Getting the most out of data

The Reading e-Science Centre’s “Godiva2” online data visualization system (demo site) has been adopted by research institutes, government agencies and industry in many countries around Europe, Australia and the US.  It provides a dynamic web interface for browsing through environmental datasets interactively, without the need to download large data files and understand their technical details.  The ReSC is working with e-Research South partners to develop the capabilities of the system in two projects.

MashMyData

The mutual comparison of diverse datasets is a fundamental cornerstone of environmental science.  Processes of numerical model validation, data assimilation, quality control and “ground truthing” all rely on the ability to bring datasets together and assess their relative value.  The MashMyData project (a NERC-funded collaboration between the ReSC and STFC) will allow numerical model, in situ and satellite datasets to be combined and compared in a new web interface (see above), reducing technical barriers to common intercomparison tasks.  Users will be able to access data that are securely held in the British Atmospheric Data Centre and the Earth System Grid; this presents a strong technical challenge but we have recently made excellent progress towards achieving this new capability, which will make great strides towards “unlocking” vast data resources.  In addition, users will be able to upload their own data into the system, which will be stored securely “in the cloud” and made available for intercomparison on the web.

BlogMyData

The JISC-funded BlogMyData project brings a collaborative element to online data visualization.  We have created a new prototype Virtual Research Environment by combining the Godiva2 visualization system with the University of Southampton’s LabTrove blogging system.   LabTrove was originally designed for practising chemists, but has been augmented with geospatial metadata-capture and search functions for use in environmental science.  Using the VRE (see left), users can annotate visualizations with comments that highlight features of interest that they wish to discuss with their colleagues.  These comments are saved securely as a blog, together with automatically-captured geospatial metadata, and can be discovered, read and commented upon by colleagues with the necessary privileges.  Users can see the activity of their colleagues on the VRE by subscribing to RSS, GeoRSS and KML feeds, which can be consumed in commonly-used tools such as Google Maps, Google Earth and email clients.  The prototype is now available for testing: please contact Jon Blower (j.d.blower@reading.ac.uk) if you would like access to the system to try it out.