In LabSpace, we propose the creation of a set of persistent electronic laboratories, or elabs, which will be networked institutions housing interfaces to scientific equipment, meeting rooms, private offices, and interaction areas. The scientist's interface to these locations will be a browsing environment based on the familiar World Wide Web programs and will be layered on a suite of groupware tools such as audio and video clients, as well as control mechanisms for remote scientific instruments and state of the art network transport and security.
The members of the LabSpace project are uniquely positioned in the diverse areas of networking, high performance computing, collaborative environments, innovative interfaces, and distributed scientific research. We propose a program, that, over a three-year period, will create electronic laboratories, build the basic tools necessary for interaction, and study the effects of these environments for three testbeds: an analytical electron microscope laboratory, the CERN high energy physics project, and the LabSpace project itself, which will be a distributed development effort.
The results of this project, a National Electronic Laboratory Infrastructure, will be available to other scientific institutions during the creation and after the conclusion of the effort. Electronic Laboratories will be built that will contain unique research opportunities, information repositories, and powerful computing and analysis equipment. This intuitive environment will bring together scientists and researchers from around the world.