Kaylin Bugbee

Towards intelligent GIServices

Distributed information infrastructures are increasingly used in the geospatial domain. In the infrastructures, data are being collected by distributed sensor services, served by distributed geospatial data services, transformed by processing services and workflows, and consumed by smart clients. Consequently, Geographical Information Systems (GISs) are moving from GISystems to GIServices. Intelligent GIServices are enriched with new capabilities including knowledge representation, semantic reasoning, automatic workflow composition, and quality and traceability. Such Intelligent GIServices facilitate information discovery and integration over the network and automate the assembly of GIServices to provide value-added products. This paper provides an overview of intelligent GIServices. The concept of intelligent GIServices is described, followed by a review of the state-of-the-art technologies and methodologies relevant to intelligent GIServices. Visions on how GIServices can perceive, reason, learn, and act intelligently are highlighted. The results can provide better services for big data processing, semantic interoperability, knowledge discovery, and cross-discipline collaboration in Earth science applications.

Climate data initiative

Curation is traditionally defined as the process of collecting and organizing information around a common subject matter or a topic of interest and typically occurs in museums, art galleries, and libraries. The task of organizing data around specific topics or themes is a vibrant and growing effort in the biological sciences but to date this effort has not been actively pursued in the Earth sciences. In this paper, we introduce the concept of geocuration and define it as the act of searching, selecting, and synthesizing Earth science data/metadata and information from across disciplines and repositories into a single, cohesive, and useful collection. We present the Climate Data Initiative (CDI) project as a prototypical example. The CDI project is a systematic effort to manually curate and share openly available climate data from various federal agencies. CDI is a broad multi-agency effort of the U.S. government and seeks to leverage the extensive existing federal climate-relevant data to stimulate innovation and private-sector entrepreneurship to support national climate-change preparedness. We describe the geocuration process used in the CDI project, lessons learned, and suggestions to improve similar geocuration efforts in the future.

The art and science of data curation: Lessons learned from constructing a virtual collection

Abstract A digital, or virtual, collection is a value added service developed by libraries that curates information and resources around a topic, theme or organization. Adoption of the virtual collection concept as an Earth science data service improves the discoverability, accessibility and usability of data both within individual data centers but also across data centers and disciplines. In this paper, we introduce a methodology for systematically and rigorously curating Earth science data and information into a cohesive virtual collection. This methodology builds on the geocuration model of searching, selecting and synthesizing Earth science data, metadata and other information into a single and useful collection. We present our experiences curating a virtual collection for one of NASAs twelve Distributed Active Archive Centers (DAACs), the Global Hydrology Resource Center (GHRC), and describe lessons learned as a result of this curation effort. We also provide recommendations and best practices for data centers and data providers who wish to curate virtual collections for the Earth sciences.

Exploiting dark information resources to create new value added services to study Earth science phenomena

This paper presents two research applications exploiting unused metadata resources in novel ways to aid data discovery and exploration capabilities. The results based on the experiments are encouraging and each application has the potential to serve as a useful standalone component or service in a data system.