Researchers will model the lifecycles of virtual multidisciplinary
scientific teams using the facilities of the National High Magnetic
Field Laboratory, an interdisciplinary scientific center with
distributed facilities in Tallahassee, Florida; Gainesville, Florida;
and Los Alamos, New Mexico. The model will be built from data
collected through descriptive multiple-case studies, grounded in
an analysis of social and organizational factors related to the
concepts of the theory of information worlds: social norms, social
types, information values, and information behaviors (Burnett &
Jaeger, 2008; Jaeger & Burnett, in press). The researchers
hypothesize that when the norms and practices of multiple
external worlds represented by team members are integrated into
the internal norms and practices of the team itself, the outcomes of
the project will more likely be successful, and team members will
be more likely to work together virtually again
