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DISCUS, a tool developed by researchers at NCSA and the Illinois Genetic Algorithms Laboratory, facilitates creativity and collaboration
When a group of people aims to develop something new -- a product, a marketing strategy, a disaster-response plan, an advertising campaign, a corporate logo, an informational website -- they will need to draw on data, to share information and ideas, and to discuss scenarios in order to fuel their creativity and innovation.
A small group at a single location working with a small amount of data might be able to handle their task with just pencils, sketch pads, a white board, and their own know-how, but most situations are more complex. Many people at multiple geographically dispersed sites might need to be involved in a collaboration, and the team could have mountains of data to analyze.
Researchers at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) and the Illinois Genetic Algorithms Laboratory (IlliGAL), both at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, have developed a tool, called DISCUS (Distributed Innovation and Scalable Collaboration in Uncertain Settings), to facilitate creativity, innovation, and collaborative work in such complex situations.
The development of DISCUS has been funded by the Technology Research, Education and Commercialization Center (TRECC), a University program that is funded by the Office of Naval Research and administered by NCSA. The project also has received support from Shalini Dewan, a TRECC technology commercialization and transfer specialist.
“I work with researchers to identify what they are interested in doing and on finding tools to efficiently get them to where they want to go,” Dewan explains. “TRECC can help by identifying funding opportunites, by introducing potential collaborators, by familiarizing scientists will the commercialization process, and by connecting them with the many federal, state and local agencies that are able to provide resources and support.”
In a recent experiment, the DISCUS prototype was successfully used to help a Japanese company gather and analyze information about consumers’ cell phone preferences, providing insights that might help in the development of new products.
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