Global Online Laboratory Consortium - Meeting 2
The second xLab Consortium (title is only tentative) meeting is to be held at UTS on January 27/28, 2010, to continue discussions on the formation of an international consortium to foster the creation and worldwide sharing of online laboratories.
Documents
- Agenda
- Others?
Workgroup Members and mailing lists
General Consortium Founders Mailing List: ilab-founders@mit.edu
Discussions on consortia title
The initial discussions on the consortia used the title "iLabs Consortia". At the first meeting, after some discussion, it was recognized that there were benefits in the consortia being broader than the a single current architecture (i.e. iLabs) and that by generalizing the focus, it would become more inclusive and provide stronger support for ongoing development. At this inaugural meeting the term xLabs was used as a temporary placeholder to replace iLabs in the title, until a better name could be determined.
xLabs cannot (probably) be used, as it is current used in various contexts
- http://groups.google.com/group/x-labs/about
- http://www.xlabs.com/
- http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/index.php?showforum=73
- http://xlabs.deviantart.com/
- http://www.physicslessons.com/xlabs.html
- ... amongst many others.
We therefore need to consider what is an alternative appropriate name.
Other projects, systems, architectures, etc. that have been used previously include (with and withough spaces or hyphens in various combinations): iLabs, LabShare, LiLa, WebLab, NetLab, eLab, online-Lab, ...
So, suggestions include:
- uLabs (Universal Labs / You Labs)
- LabCloud
- farLabs
- flexibleLabs, flexLabs
- ...
Comments on the above welcome....
8 Comments
Anonymous
Anonymous
From Michael Auer:
...
But plain-spoken I am not very happy with a name for our project other than "iLab Consortium". This is because iLab is an already well known term in the world.
Of course there will be a further development regarding the present iLab architecture (or better interface), but is it really necessary to change the name? On the other hand, if there is a consensus to change the consortium name, my suggestion is: lab2go. Similar to "coffee to go". In our project it means "a lab to go", to takeaway, a lab which is available for the user at any time and at any location.
All the best,
Michael
Anonymous
from Leon Shiman:
Hello,
My thanks to those who are pushing this initiative so skillfully forward.
I'd like to contribute one thought on name selection. I like the name "iLabs" better than "iLab". I think it is simple, unique, feels more comfortable on the tongue, is easy to move from language to language, and carries with it the "iLab" history and values - but I haven't paid close enough attention to know if this is a real option - for legal or other reasons.
My experience with adding the word "Consortium" is that it is fine to have in the formal background but will be dropped in everyday usage and reference.
"lab2go" and its variants are to me cumbersome in speech, don't take advantage of history, and are not easy to assign a meaning to. I find the symbol to meaning/interpretation a barrier. With apologies
.
FWIW,
Leon
Anonymous
From Steve Murray:
Dear All,
It's great to see discussion beginning to develop around some of the topics we'll be working on in January. The more progress we make on getting preliminary matters out of the way now, the more likely it is that we'll be able to achieve notable successes with the bigger issues at our next meeting.
As Prof. Michael Auer pointed out recently, it's a good idea to adopt a direct approach to some of the things we need to put to rest. The naming of the project is one which attracted attention at our meeting in June, when we were of the mind that we were all participating in a "New Dawn"
in the area of remotely accessible laboratories. At the meeting we discussed the consortium title and, whilst there was obviously different views, the outcome was an agreement that a new name was appropriate. This was summed up succinctly by Prof. Jesús del Alamo in his closing address, when I recall him saying that in retrospect he was never that comfortable with the original "Weblabs" moniker and that he changed the name of that project to "iLabs" and that now again, he thought it was time for a change.
It might help to look at it this way: Our collective will, energy and experience is ultimately going to deliver an enduring global solution - something which is not only technically more capable than the different implementations we've all individually evolved, but which has been conceived with the capacity to make pedagogical guarantees, structured such that it is economically self-sustainable, and organised and administered with clarity and elegance. As a new entity, it rightfully deserves a new name and it will be identified by those within the project now and those who will join and contribute to it in the future as being vibrant, open and inclusive if it is named anew.
I've got to admit that I'm not imaginative enough to be a marketer and I can't offer much by way of catchy identifiers that roll off the tongue or translate well, but I can surely see a great benefit to the project in it developing its own new brand.
All the best,
Steve Murray
Anonymous
From Javier Garcia-Zubia:
Dear all,
Another choice (if you want) is "wwwlab" or wwlab: world wide lab
I think that it is better to avoid words or concepts that are popular now but perhaps after some months/years they will be old, for example the word "cloud". Do you think that the use of numbers as words, "2"-"4" will be popular after some years, for example labs4all? is it not a hackneyed way to invent words?
Do you want a pop name or a classical one? For example, what do you think about "lab :-)" (do not think that I like it)
Saludos from Spain
Javier
Anonymous
From Jesus del Alamo:
Hi!
I'd like to contribute a bit to the Consortium name discussion. Sorry to do this via email, rather than the wiki. I am offline in a plane at this time.
From the point of view of us at MIT, and I think I speak for my colleagues here, the founding of the Consortium is the beginning of a third phase in our work on remote laboratories. The first phase started for us in 1988 when we deployed the first version of the microelectronics weblab. A number of other "weblabs" followed in other disciplines, each one with its own architecture and interface and with no shareable components.
After a few years of this, it became clear to us that this approach did not scale in any way, and we launched the iLab project under Microsoft sponsorship. A new name seemed appropriate as our goal was now different: to develop a flexible architecture that would allow the rapid development of new labs and their effective management. I think we have come a long way on this path and we are gratified to see how the iLab architecture is now the backbone of many labs around the world.
I view the launch of the Consortium as a natural third phase in this progression in the development of remote laboratories with worldwide scale impact. In short, in this third phase, we hope to agree on a unified architectural approach to remote laboratories that hopefully will become a worldwide standard, we want to share on the development of this architecture and we want to create a market place that would allow the wide sharing of labs. These are goals that a single insitution cannot achieve and for which a Consortium is necessary. It is because of this that it seems reasonable to contemplate a new name for this effort and we at MIT are open to this.
Nevertheless, if the consensus in the group is that we use the iLab name in some form, we also have no problem with this. Coming up with a catchy and recognizable name that works in many languages is very hard. There are also legal dimensions to this.
Looking forward to continue working with you on this and other aspects of the Consortium.
-Jesus
Jesús A. del Alamo
Donner Professor, MacVicar Faculty Fellow Professor of Electrical Engineering Massachusetts Institute of Technology http://www-mtl.mit.edu/~alamo
Anonymous
From David Lowe:
Jesus,
Thanks - as always, insightful.
I definitely agree that the launch of the consortium will represent a natural next step in the evolution of remote labs, and one that is hopefully inclusive and broadly based. This was part of the reason that my preference was for uLabs (Universal Labs) as the consortium title. This gives a connection to iLabs, but also admits for other inputs, and gives a clear indication of a global evolution.
Cheer,
David
Anonymous
From: Manuel Castro
I believe that the issues addressed by Jesus are one that we know 8and the one that join all of us) and need to have in mind: iLab is today recognized and is one of the major valuables that we have a consortium, at least from today. The other one is our commitment to develop (and continue working as a consortium) a new environment based on the present one.
My proposal is double: 1. Maintain the iLab as image and icon of the new consortium. 2. or if we would like to use the new consortium push have a "conservative" view in the new prospect, like iLag-ng (new generation) or iLab-nc (new consortium) that clearly states our relationship with iLabs.
Best regards, and see you in Sydney.
Manuel