Design, specification, and implementation of a distributed virtual community system

We introduce an open distributed virtual community system that supports knowledge workers with functionality for searching and browsing in preprint (e-print) archives as well as for sharing and exchanging their findings in virtual communities. Its functionality combines the strengths of existing systems for information retrieval of online literature with those for sharing and exchanging documents in groups or communities. Being based on open standards such as the open archive initiatives (OAi) standard and XML-RPC, it allows the flexible integration of distributed and heterogeneous components.