supporting collaborations across a biocontainment barrier
We present the design process of a collaboration platform which allows research and diagnostics scientists in an animal health laboratory to work collaboratively across a biocontainment barrier. This Biosecurity Collaboration Platform (BCP) integrates high quality audio-video communications with a large shared interactive workspace. It enables real-time sharing of a broad range of data from various data repositories and computer applications, including microscope imaging. We describe the one-year design and development activities which included field study, scenario-based use case analysis, iterative design and evaluations. We highlight factors relating to the unique setting and the associated difficulties in information sharing and communication. We discuss the importance of an appropriate design approach and our solution of an integrated interaction and communication workspace with appropriate configurations to support the scientific collaborations.
collaboration biosecurity laboratory shared workspace