Title: Collaborative scientific workflows supporting collaborative science

Authors: Shiyong Lu, Jia Zhang

Addresses: Department of Computer Science, Wayne State University, Suite 14102.1, 5057 Woodward Ave., Detroit, MI 48202, USA. ' Department of Computer Science, Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, IL 60115, USA

Abstract: Collaboration has become a dominant feature of modern science. Many scientific problems are beyond the realm of individual discipline or scientist to solve and hence, require collaborative efforts. Meanwhile, today|s science becomes increasingly more data intensive, resulting in a rapid transition from computational science to e-science (or digital science). Recently, scientific workflows have emerged for scientists to integrate distributed computations, datasets, and analysis tools to enable and accelerate scientific discovery. The convergence of the above two trends naturally leads to the concept of collaborative scientific workflows. This paper presents a disciplinary definition of this term, discusses the opportunities, requirements, and challenges of collaborative scientific workflows for the enablement of scientific collaboration, and concludes with our ongoing work in this direction.

Keywords: scientific collaboration; scientific workflows; collaborative workflows; collaborative science; modern science; individual disciplines; scientists; data intensiveness; computational science; e-science; digital science; electronic science; distributed computations; datasets; analysis tools; scientific discovery; business process integration; business process management.

DOI: 10.1504/IJBPIM.2011.040209

International Journal of Business Process Integration and Management, 2011 Vol.5 No.2, pp.185 - 199

Published online: 18 Mar 2015 *

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