DEVELOPMENT OF A PLATFORM DEDICATED TOCOLLABORATION IN THE SOCIAL SCIENCESJADOUL RaynaldCentre de Recherche Public Henri Tudor29 JFK, L-1855 Luxembourgraynald.jadoul@tudor.luMIZOHATA SachieUniversité de Paris V, René Descartes, Sorbonne12 rue de l’Ecole de Médecine, 75270 Paris Cedex 06sachie.mizohata@social-issues.org
ABSTRACTAlthough we, as scientists, are used to the reality of a “laboratory,” not as many are familiar with the concept of “virtuallaboratory,” especially in the social sciences, where much of the work is done in the field and often relies on direct humancontact. Nevertheless, it is not infrequently the case that experts in specialized domains are separated by thousands ofmiles, and thereby not able to collaborate fruitfully. In such a context, a virtual laboratory may be a solution. But,questions arise immediately: “What could be the form of collaboration in a virtual laboratory?” “How is it possible toinstrument such a laboratory?” “What kind of competencies do the members of a virtual laboratory need?” “What aboutlanguage barriers?” This paper describes the foundation concepts of an online platform named social-issues.org whosemain focus is on collaborative experimentation, testing, and learning in the social sciences.KEYWORDSGeneris, TAO, social-issues.org, elaboratory, virtual laboratory, operationalization.1. INTRODUCTIONDefinitions of the word “laboratory” have evolved over time, encompassing more meanings. In its broadunderstanding, according the Merriam-Webster dictionary, a “laboratory” is a “place providing opportunityfor experimentation, observation, or practice in a field of study.” The Cambridge Advanced Learner'sDictionary adds the “teaching” dimension to the definition. However, these definitions agree that alaboratory needs to be properly designed and appropriately equipped.Nevertheless, our consolidated definition is somehow a bit simplistic for those who know the reality of alaboratory, but also quite vague for others who have never worked in a lab. We may add that a laboratoryshould also be a controlled environment – safe for lab workers and the work. The laboratory should providescientific apparatus for data collection and analysis, as well as mechanisms for recording the process andflow of various activities. Lab researchers are accustomed to using personal notebooks to write down theirprivate thoughts, and white boards to share ideas in a more public way. Besides the lab itself, there shouldalso be coffee-break areas where new ideas can be exchanged spontaneously with others. The “laboratory”then, is a complex space with both private and public areas, and provisions for many kinds of tasks.A “virtual laboratory” or “eLaboratory” should have all the facilities described above, perhaps with somelimitations and certainly with some enhancements. This was the starting point of our community.Social-issues.org is a collaborative platform used by an online Community (mostly focused on sociology)to conduct research (using an eLaboratory), to synchronize efforts, to discuss issues, to learn, and to grow. Inthis paper, we first present the foundation concepts of the social-issues.org community. We then introducethe platform and explore some of its components: the laboratory, the publishing facilities, and a specialmodule named “the coffee-break place.” Later, we illustrate how the system is used in the context of a socialscience demonstration. Finally, we conclude with the perspectives of the community.

