From ViRBO

Contents Objective ViRBO Interfaces The standard web interface The search interface Tools Collaboration Visualization Search Data Access

1. Objective

• Summarize existing ViRBO web interfaces
• Summarize existing ViRBO tools

Throughout the presentation, discuss ideas for modifying interfaces and tools for RBSP purposes.

For more detailed information about ViRBO's status and goals, see presentations/2010AGU.

2. ViRBO Interfaces

There are two ways of finding information about radiation belt-related data, software, and tools using ViRBO:

1. A standard web interface created by a scientist which highlights important information in a structured manner.
2. A search interface that returns a list of documents given a constrained search.

2.1. The standard web interface

• Contains links to information about data. Uses the MediaWiki content management system (same as used by Wikipedia)
• Is used to communicate to scientists everything that we know about a given data product
• Is frequently updated
• Often extracts data from or links to information ViRBO's search database
• Example: POES
• Example: RBW

Discussion

• Suggest changes to the http://virbo.org/RBSP page
• Use the wiki to post documents and notes for informal science meetings?

2.2. The search interface

• Not for the general user
• All structured metadata is stored here, including SPASE records
• Some of the text and images shown on the POES page was extracted from SPASE records stored in the search database
• All of the information on the POES page could be obtained by browsing through the results of a search on the search interface.

Discussion

• Post a link to a special searches on the RBSP project page. Example: rbsp (Search results are available in XML and can easily be transformed into a more attractive HTML page.)

3. Tools

• The ordering here is roughly the order of emphasis in the project.
• We are now focusing on Search and Data Access.

3.1. Collaboration

Primary effort has been in posting agenda, meeting notes, and documents to the ViRBO wiki. Motivation:

• Provide a community tool
• Centralize (and obtain) information
• Build awareness of project
• Examples: http://virbo.org/Resources/Science

3.2. Visualization

Primary effort has been in development of

• Image servlet - hides all of the GUI complexities. Example: click first plot link at [1]
• Web applet (reveals some GUI controls). Example: click plot that appears after clicking a plot link at [2]
• Webstart application (has everything)

Discussion

• (Already planned) Develop a set of RBSP bookmarks that are designed by RBSP scientists and updated as-needed
• Develop a set of RBSP data views using iSWA or ART? (We are pursuing the possibility of them integrating Autoplot-generated png files into their system.)

3.3. Search

Primary effort has been in the development of basic SPASE Records that describe satellites and their instruments. Example (draft) [3]

Discussion

• (Already planned) Create metadata for important digital objects related to mission. Connect metadata to other metadata. Example search on rbspice
• Set up service whereby any document or news item sent to virbo+rbsp@virbo.org is either automatically posted or posted by human. We now have a service for virbo+news@virbo.org.

3.4. Data Access

• Any data viewed in Autoplot can be saved to disk as an ASCII file.
• We are developing a data service that allows power users to pull data into analysis software without needing to
  1. understand a file format
  2. purchase or use a special analysis package
  3. install new software

Discussion

• The service may not be ready for wide-spread use by launch time
• Better to maintain a page linked to from http://virbo.org/RBSP that describes all of the different ways that people pull RBSP data into analysis software and provide links to routines and relevant web pages? We already have a similar page for dealing with CDF files.