Using Provenance to Support Real-Time Collaborative Design of Workflows

Because designing workflows is a notoriously difficult task, it often requires multiple users to collaborate. In such scenarios, sharing workflow evolution provenance in a timely manner is critical. We present an environment where collaborating users can see each other's changes in real-time. The synchronization of workflow evolution provenance is automatic, immediate, and unobtrusive, allowing users to see collaborators' changes as they are made. This enables a richer and fuller method of collaboration. We present the interface and algorithm for the synchronization and discuss common scenarios where this mechanism has been utilized.