Knowledge Management in Distributed Scientific Software Development

Global multidisciplinary scientific research collaborations are increasingly becoming a necessity to create global solutions. However to attain the potential benefits of such collaborations, there is a critical need for a more efficient management and exchange of knowledge between the distributed teams. Unlike traditional software projects, the knowledge management requirements of such teams is much more complex and requires different types of interaction and knowledge management environments to support such collaboration. In such projects, the need is to capture not just software artefacts, but also the scientific research process and its artefacts and their translation to their respective software needs. This paper discusses the knowledge management needs in distributed scientific projects based on experiences drawn from an international research project. It presents the different types of knowledge in such projects and outlines a mechanism to capture them.