Presentation summarizes my work at the Kansas Biological Survey to construct a cyberinfrastructure in support of ecological forecasting. The goal was to identify, organize, metadata, and publish databases available at the KBS. The system uses a hybrid stack built around ESRI ArcGIS Server and the metadata catalog GeoNetwork.

1. Constructing a first-generation
cyberinfrastructure to support
ecological forecasting
Understanding and Forecasting Ecological Change: 3rd Annual Symposium
February 20, 2009
Joshua S. Campbell

2. Cyberinfrastructure
 Cyberinfrastructure (CI) is the application of information
technology to the problem of efficiently connecting
data, computers, and people with the goal of enabling
the discovery of novel scientific theories and knowledge.
 Utilizes IT
 Connecting
 Distributed science

3. Vision
 To share KBS data via the web
 Identify, Organize, Metadata, Publish
 Designed to support ecological forecasting
 Land cover
 Kansas Field Station and Ecological Reserves (KSR)
 Hydrology

4. Motivation
 UnrealizedValue
 Network Effects
 NSF’s vision of Cyberinfrastructure
 Sharing is the new research paradigm

5. Stakeholders
 Scientific Community
 Increase knowledge inside ecoforecasting community about
available datasets
 Participate with a global research community
 Public Outreach
 Provide decision-makers and citizens access to KBS science

6. Ecoforecasting and CI
 Utilizes a range of atmospheric, geological, hydrological,
ecological, biological, and cultural data
 Sorry if I forgot one…
 Geography is the unifying framework
 GIS provides the computational framework
 Maps are a primary data interface

7. How will users interact with the data?

8. Designing Cyberinfrastructure
(National Academies Workshop, June 2007, http://cyberinfrastructure.us/)
 Open standards
 Proprietary platforms (linking)
 Open source software
 Open access publishing
 Simplified data licenses (Science Commons)
 Access management systems

9. Data Organization
Datasets
Web Services
Applications

10. System Design
 3 Components
 ArcGIS Server
 GeoNetwork
 KARS website redesign
 Redundant and Discoverable

11. Demos
 KSRWeb Map
 GeoNetwork
 Interactive Map
 Data Download
 Google Earth
 ArcGIS REST Services

12. Web application
is ‘consuming’
two web services

13. Each web service is
built from individual
datasets
Hyperlink provides
direct access to the
GeoNetwork
metadata catalog

14. GeoNetwork provides
search capabilities based on:
keyword
geographic location
KBS division
type of data

15. A built-in interactive map
viewer allows data to be
visualized and queried
prior to download

16. Data can be downloaded in
a number of formats,
including shapefile, KML,
WMS and REST

18. Provides direct access
to the ESRI REST
services page

19. HTML representation of all services running on the server

20. REST services can be viewed in a number of clients

23. Google can find and index both attributes and geography

24. Supported Interfaces and Operations allow direct
programmatic access to the service. This allows the data
to be used in distributed modeling applications, without
having to be downloaded.

25. Next steps
 Increase functionality of the system
 Add more datasets
 Create ‘geoprocessing’ web services
 Increase users
 New dynamic-HTML website

27. Challenges
 Technology
 Scientific research and IT are two distinct skillsets
 WebGIS is not the same as desktop GIS
 Culture
 Data is power (or so researchers think)
 F.U.D. (Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt)
 Extra work to provide metadata

28. Questions…?
 KBS system is still in beta
 System is expected to be operational this summer
 Email
 jsc1@ku.edu