2. FOUNDATION CONCEPTS OF THE COMMUNITY2.1 The Community’s etiquette and policyThe Community is dedicated to the free expression of ideas dealing with social issues. An open and freespeech community does not mean anarchy. It does require members to respect the differences and dignity ofothers. We can have stimulating discussions and criticisms without apprehension; no personal attacks will betolerated.Rules apply on the content of work published on any part of the Community website, meaning moderatorsmay require an author to cite the references used in a publication when those are not clearly present.Moderators can also block an article (blog, book, or forum entry) when its content infringes copyright.Moderators may also withdraw or limit access of users who do not conform to appropriate netiquette.Everyone is welcome to contribute as long as their work meets the necessary standards forprofessionalism and academic integrity. The Community will not exclude potential contributors andparticipants because of their affiliation; even if the first labs developed in the Community rely on theCapability Approach theory, this theory is just one among many, and future labs may choose other approachesin order to address diverse topics such as poverty, AIDS, domestic violence, human rights, and so on.Participation in the social-issues.org community can have different forms. One can be an author of articles ina blog while another might simply react to an article and leave comments. In the Forum, one can askquestions in the hope that others will answer them. 2.2 Users roles inside the CommunityVisitors to the website are readers who are allowed to consult the news, the announcements, the public forumentries, the shared publications and the online books. They may write comments on blog posts. Also, inconjunction with the moderators, they contribute to keep the published contents “clean,” i.e., free of abuse. Participants can be scientists developing theories related to social issues, "real world" practitioners andactivists, representatives of non-profit organizations, Ph.D. students trying to contribute to the domain,politicians who might clearly explain how their government is addressing a particular social challenge, or anyordinary relevant people interested in the field of sociology. Anonymous participants register with minimum information, i.e., a pseudonym and a valid e-mailaddress; these participants may contribute to the public forum. When they have clearly identified themselves,their status can be upgraded to “identified participants,” giving them additional access rights.I f identified participants are active social science professionals, they have the right to open and lead ablog on the social-issues.org community. They can also access the “coffee-break place,” i.e., a special privateforum where it is possible to start a chat with a small group of invited members.Identified participants may have their own private laboratories on the platform to conduct research. Theycan also be invited into a laboratory that already exists (this would be up to the director of the lab).Moderators verify that the produced contents conform to the policies of the Community. As themoderators cannot read all the public contents hosted on the platform, some mechanisms will allow any user(including non-registered members) to submit a contestation query regarding any published information.2.3 Organizational overview of the CommunityIn the figure below (Figure 1. A simple organizational view of the major components of the Community), theentry point of the system is a portal that aggregates the latest entries of the blogs hosted by the Community,the most recent discussion topics of the public Forum, the feeds coming from blogs and websites not hostedby the Community (but dealing with the relevant topics). This portal also provides news about theCommunity’s development, conference announcements, and so on.

Please note that this chart shows only a part of the relations between the components of the system.
Figure 1. A simple organizational view of the major components of the Community. When identified participants are logged on to the system via “secured access,” they enter into their ownprivate workspace, which can be customized to their preferences. Those users may access the private forumand an internal messaging system where they receive messages and invitations (for collaboration, reviewing,etc) sent by members of the Community. In addition, their inboxes can contain reminders of the events oftheir private and public calendars to which they subscribe, as well as reminders sent by the workflow agentsregarding tasks to be accomplished in a module of the platform (e.g., in a laboratory).An identified participant may be the main author of one blog and contribute to other blogs when invitedby their main authors. Identified participants may also start or contribute to the writing of an online book.The public forum is quite common these days. However, even if completely free for reading access andsearching, it usually requires a basic registration (as “anonymous participant”) in order to ask or to answerquestions. The private forum (with its “coffee-break place” mechanism) and the laboratories described hereare more interesting and richer in functional terms. They will be described in the next section.3. DESCRIPTION OF THREE KEY COMPONENTS OF THE PLATFORM3.1 The eLaboratoryThe most relevant aspect of the eLaboratory component relies on a data management system that is able todeal with semantic resources organized as ontologies. The Research Centre Henri Tudor and the Universityof Luxembourg have developed this generic and versatile ontology engine named GeneriSSSS (Generis4,Generic Information System, Shape, Share and Store the knowledge) (Plichart et al, 2004).

