1 CI-Server: Towards a Collective Scientific Knowledge Environment Aída Gándara Department of Computer Science The University of Texas at El Paso 500 W. University Ave El Paso, TX 79968 agandara1@miners.utep.edu Paulo Pinheiro da Silva Department of Computer Science The University of Texas at El Paso 500 W. University Ave El Paso, TX 79968 paulo@utep.edu ABSTRACT A well known challenge in scientific computing is the flow of information sharing in support of scientific research. The issue is further exacerbated when research is done collaboratively because more people need access to the same information, often simultaneously. The Web has emerged as a popular solution for enabling discovery and sharing of information between people and applications. Unfortunately, use of web-based technologies is not always easy. For example, two sites can be so different that searching for information on one site may have little similarity to the other. In this paper, we describe an environment that is focused on facilitating the sharing of information for scientific research. Through a server that we call the CI-Server, we support the collection of structured and unstructured scientific data as well as discussions about the data. A client-based API (CI-Client API) was created to enable access to the CI-Server from within scientific applications. Thus, scientific collaboration is supported by allowing the scientist to work with their tools while sharing over the Web instead of the traditional method of having the scientist learn new environments. As a result, scientists are not forced to learn specific web server or portal environments because the utilities that they are accustomed to using have the ‘know-how’ to access the knowledge collected at the CI-Server. CI-Server has been used in support of scientific activities in the areas of environmental and geo-sciences as part of a NSF-funded Center for Cyber-Infrastructure, CyberShare. Author Keywords Semantic Web, Scientific Collaboration, Collective Knowledge, Collective Intelligence System ACM Classification Keywords K4.3 Organizational Impacts: Computer-supported collaborative work INTRODUCTION Sharing information through web pages, wikis and social networking tools shows how useful the Web can be in promoting collaboration. Use of the Web, though, has introduced some issues that must be addressed when working in a scientific environment. For example, the ability to share information must be seamless within the context of a scientist’s environment. Most scientists we have worked with require an intermediate step where they must either upload artifacts within a portal or request uploads from a webmaster.[1] The need for waiting to publish or publishing within the framework of a web page or portal can hinder communication between scientists. Privacy is another issue. Scientific information is sometimes sensitive and scientific teams might have concerns about its accessibility over the Web. Finally, as discussions occur about scientific research, there is a lot of user generated information in the form of emails, chats, blogs, etc. that is lost or difficult to relate to research related artifacts. Making use of the power behind Web technologies to collect user-contributed content and machine-gathered data enables the creation of emergent knowledge that can be used to answer more research related questions. [2] In this paper we introduce an environment to help support scientific teams in collecting research-related information and discussions over the Web. The CI-Server is a content management system that has been designed to collect knowledge about scientific research. The CI-Client is a client API that has been created to embed knowledge within the tools of the scientist to support sharing of information and enable discussions about scientific data. The goal is to enable scientists to work within the context of the tools they are accustomed to using to share, work on and discuss scientific research without having them learn the context of portals and websites. Thus, any client tool that embeds the CI-Client technology is interoperable with any server that embeds the CI-Server technology. MOTIVATION Scientists working collaboratively often have a challenging task when it comes to sharing information. When data is produced there is often a challenge of making research related information available to fellow collaborators. For