ACADEMIA

The U.S Department of Energy’s ESnet (Energy Sciences Network) will hold its second Collaboration meeting to help plan the future directions for ESnet Collaboration Services. The meeting will be held Oct. 12-14, 2005, at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in Berkeley, California. ESnet Collaborative Services provides a number of online services aimed at improving collaboration among researchers at the many national laboratories and universities served by ESnet. Users, engineers and managers of collaboration services at all DOE/ESnet research centers are invited to attend. In particular, organizers of this year’s meeting hope s number of scientific users will attend. This year’s meeting will combine two days of conference-like presentations followed by a planning workshop on the third day. “The meeting will investigate emerging and future technologies that promise to change the way scientists communicate and work. A key purpose of the workshop will be to get feedback on work done since last year’s workshop, as well as continue gathering input from our user community,” said workshop organizer Clint Wadsworth. “We also want to provide a forum for users to discuss the role of the ESnet Collaboration Services in their research.” Day One will include an overview of ESnet and presentations by selected vendors, Day Two will focus on videoconferencing services and collaborations with European research programs, and Day Three will look at plans for the coming year, including creating committees to continue working on ideas discussed at the workshop. For more information on the agenda, speakers, and registration for the workshop, go to: its Web site. ESnet, funded primarily by the DOE Office of Science to support its science mission, is managed by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. ESnet services connect researchers at national laboratories, universities and other research institutions around the world.