Extending network access and services will let scientists work at a distance from their colleagues, their apparatus, and their data to create and leverage shared knowledge. The metaphor invoked is the virtual scientific laboratory, and it points to the need to develop tools for locating and sharing data, software for analyzing shared data, tools for controlling remote instruments, and tools for communicating with far-away colleagues.
Predictor: National Research Council
Prediction, in context:The 1995 book “Public Access to the Internet,” edited by Brian Kahin and James Keller carries the chapter, “Atheism, Sex, and Databases: The Net as a Social Technology” by Lee Sproull and Samer Faraj. Sproull was a professor of management at Boston University and has done research on electronic groups that was sponsored by the Markle Foundation. Faraj was a doctoral student in MIS at Boston University. In this passage, they include information from the National Research Council’s 1993 “National Collaboratories: Applying Information and Technology for Scientific Research.” They write:”Individual scientists want to find or discover information in databases, journal articles, or other literature that can be made available on the net; they also want to gain access to scarce scientific instruments or apparatus. Increasingly, scientists will gain access to these resources through the net. Extending network access and services will let scientists work at a distance from their colleagues, their apparatus, and their data to create and leverage shared knowledge. The metaphor invoked is the virtual scientific laboratory, and it points to the need to develop tools for locating and sharing data, software for analyzing shared data, tools for controlling remote instruments, and tools for communicating with far-away colleagues.”
Date of prediction: January 1, 1993
Topic of prediction: Getting, Sharing Information
Subtopic: Medical/Professional
Name of publication: Public Access to the Internet (book)
Title, headline, chapter name: Atheism, Sex, and Databases: The Net as a Social Technology
Quote Type: Direct quote
Page number or URL of document at time of study:
Page 63
This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Guarino, Jennifer Anne