An Elgg-based Collaborative Platform for Earth Observation Science

Roger CurryGrid Research CentreUniversity 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: ProjectCoordination:

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 Portalhttp://geochronos.org

Grid Research Centrehttp://grid.ucalgary.ca

Roger Currytwitter:curryrcurry@cpsc.ucalgary.ca