The Interview Use the RealAudio Player to listen in as IOTA talks with Tom Finholt, Director of the Upper Atmospheric Research Collaboratory . This IOTA interview took place in September 1998. In space physics they at more of a crossroads and part of the dilemma in the community is a transition from a one investigator, one instrument model to a global perspective and one that moves from observation to prediction. And that puts a particular emphasis on the capacity to share data, visualize data in common, work with other people and keep track of what other people are doing in a way that probably wasn't important in the past. So it may be that that community and the capacity of the Internet coincided perfectly for something like UARC to take off.
Businesses talk about it as virtual co-location or the capacity to be both big and small.
To give worldwide scope but within that worldwide scope to allow people to interact with each other as if they were located at the same facility. The experience so far has suggested that the principle domain is in the area of professional work. And it is principally seen as a vehicle for reducing travel expenses. On The Air is made possible by a grant from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation.