A Creative Environment for Mobile Knowledge Workers Anwitaman Datta (PI, NTU Singapore) Adam Wierzbicki (PI, PJIIT Poland) Sun Chengzheng (Co-PI, NTU Singapore)

A Creative Environment for Mobile Knowledge Workers

Anwitaman Datta (PI, NTU Singapore)

Adam Wierzbicki (PI, PJIIT Poland)

Sun Chengzheng (Co-PI, NTU Singapore)

mTeam

mTeam @ Warsaw, 20th May 2008

Collaborative Innovation Networks Knowledge economy – the new reality

also called “Collaborative Innovation Networks” – COINS

• typically these are self-organizing, open systems

• source: Peter Gloor (MIT Sloan), Competitive Advantage through Collaborative Innovation Networks, Oxford University Press, 2006; www.swarmcreativity.net

Examples of COINS:• Linux developers• Development of WWW in CERN• Wikipedia• Really, most innovative projects today – including

business


Types of COIN members Communicators

(Interested users) last tier of the COIN information seekers

(readers) communicate new

ideas outside example: Linux Users

Creators the core of the COIN need to be: creative,

collaborative, fair example: Linux Creators

Collaborators share common

knowledge and experience

work together to realize, improve, test new ideas

example: Linux Maintainers


Properties of COINS

Swarm creativity creativity seen as an emergent property

of an open system Social network

essential for finding required collaborators Sharing and frequent communication

information is freely shared among trusted, cooperating persons

Virtual trust through ethical code Trust is established through following an ethical

code requiring recognition of other’s input, meritocracy


mTeam agenda

Enabling the creation of applications that would use social networks and mobility to find new collaboration opportunities and tools to support collaboration

In other words: enable building a COIN in a nomadic environment, supporting mobility a heterogenous environment: fixed/mobile

• Supporting nomadic teams needs:

• social network• environment for sharing• trust, access control, security (in a decentralized setting)• resource discovery and communication primitives


mTeam goals 3D social network:

expresses tacit knowledge about environment of a user (“mental map”)

includes: familiarity, skills/experience, trust/reputation

Collaboration tools: a middleware for typical collaboration

activities/functions

Handling heterogenous mobile environment and the inherent distributed/decentralized setting using a P2P information systems infrastructure


mTeam deliverables

TeamCreator uses the social network to recommend and buld a team

to solve a problem• build a team from a COIN• form a new COIN• restructure a team• negotiate rules of engagement in the team (who does

what, when, etc.)

TeamEnvironment uses collaboration middleware to enable a team to work

on shared information• includes a distributed versioning system• gives users rich context awareness• allows collaborators to communicate • gathers social information required to build social network


Social information

mTeam architecture (tentative)

TOP

BOTTOM

MIDDLE

TEAMCREATOR

TEAMENVIRONMENT

3D SOCIALNETWORK

COLLABORATIONMIDDLEWARE

P2P Overlay Network

P2P Overlay Network

SecurityReliability

Trust Management

Network Management

Publish-subscribe

P2P-SIP

Routing/Multicast


Collaboration middleware functions

Session management

Conference management

Group management

Data synchronization

Data sharing

Presence Workspace

awareness Event

management Access control Trust management


P2P information system

Share the resources of individual peers

CPU, disk, bandwidth, information, …

C

C

C

C

C

SP

P

P

P

P

Computer systems

Centralized Distributed

Client-server Peer-to-peer

Flat Hierarchical Pure Hybrid

mainframesworkstations

DNSmount

RPCHTTP

GnutellaChord

NapsterGroove

Kazaa

File sharing

Communication and collaboration

Distributed computing

SETI@Homefolding@Home

NapsterGnutellaKazaaFreenetOvernet

MagiGrooveSkype


Basic P2P layer functions

Routing and information search it can be constrained by other requirements,

such as trust

Publish-subscribe subscribe to a topic, publish, notify in ad-hoc environments, needs to be delay-tolerant

Multicast special case of publish-subscribe

etc …


Research issues

The project will investigate the full-spectrum of research topics and technologies to enable nomadic collaboration or collaboration on the go, including algorithmic foundations and basic research on Networked Distributed Systems which will support upper layer functionalities and ubiquity independent of device and location, Social Networking to facilitate new collaboration opportunities and finally the Collaboration Tools themselves to carry out the tasks and manage such collaborations.


Research issues

Privacy issues (beyond the scope of mTeam’s requirements) as well as some common security issues Informal collaboration between NTU

Singapore & Deutsche Telekom Laboratories (Berlin)


Research issues


Research issues


Technical issues: Open standards and open sources … Whether and how much to use SIP ? How standard will interfaces like P2PP

be ? Open source Android SDK or some other

environments for mobile devices ? Politics of hardware/cellular service

providers, etc. UMPCs


Proof of concept: Driver Applications

Not part of the original deliverables … An collaborative editing application for

research papers, capable of sharing and reviewing academic literature and news, as well as finding relevant collaboration opportunities

• Ongoing An application geared specifically to facilitate

collaboration among environment scientists• Tentative (pending a Swiss/Singapore joint project

on cyber-infrastructure for environment monitoring and modeling)


Status Research work

Ongoing literature and technology survey on various themes

• Tutorial on “SIP, IMS and P2P-SIP” at IFIP Networking 2008• Book chapter (proposal accepted): Vertically Integrated

Collaboration Middleware in Mobile P2P Environments Groundwork for first driver application well in progress Study of dynamics in open collaboration systems

(Wikipedia) Hiring

Poland:• One Ph.D. student and one research assistant hired

Singapore• Hiring is ongoing• One PhD student is informally working on related security

topics, as will some FYP students from next semester

Project webpage: http://mteam.pjwstk.edu.pl

Documents

A Creative Environment for Mobile Knowledge Workers Anwitaman Datta (PI, NTU Singapore) Adam Wierzbicki (PI, PJIIT Poland) Sun Chengzheng (Co-PI, NTU Singapore)