Data is an integral part of scientific research, and data size problems have become endemic as computation and analyses are producing an increasingly large amount of data that research teams are inevitably tasked with managing these rapidly growing data collections. Existing solutions are largely focused upon providing storage space, whether local or in the cloud, and a familiar folder tree-style hierarchy. While these file system solutions work, they separate the data from essential contextual information, such as metadata, descriptive text and equations, job execution parameters, visualizations, and on-going data discussion among the researchers. Important discussions, for instance, remain in email logs or forums, while descriptive text is left in README files or embedded in those same email logs and forums. This distribution of contextual information makes it harder to keep track of it all and keep data from being orphaned or misinterpreted. A more unified approach is needed that keeps data and context together within the same storage system.
This interactive demonstration shows key features of building blocks for data sharing and data management developed by the SeedMe2 (Stream, Encode, Explore and Disseminate My Experiments) project. It enables research teams to manage, share, search, visualize, and present their data in a web-based environment using an access-controlled, branded, and customizable website they own and control. It supports storing and viewing data in a familiar tree hierarchy but also supports formatted annotations, lightweight visualizations, and threaded comments on any file/folder. The system can be easily extended and customized to support metadata, job parameters, and other domain and project-specific contextual items. The software is open source and available as an extension to the popular Drupal content management system.
Project website: http://dibbs.seedme.orgTrial website: http://sandbox.seedme.orgCitation
Chourasia, Amit; Nadeau, David; Wong, Mona; Norman, Michael (2018): SeedMe2: Extensible data sharing websites for teams. figshare. Paper. https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.7070291.v1
