Social networks, collaboration and groupware software for the scientific research process in the web 2.0 world

The web is evolving into machine-centric and user-centric perspectives. We are seeing tools and platforms to facilitate user collaboration and sharing collected under the term "web 2.0" and influencing all types of communities. The scientific community, especially, benefits from such platforms, since it can be involved in constant data sharing and discussion while research is in progress rather then much later when the work is finished. This paper discusses the requirements of a web collaboration software platform designed to assist in the scientific research process; it could be used by mediators to communicate with individuals about specific research areas, or to assist groups of people working on a project. Depending on the users' requirements, there is often debate about the choice of platform which provides the best software solution. Such solutions could be available as a package to be installed on a server, or could be provided as a set of web services provided by major internet companies like Google or Yahoo. The paper shows two examples, one for each category, and discusses the contexts in which they are used by a research institute's individuals. It also outlines technology trends in application development, which is shifting to rich internet applications available from the desktop.