The Generis ontology engine was elaborated on top of the W3C's RDFS standard (Brickley and Guha,2004). Moreover, the Generis system is designed to be fully modular (each module may have its own type),distributed (modules can be spread over the Web), scalable (a module can manage any number of affiliatedmodules), and secure. The system is also multi-lingual and supports localization/internationalization.Because of its power, flexibility and versatility, Generis has been used successfully in numerous projects(Latour et al, 2005; Martin et al, 2005; Jadoul and Mizohata, 2006).In the social-issues.org environment, Generis will manage modules embarking ontologies used in thevarious laboratories; these ontologies may be built on top of other frameworks or sets of indicators, e.g. theCapability Approach framework, or the EU Social Inclusion indicators. Additionally, Generis will host anontology dedicated to FOAF (Friend of a Friend) (Brickley and Miller, 2005), data set management, and anontology related to SKOS (Simple Knowledge Organisation System) (Miles and Brickley, 2005).SKOS is an XML format designed to conveniently take “snapshots” of the ontologies developed in thelabs; by default, only lab directors are allowed to initiate these snapshots. Snapshots may easily betransferred to any publication. These snapshots also offer a practical work progress meter.The FOAF formalism will help us to create a directory of persons active in a social field. This FOAFformat has the advantage to be readable by machine. Thus, it will be possible, for example, for a lab directorto address this kind of query to the system: “Find all the scientists working on the topic of poverty.” FOAF isalready available in Generis, and has theoretical affinities with social network and other “virtual community”frameworks (van den Besselaar et al, 2005).In 2007, Generis will be enhanced with additional internal mechanisms (like the ontology versioning) andsome “companion tools”: a workflow management system, an optional private forum entry creation on anyresource handled in a laboratory, and an external resources versioning module (Latour and Martin, 2006).Besides those improvements, the development of some powerful export/import components should beexamined to facilitate the manipulation of qualitative data and quantitative data (connection with R-project2).Using the Generis ontology engine, the engineers of the Centre Henri Tudor simply created an ontologydedicated to Computer-Based Assessment (CBA) and a few plugins (self-adaptive HTML forms) offering agraphical user interface tailored to assessment; this was called TAO* (Latour et al, 2005).So, each concept of CBA (e.g. a subject, a group of subjects or a test) is articulated inside an action unitcalled a module; each module is preinstalled with a minimum model (called TAO basic ontology) on top ofwhich the users of the platform develop their own model so that it maps to their own needs.In sum, for social-issues.org, Generis is the part of the platform where frameworks dedicated to the studyof specific social issues will be modeled, and TAO will offer the best tool for interview question itemscreation, translation, and reviewing. Management of the subjects and groups (samples) and data gatheringwill also be handled by TAO.Besides Generis and TAO, some other technical tools are available in each laboratory to record personalnotes, to share ideas using a whiteboard simultaneously accessible by all the members of the lab via Internet,to invite and manage the rights of the participants to the laboratory, and so on.Another extremely important aspect of the laboratory is security and privacy management. Thanks to thearchitecture of Generis, it is possible for the modules used inside of an eLaboratory to be hosted on acomputer chosen by the director of this eLaboratory. So, for example, university X can be part of theCommunity and use its powerful tools, but still keep full control and exclusive access to their own data. Inthis case, the university X is in charge of all data management and maintenance, backup, and security.We will now illustrate the whole case in the context of an eLaboratory. Generis is a knowledge base, orsimply a highly flexible database that allows users to describe any concepts and to interconnect them the waythey want. For example, with Generis, a user can create two concepts, “person” and “mobility capability,”and model a link called “has” between these concepts. But this link can also be something like “can livewithout” – this process is called “modeling.” With these links, the user can create a concept named “number going out in one week” and this conceptcan be qualified as an “indicator.” As TAO is just a specialization (a sort of fruit, dedicated to assessment) ofGeneris, we understand that TAO shows all the same functionalities as Generis. Thereby, since they share thesame functioning, it is possible for us to create a question, in TAO, that will be connected to the indicatorconcept, described in Generis, that is itself related to the link “has.” The result of this question can show therelevance of our indicator as well as the effectiveness of the “has” link in the real world.
2 The R-Project aims to develop a free software environment for statistical computing and graphics (See http://r-project.org)* TAO: in French, Testing Assisté par Ordinateur that can be translated by Computer Aided Testing or Computer-Based Assessment.

