The project TextNorm>CoDiVE was initiated in mid-October 1994. Some of the main goals and constraints of the project are outlined in Coppock 1994c. A more detailed initial project description is available (both in Norwegian and English) as Coppock 1994a; 1994b, respectively. The report in hand is formed loosely as a story which to some extent is based on this initial description, but which has since been considerably extended and modified in order to cover some more recent work within the framework of the project. In some other articles (Coppock 1995a and Coppock 1995b), I have discussed various theoretical issues related to doing research in distributed virtual environments and presented some of my current metareflections on methodological aspects of the study of scientific collaboration in these kinds of environments. Other recent publications with perspectives related to this project are Coppock 1994d, Coppock 1995c, Coppock 1995d, Coppock 1995e, Coppock 1995f and Coppock 1995g. See also Coppock in press.
In this report I shall first give a brief presentation of the project TextNorm>CoDiVE as it has developed, and discuss its present status quo. I shall also discuss and develop some aspects of the rather synthetic theoretical framework that has begun to emerge on the basis of some of the studies of various kinds of collaboration in distributed virtual environments that I have already done. In this connection shall introduce some empirical data from my own, other colleagues' and students' experiences with collaboration in distributed virtual environments. Finally, I shall present some of my current meta-reflections on the status quo of the project and discuss some methodological and empirical issues in relation to its further development. Parts of this report are formed as the story of a personal journey, which in many ways seems to me the only really adequate way of making meaning from the constant barrage of new experiences, ideas and reflections engendered by participation and collaboration in virtual environments which represent extremely fast-developing and changing socio-cultural fields which are having an enormous influence on ways of thinking and ways of working across the full range of all areas of modern science.