GeoChronos

An Elgg-based Collaborative Platform for Earth Observation Science Roger Curry Grid Research Centre University of Calgary, CANADA Elgg Camp Boston Aug 15, 2009

Overview
GeoChronos Project
Plugin: Interactive Application Service
Plugin: Spectral Libraries

GeoChronos Project
Leverage concepts/tools from social networking, web 2.0, and cloud computing to create an environment that facilitates scientific research and collaboration in the earth observation sciences
GeoChronos portal brings together
access to data
scientific applications
collaborative tools

GeoChronos Project
PIs:
Arturo Sanchez-Azofeifa John Gamon Benoit Rivard Rob Simmonds domain scientists Funding: Project Coordination: Development Team: GRC

GeoChronos is a VO

Collaboration
Earth observation scientists are geographically distributed
Scientists are often working remotely in the field, having tools that facilitate collaboration becomes very important
Many domain scientists are unfamiliar with modern tools for collaborating such as wikis, forums, discussion groups, social networks, micro-blogging, social-bookmarking, etc.
Email no longer adequate to keep everyone in the loop

Use of Elgg
Elgg provides the social context for the GeoChronos platform
Plugins/Features:
Out of the box: Profiles, Groups, Files, Forums, Bookmarks, Messageboards, Messages, Activity feed, The wire, Blogs, Tags, etc.
Customization: Pages / Embed / TinyMCE
History (diffs)
Page locking
Community: Event Calendar (Kevin Jardine)

Interactive Application Service

Applications
Scientists are often working out of their ‘home’ base, at remote field stations for weeks or months at a time
Want to be able to use the same tools that they have access to in their labs at home or in the field
Frustrating / time consuming to install / maintain multiple copies of software on different systems (in the lab, in the field, on a laptop, etc).
Desire to use the portal to teach and to introduce students to specific scientific applications
Locus of control. Applications and data co-located

Use of Elgg
Each IAS_application and IAS_session correspond to an elgg object
Provide necessary access controls for applications and sessions.
Only users in certain groups may access certain applications (licensing)
Users can grant read access of their their sessions to other users or groups.
Tags (elgg metadata) easily used to search for a particular session or application

Spectral Libraries

Spectral Data
Spectral Library: A collection of spectra and associated metadata
Different data formats
Different metadata recorded/available
Scientists’ fieldnotes
Instrument
Spectral Libraries often not available online
No consistent standards adopted
Each scientist is doing their own thing
Inadequate tools for recording / maintaining metadata
Metadata is crucial for the use of spectral libraries
Spectra for minerals is fairly consistent, spectra for plants can vary wildly depending on the conditions under which it is observed
Goals:
Make it easy for scientists to publish their data
Make it easy for different scientists to annotate the data with what metadata is relevant to them

Physical directory structure, based on file upload location

Virtual directory structure, based on metadata Ex. 3-level structure based on metadata keys : Type, Class, and Subclass

Virtual directory structure, based on metadata Ex. 4-level structure based on metadata keys : Owner, Type, Particle Size, and Sample No. VDS could be applied to any set of elgg objects as a way of browsing. It is particularly useful when there are many objects with a semi-consistent set of metadata

Use of Elgg
Each SL_library, SL_schema, and SL_file corresponds to an elgg object. Each SL_file’s container guid is set to the guid of the SL_library in which it is contained
Metadata management system based on / inspired by elgg’s data model
Allowed rapid prototyping of the entire spectral library system (Majority of the system was implemented in one month)
Using notifications scientists can be kept up to date on new data in the libraries

Technologies / Tools
Elgg!
LAMP (Linux/Apache/Mysql/PHP)
IAS
VNC (Virtual Network Computing / remote desktop)
Java / Java Webstart
NRC Java VNC viewer
Python / Twisted
Postgres
ASPEN (Automated Service Provisioning Environment)
Similar to other cloud platforms such as eucalypus / NIMBUS / AWS
Greater emphasis on efficient image management techniques to enable rapid provisioning of resources
Dynamically adapt to demand
Xen-based virtualization
Solaris ZFS snapshotting/cloning
Moab/PBS scheduling resource management
Spectral Library Plugin
Jquery
Flot
Jumploader
Google Maps API

Other
Successful use of the GeoChronos Portal in IAI summer school (~40 participants, researchers and from around the Americas).
Allowed students to collaboratively develop docs
Shared data and experiment results
Allowed instructors to demo use of TimeSAT and Multispec software, and then students to use this software online
Plugins we’d like to see / work on:
Full featured publications module
Google map of users locations (based on location during registration)
More tools for tracking site usage (statistics), plots over time
Admin tools for mining information from httpd logs
Other contributions
Identified some security issues in elgg 1.0,1.1,1.2

Questions?
GeoChronos Portal
http://geochronos.org
Grid Research Centre
http://grid.ucalgary.ca
Roger Curry
twitter:curryr
[email_address]

GeoChronos

by curryr on Aug 17, 2009

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GeoChronos — Presentation Transcript