3.2 The publishing facilities3.2.1 BlogsAn important technical point is that the blog posts will be written in different languages: Arabic, Chinese,English, French, Finnish, Japanese, Spanish, Urdu, and the like. However, in all cases, for each posted article,the authors will have to provide a short summary and key words in English. This will enrich the results of thesearch queries made by visitors. However, moderators will be on guard to avoid anything (personal attacks,innuendoes, etc) that can damage the good reputation of the Community. 3.2.2 BooksAny identified participant can write personal (private) online books. A private book may be shared by itsauthor with other members of the Community.When an identified participant wishes to start writing a public online book, she or he must first write asummary and must send it to the Community where it will be evaluated. If there is no objection, the publicwriting can begin.3The author of a public book is responsible for the organization of its content and the management of thecontribution efforts (or responsibility can be shared). However, a moderator is always attached to theproduction of a book. The moderator does not contribute to the writing, though she or he may act as anadvisor and an editor. The translation of an existing book is also the responsibility of a main author under thesupervision of a moderator. Private books may be upgraded to become public books if all the conditions(presence of an abstract, valid and “clean” content, etc) are respected.Regarding the elaboration of an online book, the “coffee-break place” is often a good place to start suchan initiative, to collect feedback and to recruit volunteers (for writing, editing, collecting materials, and soon).3.3 The “coffee-break place”Why did we choose to name the private forum “coffee-break place”? It cannot be “the cafeteria” because acafeteria is too static, i.e., it is typically the place where people, once they are sitting, rarely make an effort tostand up again to talk with others. The coffee-break place is more dynamic. People usually stand close to thecoffee-machine and move, going from one person or group to another, exchanging ideas, listening for a shorttime, and then moving on again. It may not be always interesting or relevant, but it is rich. That is the magicof the “coffee-break place.”This component of the platform is in fact more than a classic private forum. It is a place where messagesmay be posted, where questions may be asked and answers may be found. It is also a place where it ispossible to meet the other members (identified participants) of the Community and to start conversations withthem “face to face” or in groups. This chat functionality may be a written or voice conversation. Video may be available in the future. Thewritten conversation as well as the figures sketched (using a shared whiteboard) may be saved for reuse.4. A USE CASE OF THE PLATFORM4.1 A study case: the assessment of rural elderlyIn this project, we employ one laboratory of the social-issues.org platform to study how developed countries,especially European welfare states, have addressed issues of aging and inequity in health care and socialservices for frail elderly in rural areas.The object of this study is to identify and analyze the capabilities deficits of elderly who live alone inremote, rural areas of France, Japan, and Luxembourg. Capabilities deficits refer to the deficiencies,deprivations, shortfalls, or poverties in capabilities which the elderly “have reason to value.”3 This feature has similarities to Wikibooks projects currently underway elsewhere (See: http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Main_Page).

Therefore, in an eLaboratory, the research team has been elaborating a framework based on the CapabilityApproach (CA) and operationalizing it in order to conduct research on the capabilities deficits.4.2 The Capability ApproachThe Capability Approach (CA) approach has been developed by Amartya Sen, Martha Nussbaum, and otherresearchers and practitioners throughout the world. The CA contrasts with existing approaches that analyze human well-being narrowly on monetary terms,access to resources (income, commodities, or needs), “utility” (happiness, desire-fulfillment, or preferences).By contrast, the CA emphasizes capabilities, functionings, freedoms, human agency, and social justice. TheCA focuses on what a person is capable of doing or being (e.g., living long, being healthy, and being wellnourished), instead of just focusing on measures of financial wealth. Although this approach has risen to considerable prominence since 1990, there is well-documented doubtabout the feasibility of operationalizing (i.e., putting into practice) this novel framework. (Alkire, 2005;Robeyns, 2005). One of the difficult tasks is to determine or select which capabilities are most pertinent andimportant to assess human well-being. Sen, the originator of this approach, has been reluctant to make a listdefining central capabilities (Sen, 2004). While he insists that the selection and prioritization of pertinentcapabilities should be done within a democratic process through public debate and deliberation, he has notspecified the possible method, place, or tools to realize such public debate. Therefore, Sen has beencriticized and his open list has been seen as a weakness of this theory. The social-issues.org community was designed with that concern in mind: to be instrumental and usefulfor people throughout the world to participate in the production of knowledge and the selection of relevantcapabilities through public debate.4.3 Methodology, laboratory work and operationalizationThe design and operationalization of our CA-based research framework followed these steps:1. Selection and definition of the research question we want to answer in our study. In our case “What is thecapabilities distribution of the rural elderly in developed countries?” 2. Building the research framework to create a set of hypotheses/statements to be tested and verified in orderto answer the research question selected in step 1. For example, “the frequency of bus service affects thefrequency of a person’s medical visits,” or “socially isolated older persons are prone to accidents such asfalls.” The hypotheses should be further refined later. This is done inside the laboratory, using Generis.3. Establish contact with those (not the research subjects) who may contribute to the study: experts,reviewers, translators, interviewers, and so on. This may be partially done via the Online Community.4. Design of the specific questions, in a fixed and logical order, to confirm or refute the hypotheses built instep 2. This is managed using TAO.5. Selection of the eligible research sample in the target areas of each country. Their location andanonymous identifiers are recorded in a “subjects module” of TAO.6. Translation of the interview questions. This will also be managed using TAO technology.7. Present a detailed description of the methodology in the Online Community and invite comments andcritique. Subsequent verification and revisions of questions can help avoid errors and biases.8. Conduct research—Data collection and Assessments.9. Analyze the research results.4.4 Preliminary outcomes of the experimentAlthough this work is still in progress, we hope that the research findings of this comparative study will helpus understand which indicators are central and really relevant for rural elders’ wellbeing, as well as thecultural and social elements that may play a crucial role in determining the capabilities deficits.In addition, we hope to make an operational contribution to the Capability Approach, unleashingmechanisms which may help scientists to achieve the operationalization of frameworks in diverse domainsacross the social sciences.

