Launching Discovery through a Digital Library Portal: SIOExplorer

Stephen P. Miller, Hubert Staudigel, Catherine Johnson, Kimberly McSherry, Dru Clark, Uta Peckman ¹
John J. Helly, Don Sutton and Andrew Chase ²
Brian Schottlaender, Deborah Day ³
Margaret Helly ⁴

¹ Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UCSD, La Jolla, CA 92093-0225
² San Diego Supercomputer Center, UCSD, La Jolla, CA 92093-0225
³ UCSD Libraries, UCSD, La Jolla, CA 92093-0225
⁴ A. C. Mosley High School, Lynn Haven, Florida

Abstract

The launching of an oceanographic expedition has its own brand of excitement, with the sound of the main engines firing up, and the lifting of the gangway in a foreign port, as the small team of scientists and crew sets out for a month at sea with only the resources they have aboard. Although this adventure is broadly appealing, very few have the privilege of actually joining an expedition.

With the "SIOExplorer" family of projects we are now beginning to open this experience across cyberspace to a wide range of students and teachers. What began two years ago as an effort to stabilize the Scripps Institution of Oceanography (SIO) data archives from more than 700 cruises going back 50 years, has now become an operational component of the National Science Digital Library (NSDL; http://www.nsdl.org), complete with thousands of historic photographs, full text documents and 3D visualization experiences.

Our initial emphasis has been on marine geology and geophysics, in particular multibeam seafloor mapping, for which we now have approximately 2 terabytes of digital objects. The IT architecture implemented at the San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC) streamlines the integration of additional projects in other disciplines with a suite of metadata management and collection building tools for "arbitrary digital objects." The "CruiseViewer" Java application is the primary portal to the digital library, providing a graphical user and display interface, the interface with the metadata database, and the interface with the SDSC "Storage Resource Broker" for long-term bulk distributed data storage management. It presents the user with a view of the available objects, overlaid on a global topography map. Geospatial objects can be selected interactively, and searches can be constrained by keywords. Metadata can be browsed and objects can be viewed onscreen or downloaded for further analysis, with automatic proprietary-hold request management.

These collections and technologies will be put to the test with national teacher workshops in the next two summers. During and following these workshops, teachers, in collaboration with SIO-graduate students, will prepare and field-test learning-experience modules that explore concepts from plate tectonics theory, for classroom and web use. Students will design their own personal voyages of discovery through our digital archives, promoting inquiry-based learning tailored to each individual. Future education and outreach efforts will include 1) developing a global registry of seafloor research or education projects (academic, industry, government), allowing at least a URL and a contact for further information 2) adding new collections, including dredged rocks and cores, 3) interoperating with other international data collections, 5) interacting with education and outreach projects such as the California Center for Ocean Science Education Excellence (COSEE), 6) continued testing of a real-time stand-alone digital library on a laptop shipboard acquisition system, and 7) enhanced use of real-time Real-time Observatories, Applications, and Data management Network (ROADnet) satellite links to SIO vessels.

Now that SIOExplorer has become operational, we look forward to collaborating with other institutions for data and technology exchange, as well as for education and outreach opportunities. Support is provided by NSF NSDL, ITR and OCE programs, as well as by UCSD funds. For further information please browse http://SIOExplorer.ucsd.edu.