The International Archives of the Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Spatial Information Sciences. Vol. XXXVII. Part B4. Beijing 2008
135
With regard to licensed data and the possibility to download
large data sets, it is essential to develop a safe and stable web-
interface (see 2.4). Therefore the web-interface provides several
features depending on the authorization of the TR32DB visitors.
Guests (not authorized TR32DB users) of the TR32DB web-
interface are only able to view general project information that
contain the cross cutting groups and clusters including project
sections, their duties and participants. They are able to view and
search some project data that is disposable for every web-
interface visitor.
Authorized users (only project participants) of the TR32DB
web-interface have further opportunities than guests have. They
are permitted to search for explicit project data and their
metadata, the project phases, or topics (climate, soil, land use or
publications). They are allowed to obtain more detailed,
extended, internal project data and research results. Furthermore,
they are able to download these project data. The web-interface
also provides temporary download of purchased geodata
(limited by license agreements) with password protection. A
principal duty of the web-interface is to enable the input of
corresponding metadata to project data for authorized TR32DB
users. Each authorized user is able to view all data of his project
section that is stored in the AFS and has no metadata yet. By
selection of a data set the user is able to feed metadata into the
database. Depending on the type of data there will be a
particular metadata input wizard. Users are able to enter
metadata like title, description, instrument or creator as well as
the access restriction of the data set. Finally, there is an
opportunity to add an explanation document.
The integrated WebGIS of the web-interface is developed to
access the spatial geodatabase with the purpose to illustrate the
purchased geodata and the prospective spatial-related research
results. Another functionality of the WebGIS is to generate
uniform map layouts for all TR32 participants that may be used
for publications. Further GIS-analysis-functions e.g. overlay,
statistics will be included in the WebGIS.
4. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION
Spatial data infrastructure or rather data management in huge
interdisciplinary research projects are becoming more and more
important in context of the current discussion about the
Infrastructure for Spatial Information in Europe (INSPIRE) and
consequential for the national geodata infrastructure (GDI) of
the European Union member states including metadata
management (Bernard et al. 2005 and Yeung et al. 2007).
The central data infrastructure and management within the
scope of a huge interdisciplinary research project involves
different problems that contain or rather have the requirement to
store heterogeneous data sets in a explicit and ordered structure
including their metadata (Miickschel et al. 2007). In the context
of the computer-based developing and enhancements of e.g.
data standards there are different process approaches. Data
management systems are also advanced due to the exchange of
administration experiences.
Examples of research projects with a central project data
management in Germany are: the Collaborative Research
Centre (SFB) 552 (http://www.storma.de) and SFB 299
(http://www.sfb299.de/) as well as the Research Union (RU)
402 (http://www.bergregenwald.de/) and RU 816
(http://www.tropicalmountainforest.org/).
The project data management structure of the SFB 552 and the
SFB 299 offer a similar structure. The SFB 552 benefits from
the gathered experiences of the SFB 299. Both use open-source-
software that includes the LAMP components (Linux, Apache,
MySQL and PHP/Perl) and the open-source Content-
Management-System TYP03 as well as the UMN Mapserver
and PostgreSQL with PostGIS to visualize and store geodata
(Miickschel et al. 2007).
By contrast the developments of the RU 816 just benefit in
some basic parts from the RU 402; the RU 816 is rather a
further technical development of the RU 402. The RU 402 is a
combination of file system with a corresponding relational
metadatabase. The RU 816 is more a complex ‘data warehouse
system’ approach where all project data including actual project
data with corresponding metadata is stored directly in a
database. The RU 816 is implemented by a MySQL database
and a realization with java server pages. The difference between
theses systems is the opportunity to store, search and download
single data files. The RU 402 approach is more appropriate to
interdisciplinary projects in contrast to the RU 816 approach
that is more qualified for interdisciplinary to integrative
orientated research projects (Nauss et al. 2007).
There are different projects overseas which realize similar data
management approaches. One example is the Canadian Carbon
Program (CCP) which is represented by the internet-based Data
Information System (DIS) (http://fluxnet.ccrp.ec.gc.ca/). The
project data storage is realized in a clearly structured folder
system. It is just permitted to save project data files in ASCII
format. The upload and submission of project data and
corresponding metadata is implemented with FTP. The data
access operates with FTP or seamless links from the DIS
(Fluxnet Canada 2004). Some developments of the CCP are not
able to enhance within the TR32. The application of FTP is for
example not permitted within the TR32 due to security reasons
at the ZAIK/RRZK. Furthermore, the use of ASCII is not
realizable. Saving all data in this common file format has the
advantage of being widely accessible and useable. The
disadvantage is that not all data can be formatted in such a file
format and that those data files tend to be very large. Without
the usage of a database it is more difficult to administrate and
enquired the huge amount of project data.
In contrast to the mentioned examples above, the TR32 follows
other interdisciplinary research goals and tries to combine the
advantages of the described systems. With regard to different
scales of data (SVA) and a prognosticated huge amount of big
data files the TR32DB is developed in a secure, stable, sorted,
and well organized structure within the environment of an
institution (ZAIK/RRZK). This will ensure the availability of
the database after the end of the project. The structure enables
upload, download, and high sophisticated backup of project
data as well as metadata. The whole system is developed in
cooperation and with the agreement of the local computing
centre.
REFERENCES
AFS, 2008, http://www.openafs.org (accessed 14. April 2008).