Distributed hypertext for collaborative research: the virtual notebook system

We are developing the Virtual Notebook System (VNS) to facilitate information acquisition, sharing and management in collaborative work. Our main concern is enhancing the productivity of scientific groups engaged in basic and clinical research in an acaademic medical center. As the name implies, the VNS is an electronic analog to the scientist’s notebook, and it functions as the repository of data, hypotheses and notes, patient information and the like. But unlike the traditional notebook, the VNS is expressly designed to enhance information sharing among the members of scientific teams. A hypertext program we have developed is the foundation for this sharing, and it enables us to integrate into the VNS a variety of computer-based information resources that are so important in biomedicine.