User-centered development of a Virtual Research Environment to support collaborative research events

This paper discusses the user-centred development process within the Collaborative Research Events on the Web (CREW) project, funded under the JISC Virtual Research Environments (VRE) programme. After presenting the project, its aims and the functionality of the CREW VRE, we focus on the user engagement approach, grounded in the method of co-realisation. We describe the different research settings and requirements of our three embedded user groups and the respective activities conducted so far. Finally we elaborate on the main challenges of our user engagement approach and end with the project’s next steps

Secure data sharing across portals : experiences from OneVRE

Research and higher education are facing an on-going transformation of practice resulting in the need for effective collaboration and sharing of resources within and across disciplinary and geographical boundaries. Portal technologies and portal-based virtual research and learning environments (VREs and VLEs) already have become standard infrastructures within a large number of research communities and institutions. From 2004, a series of research and development projects began to ask the question whether an open source videoconferencing and collaboration system could be used as a complete, or as a part of, VRE. This study presents the evolution of these projects and at the same time, describes the definition of a VRE and their future possible integration. The OneVRE portlet integration project attempted to create missing components, including adding secure and universal identity management. This moves the idea of shared data to a different level by creating a new administrative domain that is outside the control of a single local institution portal and resolves certain administrative virtual organizations problems. We explain some of the hurdles that still need to be overcome to make this venture truly successful, when a complete toolkit can be designed for the researcher of the future