GridOrbit Public Display: Providing Grid Awareness in a Biology Laboratory

摘要

We introduce GridOrbit, a public awareness display that visualizes the activity of a community grid used in a biology laboratory. This community grid executes bioin-formatics algorithms and relies on users to donate CPU cycles to the grid. The goal of GridOrbit is to create a shared awareness about the research taking place in the biology laboratory. This should promote contributions to the grid, and thereby mediate the appropriation of the grid technology. GridOrbit visualizes the activity in the grid, shows information about the different active projects, and supports a messaging functionality where people comment on projects. Our work explores the usage of interactive technologies as enablers for the appropriation of an otherwise invisible infrastructure.