Enhancing Research Projects with Environmental Informatics and Web

Technologies

Stefan Falke and Erin RobinsonEECE

April 24, 2008

Static versus Dynamic Research Projects

• Email only• Powerpoint slides• Pdf reports• Sharing/publication only of

final results

• Email + shared web workspaces

• Screencasts, WebEx• Multi-author content creation• Sharing/publication of

workflow (data to information)

Static Dynamic

What does the Web bring to Research?

• Sharing and communication of research from initial to interim to final results

• Connections to related research and researchers• Easier ways to document, augment and archive the

research project• Richer research team interactions

Environmental InformaticsThe science, engineering and practice of the creation, exchange and use of

data, information and knowledge relevant to environmental researchers, managers and the interested public. Cross-disciplinary across computer, information, environmental, geographical, and social sciences.

Wisdom

Knowledge

Evidence

Information

Data

Adapted from Bolstad, 2005

Web 2.0• Term coined by O’Reilly in 2003 to describe the rise of:

– user-generated content;– folksonomy;– on-line collaboration between users;

• Web 2.0 tools emphasize:– Blogging– Tagging– Commenting– Modifying – Augmenting

• The Participatory Web – it is easy to publish your own content• User interaction with web has expanded from one-way

information download to include user-driven information content – “Web 2.0”

• Within the science and engineering domains, this next phase of the web is referred to as cyberinfrastructure, e-science, and service oriented science. – new capabilities for sharing information, conducting research in a

distributed environment, and achieving new insights that would have taken longer, or not occurred at all, in independent organizations.

Data Sources

• Observations & Models– Surface– Satellite– Forecasts

• News• Blogs (Technorati)• What you collect and generate

RSS Feeds

• Really Simple Syndication • Share content between websites when new information is available• Need RSS Feeds to subscribe to

• More Information

Del.icio.us

• Social bookmarking tools• Storing bookmarks on-line, publicly, with a folksonomy

categorization• Can tag the bookmarks for others • Collectively collect of sites/resources/online texts using

particular set of tags (S. Cal Example)• Has an RSS feed for all pages

• More information

Online Photo Sharing – Flickr

• Online photo management and sharing tool• Allows tagging, commenting and organizing photos

(S. Cal Ex.)• Has an RSS feed• More Information

Upload

SearchAnnotation

Geotagging10

15

7

25

Embed

Feeds

Blogs• A website that can be individually edited• Gives everyone space to share “news” – blog posts• Readers can comment• Blogs can be linked and cross-referenced (backlinking)• Has both RSS feed from the blog and can embed other

feeds inside the blog (Example)• Can search blogs through Tech.no.rati or Google Blog

Search• More Information

Screencasts and YouTube

• Screencasts are simple demonstrations used to show instead of tell– Video blogging– Screen capture– Presentations

• YouTube allows you to publish your screencast, the same way flickr allows you to publish photos – Videos can be tagged, commented on, and shared

• More Information: Screencasts | YouTube

Skype and WebEx

• Skype is a Voice over IP service (Internet Phone) • Skype-to-Skype is Free and Skype-to-Phone has lower international

rates• WebEx is a way to share your desktop• More Information: Skype | WebEx

Wikis• Wikis are collaborative web sites where anyone with the

proper permission can create, edit and organize the pages.• They are good for:

– Aggregating and archiving group knowledge– Connecting people with similar interests

• Can act as an RSS Aggregator• S. Cal Page• More Information

Google Sites http://sites.google.com

• Google sites is a cross between a Portal, Blog and wiki – Using different kinds of pages it can be any of the above– Easy editing

• All Google apps work in conjunction with the sites (Calendar, Docs…)

• More Information

Portals

• Can act as an RSS Aggregator• More Information

Mashups

Top Mashup APIs - All

•Web services approach uses standards-based interfaces for accessing and working with data. Next steps go beyond searching and visualizing data to include data processing and analysis services.

• More Information

Mashups - applications constructed by combining services from disparate sources

Top Mashup APIs – Last 14 Days

Weatherbonk.com

Southern California Wildfires

Mashing Mashups, the value chain

Southern California Smoke

How to get started

• Google sites?• Explore the links provided in these slides• Figure out how you want to communicate prior to China

trip, during trip and after you return• Find ‘coordinators/facilitators’ in your group who can set up

the web technology and initiative group content creation and interaction

• This is far from an exact science. What you’ll be doing will help define how the web is most effectively used in environmental research.

• What you create will be reused in subsequent trips and research projects