2005).
Collaboration infrastructure readiness, secondly, is also a crucial factor. The VRE, and the individual tools which are offered in a VRE, must obviously function fluently and as expected. Videoconferencing tools and data management tools are often very bandwidth-intensive, and demand a well-developed technical infrastructure. In a sense, collaboration infrastructure readiness seems largely a technical issue. Nevertheless, VREs may be used within different institutions, on different browsers and on different operating systems. If there are large differences in the ways in which the VRE can actually be used by its various members, this can also have serious social or organisational implications. If there is a collaboration with countries in which the technological infrastructure is underdeveloped, the partners in these countries may have a disadvantage. In addition, certain academic institutions may use hardware or software which is incompatible with the technology used in the VRE, and this may discourage the users from this institution to actively contribute to the collaborative research. If there are many Mac-users of Firefox-users in the group, certain functionalities may look or operate slightly differently. It is good to anticipate this and to manage the expectations of the researchers appropriately.
Collaboration technology readiness, finally, refers to the familiarity of users with online collaboration tools. If researchers are avid users of tools such as Facebook, Dropbox or Skype, they will generally not have many difficulties learning the applications which are offered in a VRE. If such technical skills are missing, there is a risk that partners will not exploit the full potential of the technology. In this situation, researchers will need to be willing to invest some time in learning the system and in testing the various possibilities
During an in-take session for a VRE, it is important to characterise the team, using the dimensions which have been discussed:
- Has the team collaborated previously?
- Do the team members know each other personally? Does the team consist of members which are dispersed geographically?
- What is the main reason for requesting a VRE? Does the team actually experience difficulties which can only be solved through a VRE or are there other motivations?
- Have the researchers worked with collaboration tools before?
- Do the researchers work with different browsers and on different operating systems?
The following section discusses a number of measures which can be taken when some of these potential challenges arise. Nevertheless, a well-considered organisation and a clearly defined permission structure will be relevant for any type of VRE.
3. Guidelines
3.1. Organisation and permission structure
A VRE usually offers access to a wide range of tools and documents, and it may occasionally be difficult for users to find the information they are looking for. This problem can partly be solved by making sure that the search facilities within the VRE function properly. Nevertheless, this issue can also be addressed by carefully considering the organisation of the VRE. A good organisation promotes clarity and ease of use. Figure 1 depicts a typical organisation.
VREs usually have a homepage which is publicly available, and secondly, a start page which is available only to team members who have been authorised. Within the community, there can be subgroups. There may be separate research groups, but also groups who focus on particular tasks, such as the organisation of a conference, or project management. These groups may be given their own subsite within the main VRE. In addition, libraries may be created for different types of documents, and documents can be organised furthers using folders.
The permission structure is an essential and very important part of the VRE. The permission structure described who is entitled to do what on the website. Rights management is a crucial element for achieving success. In a research environment, the work often focuses on confidential information. It is important to ensure that certain parts of the VRE can be shared while others remain restricted. A clear permission structure can increase the trust in the system. It must be possible to specify the access rights on all levels of the VRE: (1) document level, (2) library level or (3) site or subsite level.
In VREs, it is usually possible to create different user groups and to associate specific roles or permissions with these groups. A role specifies the tasks a user can perform, and these rights are generally ranked hierarchically.
- Site owners or site editors: the group of users who have the permissions to change the organisation of the site (the creation of subsites and libraries) and create, read, update and delete all documents.
- Site members: users who can create, read, update and delete documents. Access rights may be limited to specific documents or to restricted parts of the site.
- Site visitors: users who can only read documents. Access rights may be limited to specific documents or to restricted parts of the site.
Users should be able to grant access to pre-defined groups in their entirety, or to a number of selected team members. The helpdesk or support team should also have enough permissions, as they need to be able to answer specific questions.
It should be clear what permission levels actually mean and what a VRE-member of a permission group can and cannot do. All VRE-members should be able to check their own permission level.
