Ocean observatories and social computing: Potential and progress

In December 2009, after years of planning, preparations and extensive infrastructure deployment, the world's first regional-scale underwater ocean observatory was open for business. NEPTUNE Canada opened its instrument network and data archive to free and open access by anyone willing to register for an account. Thus, we have embarked on a journey to transform our observatory into an online platform for collaborative, multidisciplinary e-science. Four main areas of Internet-mediated activity characterize e-science: data provision, analysis & visualization, collaboration and publication. Data provision entails making our large and ever expanding data archive accessible and searchable through the Web. To support online analysis & visualization, tools must be developed, which allow scientists to display and manipulate a wide variety of data products derived from measurements gathered by the various instruments attached to the observatory. Virtual collaboration can be fostered by making it easy for groups of geographically or institutionally separated researchers to design experiments, control instruments, share analyses and discuss conclusions within a shared web-based workspace. Publication and dissemination of research findings can be supported by tools that help researchers manage and contribute to both informal outreach (e.g. blogs) and the iterative review and revision cycles required for formal manuscript authoring. E-science promises some tantalizing advantages over traditional approaches. By providing through-the-web access to a large multivariate data archive, researchers are freed from the burdens of data storage and management. Additionally, the archive can simultaneously serve multiple users at multiple institutions in widely separated locations. Community-driven development of analysis routines allows users to visualize the data using both existing and custom-created code. E-science also encourages higher levels of collaboration, allowing researchers to form virtual teams able to tackle complex problems, where expertise in a variety of disciplines is required. Finally, by opening new avenues for interaction between researchers and students or members of the general public, e-science can influence both the questions scientists choose to address and the scope of their investigations. Transforming the promise of e-science into reality, however, is fraught with both technical and organizational challenges. The sheer volume of data records (50+ Tb/year) and observation density pose significant challenges for observatory and researcher alike, requiring new data mining approaches to be developed. Evolving and sometimes competing data format standards must be grappled with. Questions of data reliability and security must be answered. New protocols for protecting intellectual property within an open data environment must be defined. Ground rules for providing equitable access to finite shared resources (eg. underwater camera control time) must be defined. Cultural, institutional and motivational barriers to distributed decision-making and virtual team coordination must be overcome. NEPTUNE Canada is working to address the many challenges of e-science through a wide range of possible solutions. To help researchers make more optimal use of our large and growing data archives, we are developing a facility that allows users to upload and run custom data analysis routines on NEPTUNE Canada servers. Code authors will be able to retain privacy of over their routines, or if desired, publish their code for sharing and possible additional development with the larger user community. NEPTUNE Canada is developing other tools in the form of web and mobile applications for data search and subscription, event detection, interactive data plotting and real-time collaborative multi-user device control. Other custom tools will give users the ability to search, browse and annotate streaming media, then integrate and compile playlists from multiple sources to produce custom movies. Finally, the "glue" for an effective e-science working environment is under development in the form of web-based facilities to support and encourage project team coordination, communications, collaboration and electronic publication.