The Connection Project provides researchers the opportunity to study a number of critical issues concerning physically distributed environments. Here are a few.
Long-term Effects of the Connection Project
Faculty and staff at the University take part in many geographically dispersed collaborations within and outside of campus. Theses provide the basis for natural experiments in providing new kinds of communication and collaboration environments. The Connection Project will promote tracking of theses experiments in terms of user satisfaction, performance, social network formation, attitudes toward technology, and so forth. Lessons learned will be disseminated to the broader University of Michigan 
community.
Social Ergonomics
Human interactions carried out over various communication channels are influenced by the details of how such channels are configured. For instance, research shows that in video conferencing, factors such as eye contact,camera angle, field of view, and ease of reciprocity have substantial effects on interactions. The multiple interaction venues of the Connection Project provide an interesting array of social ergonomics issues to investigate.
Control Flows Across the Multiple Elements
The Connection Project encompasses a large number of elements, such as Encounter Walls, Kiosks, Booths, Desktops, and Meeting Rooms. As people move from one of these environments to another, how should transitions be controlled? Such shifts of venue are known to be complex and subtle.
Awareness Support
One of the goals of the Connection Project is to allow people at different physical sites to be aware of each other, much as those who work in a collocated site know who is around, who is busy, etc. Technologies exist for supporting such awareness, but often critical issues of privacy and reciprocity arise that need to be investigated.
Network Performance
The Connection Project will make heavy use of the network. There are a range of network issues to investigate, including questions of how to ensure that network loads do not adversely effect the interactions the information flows are trying to support.
