Addressing Conflicting Cognitive Models in Collaborative E-Research

Abstract

Most existing collaborative tools assume that partners share the same perspective on the entities they are working on and therefore these solutions cannot be applied directly to the types of cases this chapter addresses. By exploring geophysics and its peculiarities, one understands its inner dynamics, so that possible solutions can be proposed. These rely on the creation of “boundary objects” capable of bridging different cognitive models. These solutions are based on the integration of diagrams, where concepts and their relations are expressed at an optimal granularity and shared spaces where information can be made available to all partners. These ideas have been implemented in a Web-based Computer-Supported Collaborative Research (CSCR) system that is currently successfully used within many international research projects in this disciplinary field.