Sophisticated networked information resources are already in daily use throughout the world.

From a purely technological perspective, doing effective interdisciplinary research on genetic and health is becoming increasingly workable due to the rapid pace of growth in the refinement of information technologies.[1]

Advances in network capabilities are fostering the growth of extensive and sophisticated collaborations in science-"collaboratories"-relying on developing information technologies to build shared platforms for geographically distributed research efforts.

Collaboratories hold the promise of accelerating the discovery process that is basic to science and of reducing the time-lag between acquisition of new knowledge, dissemination of information, and development of practical applications.[2]

The Internet (as will its successors) has already created unprecedented opportunities for assembling global collaborative platforms supporting interactions between researchers in different research communities.

That real value can be realized by collecting, storing, and sharing information about health and genetic diversity in all its dimensions (cultural, biological, linguistic, historical, etc.) in a distributed processing environment linking specialist databases locally maintained and properly managed [3] at the world's hospitals, universities, museums, free-standing research organizations, and the like is now an established fact of life, for example, in many molecular biology research laboratories.

Judging by what occurred during the development of modern geographic information science (GIS), the major obstacles to building effective collaborative platforms for interdisciplinary research on health & genetic diversity will be organizational, not technological.

The benefits of collaboration and secure on-line (networked) information sharing must be seen as real and substantial before they can be realized by individual investigators and research organizations. To offer a simple scenario, anthropologists, medical specialists, and molecular geneticists are unlikely to cooperate and share information effectively without first seeing cogent reasons to do so.[4]

Even when there is an established individual and organizational will to collaborate, researchers must resolve crucial nuts & bolts issues.

For example: What should be the determinants of information access? What meta-data approaches will assure functionality and cross-platform interoperability? What design features will provide the right levels of interaction richness? How can collaborators keep down the information & interaction costs?

Notes:

1. Barua, Anitesh, Ramnath Chellappa, and Andrew B. Whinston. "Creating a Collaboratory in Cyberspace: Theoretical Foundation and an Implementation." Austin, Texas: Center for Information Systems Management, Department of MSIS, Graduate School of Business, University of Texas at Austin (http://cism.bus.utexas.edu/ram/papers/joc/joc.html). Clarke, Roger. 1997. "Beyond the Dublin Core: Rich meta-data and convenience-of-use are compatible after all." Canberra: Xamax Consultancy. (http://www.anu.edu/people/Roger.Clarke/II/Dublin Core.html). See also: National Collaboratories: Applying information technology for scientific research (Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press, 1993).
2. Kouzes, Richard T., James D. Myers, and John M. Price. "Collaboratories: Scientists working together apart." Richland, Washington: Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory, Pacific Northwest Laboratory (http://www.anl.gov/OIT12/kouzes.html).
3. Ethical, legal, and scientific issues of access to the information stored in locally distributed databases are central to the development of such information systems. These issues were discussed at the 1998 Chicago Workshop and will undoubtedly be raised also at the two workshops we propose for 2000. Since no workshop or series of workshops can resolve all issues at once, those being proposed here will focus on organizational and procedural issues.
4. Oliver, C. 1990. "Determinants of Inter-Organizational Relationships: Integration and Future Direction." Academy of Management Review 15: 241-265.