5. CONCLUSION AND PERSPECTIVESBased on open-source components already available, we believe that the platform briefly presented in thispaper has great potential to be a useful tool and central meeting point of an international community ofpeople active in sociology and related fields (e.g. psychology, economics, public health, political science).The platform allows an Online Community to produce, structure, store, and share knowledge (opinions,advice, feedback, and so on). It is designed to foster collaboration among its members (distant researchers,researchers and the persons of the praxis, etc).We hope that the Community will continue to produce high quality contents, giving ordinary people andpolicy-makers alike an accurate overview of various social issues, and help them to take consequent actionsfor their own lives, and for the sake of those they are responsible for.Through the demonstration of the first project based on the Capability Approach, we hope that we haveshown the feasibility of a complete operationalization process, which was created and led from within alaboratory on our platform.Besides the presentation of some technical achievements of the platform and the explanation of a real casedemonstration, the goal of this paper was to offer a taste of the future of the virtualization of some scientifictasks, and to let the reader imagine a world built on interconnected networks of eLaboratories designed topush our collective thinking and understanding into an Era of Globalization.ACKNOWLEDGEMENTWe thank all the persons who are supporting us in our efforts, amongst which are Gilbert Busana, Anne-Marie Guillemard, Ulrich Keller, Thibaud Latour, Don Martin, Romain Martin, Patrick Plichart, MoniqueReichert, Judith Swietlik, Christian Meyers, and the EMACS lab (all our apologies for the people we mayhave forgotten to mention by name). We are especially grateful to Gavin W. Hougham and David Jolly fortheir generous time and thoughtful suggestions.REFERENCESAlkire, S., 2005. Why the Capability Approach? Journal of Human Development. Vol.6, No.1, pp 115-133.Berners-Lee, T. et al, 2001. The semantic web: A new form of web that is meaningful to computers will unleash arevolution of new possibilities. Scientific American 284 (2001).Brickley, D. and Guha, R., 2004. Rdf vocabulary description language 1.0: Rdf schema. W3C Recommandation (2004).Brickley, D. and Miller, L., 2005. Friend Of A Friend - FOAF Vocabulary Specification, Namespace Document - v.0.1 (27July 2005).Jadoul, R. and Mizohata, S., 2006. PRECODEM, un exemple de tao mis au service de l'emploi. Paper presented atADMEE 2006. L’évaluation au 21e siècle. Vers de nouvelles formes, modélisations et pratiques de l’évaluation ? 19eColloque International de l'ADMEE-Europe, 11-13 septembre 2006. Abbaye de Neumünster, Luxembourg.Latour, T. et al, 2005. TAO, a Modular and Versatile Platform for the Collaborative and Distributed Computer-basedAssessment Management. Awarded, Communication de type poster. Paper presented at EDMEDIA 2005 WorldConference on Educational Multimedia, Hypermedia & Telecommunications, 27 June - 2 July 2005. Montréal,Canada.Latour, T. and Martin, R., 2006. Towards an open integrated and generic Computer-Based Assessment platform - Atechnical, legal, and business roadmap. Version 5.0, Final Draft proposal. Centre de Recherche Public Henri Tudor(Centre for IT Innovation) and Université du Luxembourg (Educational Measurement and Applied CognitiveScience). Luxembourg.Martin, R. et al, 2004. A distributed architecture for internet-based computer-assisted testing. Paper presented atEDMEDIA 2004. World Conference on Educational Multimedia, Hypermedia & Telecommunications at theUniversity of Lugano, 21-26 juin 2004, Lugano, Suisse.Martin, R. et al, 2005. Covering Different Levels of Evaluation Needs by an Internet-Based Computer-Assisted TestingFramework for Collaborative Distributed Test Development and Delivery. Paper presented at EDMEDIA 2005.Montréal, Canada.Miles, A. and Brickley, D., 2005. Simple Knowledge Organisation System - SKOS Core Guide, 2nd W3C PublicWorking Draft (2 November 2005).

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