Distributed collaborative environments for the 21st century laboratory

Distributed collaboration is an emerging technology that will significantly change how business and research is conducted in 21(st) century. As down-sizing trends continue in both government and industry, organizations increasingly require more efficient. effective collaboration and knowledge sharing for geographically dispersed personnel across multiple application domains in order to solve complex problems and accomplish difficult tasks. Past research has treated knowledge sharing as an information technology problem and has ignored an organization's culture and related process changes needed for successful collaboration. This paper reviews the application of distributed collaborative environments employing an agent-based framework with emphasis on product and process modeling to enable information and knowledge sharing for Air Force acquisition and technology development. This research is a significant benchmark in the evolution of collaboration in that information technology, process change, and the sociology of human interaction are woven into a fabric of knowledge sharing - the knowledge focused organization.