Scientific Collaborations at a Distance

The Internet has the potential to enhance collaboration among researchers by supporting technical applications that facilitate the rapid dispersal of information and to coordinate numerous and complex real-time interactions. An important paradigm of Internet-mediated science is the collaboratory, or laboratory without walls, a virtual entity created by means of the high-performance computer network infrastructure now available to government, industry, and academics. In this policy forum, the authors, who are at the Great Lakes Regional Center for AIDS Research and who use collaboration technology, illustrate how this new approach can be used to support effective collaboration at a distance.