To a large extent, the way in which the VRE ought to be organised depends on the main goal of the community, the types of users and the rights that should be associated with these users. Do all the users focus on the same broad subject or are there also users who concentrate on specific subthemes? The organisation also depends on the size of the VRE. Roughly speaking, if there are more than 25 users, it is generally helpful to divide the VRE into different sections. This way, trust and the security of information can be ensured more effectively.
3.2. Low level of collaboration technology readiness
Within the research community, there are often varying levels of technical expertise. To some users, ICT tools will be highly unfamiliar, while certain other members of the group may already be skilled at using online collaboration tools. The members with prior experience should be stimulated to share their ‘lessons learned’, and these researchers should be involved in testing the VRE as much as possible. They could also work as mediators between the ICT support and the research community.
If the majority of users have difficulties using the available communication tools, it is important to start the collaboration on a simple basis, and to activate only those functions that will be used most. Researchers may initially only work together on documents, for instance. Onze the researchers are comfortable using this basics tool, the number of collaboration tools can be extended, for example, by adding a discussion board, a wiki, etc.
In any case, it is important to ensure that the user interface is as intuitive as possible. The user interface should be clear and not too cluttered, so that users do not get lost.
Furthermore, it is important to ensure that there is dedicated and qualified support. Instruction movies can help new members of the team or those who get lost to get to know the functions of the VRE (again). A good, dedicated help desk for all team members is needed from the start. Long waits for answers to questions can be fatal, as well as lack of proper instructions. People will just give up. Clear instructions, if necessary, face-to-face, can help new team members, but also those who 'get lost' in a VRE. Even the more experienced users find it reassuring to know that there is someone (or an organisation) that they can ask for help.
3.4. Low level of collaboration readiness
If researchers do not know each other personally, time should be reserved for community-building, for example, by organising a physical meeting or a web conference during which people can introduce themselves.
Ensure that the team members agree on how they will work together. If the goals of the collaboration are not crystal clear, team members cannot be expected to work properly. Being a means to an end, VREs cannot succeed if the end purpose cannot be formulated. If the goals are not fully transparent in the beginning, time needs to be devoted to clarifying them further. One way of doing this could be by asking researchers to write a short piece on why they have decided to collaborate. This text can then be used at the start page or on a page with information ‘about us’.
Good project management, which appears to be underestimated in many cases, is a crucial factor in the success of a collaboratory. VREs can be complex, longer-term projects, so they require stable project management, strong project management skills and the allocation of sufficient time and manpower. The appointment of a separate collaboratory manager is also recommended, alongside the scientific director or senior researcher of the research project or organization. Enthusiastic leadership also fuels participants' enthusiasm. An enthusiastic leader can set a good example, by using the collaboratory to, for instance, circulate all documents. At an early stage of the VRE development, tasks and responsibilities for the operation of the VRE should be assigned to members. Specific team members may be charged with the organisation of documents, or may be given a responsibility for the metadata. The principal investigator will not always have the time to take care of all of these issues, and the delegation of tasks will also increase the commitment and the sense of ownership among other team members.
Within the VRE, the following tasks can usually be distinguished, and, to increase the adoption of the VRE, these tasks and responsibilities may be assigned to different users:
- VRE ownership: decisions on the overall goals of the collaboration
- Main contact person for the VRE helpdesk: asking questions about the tools, requesting additional functionalities for the VRE
- Responsibility for the site organisation: Creation of document libraries and optimising the navigational menu
- Responsibility for metadata and use of keywords
- Organisation of workflows and work routines
- Responsibilities for specific subsites
It is important to ensure that the VRE is used actively at an early stage of the research project. When the environment is used for a longer time, it will become more important to keep using it, because all the essential information for the research is in it. So get your team members to start using the VRE, help them get to know it and they soon cannot work without it!
When the research project ends, try to reflect upon what went well in the online collaboration and on what did not work out. You can use these experiences in your next online collaboration project.
Regular physical group meetings in one room are essential. During such sessions, partners can (re)construct the VRE design, discuss procedures and agreements.
Known problems in the physical collaboration can be used as a starting point in the testing of the VRE. These issues can be used to determine if the VRE can actually make a difference. If it does, this can help to stimulate the use of the VRE.