SYSTEMS FOR SUPPORT OF COLLABORATIVE STUDIES IN THE COLLA ENVIRONMENT BASED ON THE EVENT BUSH METHOD

Problem statement. Conventional tools of online communication in global networks for support of scientific and research projects fail to handle specific issues that arise at scientific collaboration of different scientific schools. They cannot be used to bring together the knowledge relating to the same field but generated in various scientific schools, under different paradigms and on different conceptual grounds. Existing software solutions, both synchronous (e.g., Webex or ShowDocument) and asynchronous (Zimbra, Google Docs and others) are efficient only when the users share similar understanding of the context and do not bring their own non-formalized meanings in it. Meanwhile, a tool is needed for scientific cooperation that makes it possible to bring one’s own meanings and relate them to the common context. Methods. Special tools for support of collaborative research in the COLLA environment using the methods of knowledge engineering and knowledge representation are given. Effective modeling of many knowledge domains is shown to require special methods of dynamic knowledge modeling; one of the well-developed is the event bush method. Results. The paper deals with issues of combination of the event bush method and COLLA collaborative research support technique on the example of S&R projects in seismology and volcanology. Approach approbation is done on the example of two urgent tasks for geosciences: estimation of progress scenarios for geological disasters caused by Etna eruption, one of the most dangerous European volcanoes, and one of the most perilous earthquake effects (location effect). Practical application. Event bush method can be used for quantitative assessment of similarity-difference for modeled effects based on the expert knowledge about them. This opportunity can find its substance in many fields of science far beyond geosciences.