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ISR's research focuses on software and information technologies, often with a distinguishing interest on human aspects. Our research programs are characterized by collaborative work spanning emphases. They are carried out by multiple faculty in different schools/universities, leveraging a variety of perspectives. ISR projects encompass multiple activities, and focus on building technologies and addressing actual problems in practice. Our work is empirically grounded through cooperative research partnerships with industry. Such partnerships take many forms, including field site studies, technology transition, industry-sponsored research, and industry partners on proposals.
Current research emphases include:
Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW)
The widespread adoption of Internet technologies and the integration of communication networks into everyday organizational work has led to an increasing interest in the role that information systems and communication technologies can play in supporting collaboration. ISR's research in Computer-Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) takes a broad-based approach that focuses as much on the social and organizational factors affecting successful adoption as on the technical challenges for applications and infrastructures. Topics of current interest include the role of technology in supporting distributed and mobile work; the use of virtual meeting technologies in large organizations; infrastructures for group information management; expertise recommendation; virtual worlds supporting working communities; and awareness technologies.
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Decentralized Development and Applications
ISR's research focuses on system design wherein there is no single authority, whether for development or for management during use. Issues of trust, incomplete knowledge, and only partially aligned objectives predominate. This is a cross-cutting focus and permeates many of ISR's research foci.
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Design
ISR takes an interdisciplinary approach to design, with challenges ranging from technical to social. The design, both functional and structural, of software products as well as design of software processes are emphasized.
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| Games, Virtual Worlds, and Interactive Technologies
ISR research in computer games, virtual worlds and interactive technologies focuses on empirically-based studies of the processes, practices, and communities that develop games and virtual worlds, as well as tools, techniques, and concepts for developing next-generation technologies and experiences. Ethnographic and virtual enthnographic research methods are employed in the field studies, along with prototyping and deployment of new game-based virtual worlds. and related technologies.
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| Human Computer Interaction (HCI)
This area focuses on the design, development and evaluation of interactive software systems. We are interested in foundational questions of interaction and usability as well as practical aspects of building effective interactive systems. Current application domains and concerns include evolutionary software development, expert finding, information visualization, fluid information management, personalized systems, and medical information systems.
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| Information Visualization
ISR research in information visualization focuses on the development and empirical analysis of methods for presenting abstract information in visual form. The visual display of information allows people to become more easily aware of essential facts, to quickly see regularities and outliers in data, and therefore to develop a deeper understanding of data. Interactive visualization additionally takes advantage of people's ability to also identify interesting facts when the visual display changes, and allows them to manipulate the visualization or the underlying data to explore such changes. Success factors of effective information visualization are explored.
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| Open Source Software
ISR research in open source software development focuses on empirically-based studies of the processes, practices, and communities that develop open source software and related artifacts. Current work focuses on developing and refining empirically grounded models and theory of the development processes, technical system configurations, work practices, organizational contexts, and their interrelationships that give rise to free/open source software (FOSS). Ethnographic and virtual ethnographic research methods have been employed in field studies of open source software development in communities that include those centered on Internet infrastructure, X-Ray astronomy and deep space imaging, networked computer games, and academic software design research.
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| Privacy and Security
Privacy and security issues are central to ISR's research mission, since they lie at the intersection of software design, human factors, and policy concerns. We are pursuing a number of projects that explore different aspects of these problems as they relate to current and future information systems design and use. In the area of privacy, we are exploring the question of privacy and personalization from a perspective that combines policy analysis, user evaluation, and intelligent interface architectures. In the area of security, we are exploring the use of distributed event monitoring and visualization to provide end users with systems that disclose aspects of their security configuration for examination, exploration, and control.
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| Software Architecture
Software architecture is a major research thrust within ISR, and permeates many of the other research foci. ISR's research in software architecture is directed at reducing the cost of application development by focusing attention on critical design issues and increasing the potential for reuse among systems in closely related product families. ISR's work in software architecture provides style-based design guidance, component-based architectural composition, architectural visualization and analysis, system generation capabilities, modification of systems at runtime, and architecture-based rationale capture and delivery. Most recently, research has focused on CREST – an architectural style based on computational exchange as the fundamental construct for decentralized/distributed applications. ISR’s architecture technologies have been transitioned to many organizations including The Aerospace Corp., Boeing, JPL, Lockheed Martin, and the U.S. Navy.
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| Testing, Debugging, and Analysis
This research is directed toward the integration of formal specification methods and analysis with software testing, debugging, and selective regression testing.
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| Web Technologies
ISR web technologies research has focused on designing, implementing, evaluating, and promoting advanced hypermedia concepts which have formed the basis for significant contributions to the web. The results, including the design of HTTP/1.1, WebDAV, REST, and host of other technologies, are commonly used on a day-to-day basis by millions of users. Current focus is on generalizing REST to Computational exchange (CREST). |