Information about ScienceOrganizer
What is ScienceOrganizer?
Can my science team use ScienceOrganizer?
ScienceOrganizer Functionality
ScienceOrganizer Interface
Auxiliary Tools
Design and Usage
Funding
Point of Contact
Login to ScienceOrganizer
(authorized users only)
ScienceOrganizer is a product of the ScienceDesk
project.
What is ScienceOrganizer?
ScienceOrganizer is a specialized knowledge management tool designed
to enhance the information storage, organization, and access capabilities
of distributed NASA science teams. ScienceOrganizer provides a common
electronic repository in which science team members can store and share
project information. Team members access the system through an intuitive
Web-based interface that enables them to upload, download, and organize
project information -- including data, documents, images, and scientific
records associated with laboratory and field experiments. Information in
ScienceOrganizer
is "threaded", or interlinked, to enable users to locate, track, and organize
interrelated pieces of scientific data. Linkages capture important semantic
relationships among information resources in the repository, and these
assist users in navigating through the information related to their projects.
Can my science team use ScienceOrganizer?
ScienceOrganizer usage is being piloted by select
NASA scientific teams within the NASA
Astrobiology Institute. Access to ScienceOrganizer is controlled
by individual password-protected accounts that are established for each
team member using the system. If you are affiliated with NASA or work with
NASA teams and are interested in participating in pilot usage studies,
contact
our team.
ScienceOrganizer Functionality
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ScienceOrganizer serves as an information repository/digital library
for distributed scientific project teams.
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ScienceOrganizer combines the functionality of:
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a database
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a document-sharing system
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a web-like hypermedia information space; and
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a semantic net.
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ScienceOrganizer enables storage and retrieval of heterogeneous
project information: images, datasets, documents, and various types of
scientific records describing people (e.g., science team members), places
(e.g., laboratories, field sites), and things (e.g., equipment, samples).
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ScienceOrganizer supports cross-linkage among stored items to enable
rapid access to interrelated information.
ScienceOrganizer Interface
Interface Overview
The right side of the ScienceOrganizer interface in Figure
1 displays a project information record describing a microbial culture,
including various data fields describing collection, cultivation, and isolation
conditions for the culture. The left hand side of the interface displays
links from the culture to various related records, including the sample
that the culture was grown from, a micrograph of the culture, genetic sequence
data, and recipes for growth and maintenance media. The user simply
clicks on a link to navigate to a related record.
Figure 1: Overview
New Record Creation
and Linking
Users create new Project Information Records by filling out the form on
the right hand side of the interface shown in Figure 2.
Data and image files are uploaded into the system from the user's hard
disk and stored on the ScienceOrganizer server, where they can be accessed
by other project members. The new record will be linked to the existing
"Streamer mat I" record shown in the left hand side of the interface.
Figure 2: Creating and Linking New Records
Permissible Links
The links between records in ScienceOrganizer are predefined based on an
analysis of the important relationships among the various information products
gathered by the scientific project team during the course of their work.
The diagram in Figure 3 depicts the relationships defined
between microbial cultures and other types of information records in ScienceOrganizer.
Figure 3: Permissible Links for Microbial Cultures
Searching for Records
Users locate records within ScienceOrganizer by using the search form shown
on the right hand side of the interface in Figure 4.
Users specify the type of record they are looking for, plus a search string
that matches against the record name.
Figure 4: Searching for Records
Auxiliary Tools
Two auxiliary tools interoperate with the ScienceOrganizer
information repository:
Collaborative Image Annotator
Remote Microsensor Controller
Collaborative Image Annotator
This Java applet can be activated from within ScienceOrganizer to
annotate images stored in the repository in GIF or JPEG format. The Collaborative
Image Annotator is a kind of electronic "whiteboarding" tool that allows
the user to type text or scribble and notate on a graphical layer that
sits on top of the repository image. Users can save annotations,
and they become part of the repository image that can be viewed by other
users. In fact, multiple users can annotate an image simultaneously,
and see the other annotations made by remote users in real time. This type
of simultaneous annotation can be useful when using ScienceOrganizer
during a teleconference, for example
Figure 5: Collaborative Image Annotator
.
Remote Microsensor Controller
This is another Java applet that can activated from within ScienceOrganizer.
This program remotely activates a laboratory sensor that collects data
and stores the resulting measurements within ScienceOrganizer. Results
are plotted dynamically on the user's screen as the data is collected.
Multiple users can view data plots simultaneously, in real time.
Figure 6: Remote Microsensor Controller
Design and Usage
ScienceOrganizer was developed in conjunction with scientists in
the Early Microbial
Ecosystems Research Group and the Electron Microscopy Lab at NASA Ames,
and is undergoing trial usage by these groups as well as the Ecogenomics
Focus Group within the NASA Astrobiology
Institute (NAI). New pilot studies are underway with the
Johnson
Space Center Astrobiology Institute for the Study of Biomarkers and
other distributed NASA teams.
Funding
NASA funding for the development of ScienceOrganizer is being jointly
provided by the Cross-Enterprise Technology Development Program, the Intelligent
Systems Program, and the NASA Astrobiology
Institute.
Point of Contact
For further information email
the ScienceDesk group.
Responsible NASA Official: Richard
M. Keller, Ph.D.
Updated October, 2001