2001 DAWG Approaches

Planning Meeting Summary of Approaches Discussed, Feb. 7-8, 2001

The following approaches for short-term implementation of the DAWG vision were discussed at the Feb. 7-8 meeting.

Identify collections that we would initially like to include in the DLESE collection and then address issues specific to these collections.

Identify a few use cases to frame the educational content and the datasets that should first be exploited.

Identifying the breadth of efforts currently underway and enabling communication and collaboration between groups.

Demonstration project linking a few distributed Earth data representing datasets from ocean, atmosphere, solid Earth, social and life sciences with a basic tool kit. Constructed and evaluated within one or more educational context.

(possible projects are locally based - how has the climate changed in my city? What is the seismicity/geology of my state?)

(possible projects are of a more general nature. What are the best examples of a particular example? Small projects done by individuals)

Linking with related groups (nonearth scientists, mathematicians, physicists) and commonly used tool developers who would like access to Earth data in their presentations.

Demonstration focused on a small region showing in-depth development of tools and data access.

Develop automated package to construct datasets and learning resources around timely Earth events.

Developing underlying support structure for end-to-end delivery and use of datasets.

Enhance metadata framework for datasets and catalog existing datasets and learning resources using datasets.

Research on effective use of datasets in the classroom.

Encouraging the development of resources and services supporting end-to-end delivery.

Plan for sustainability and maintenance.

Explore dataspace and develop demonstration project that exercises a variety of data types.

Principles for Data Access through DLESE

To rely on partnerships for:

Provision of data

Provision of technology and tools

NSDL participation/compatibility

Follow patterns that reflect the state of the art

OpenGIS Web-Mapping testbed

Global Change Master Directory

To gain early success:

Pick a few common data-set types and tools

Offer a few representative data sets

Augment discovery with a gazeteer

Ensure end-to-end effectiveness

• Place/feature specific data discovery
• Tool specific data discovery
• Data specific tool discovery
• Application-based viewing/analysis (thick client)
• Browser-based data viewing/analysis (thin client)

To aim for long-term success:

Address key challenges

• Persistent identifiers
• Personalized data collections
• Middleware matching tools and data types
• Scalability limits on human-generated metadata

Follow emerging standards/patterns

Support embedding DLESE data discovery/access in applications and into educational materials

Conceptualize and support chains of data derivations/transformations

Link strategically to research needs (remote, real-time, etc.)

• Improved data access (remote, real-time, etc.)
• Facilitated data use (i.e., enhance useage metadata)
• Improved data discovery

Data Access Components of the DLESE Effort

Efforts related to Data discovery

Create/operate a discovery/characterization environment for data sets and services

Help providers expose suitable metadata

Support creation of personalized data collections

Efforts related to Data use

Create/operate a tool discovery/characterization environment

Help providers expose data for remote access

Help builders of materials/applications access data

Foster creation of useful data-transformation services

Establishing educational linkages with data

Interact with other DLESE components

Tools

Map viewer - http://viewer.digitalearth.gov (link is no longer active)

Working Groups

Demonstration of multiple earth datasets within a single viewer

Developing a cookbook using existing data resources