NMR cyberinfrastructure: Web-based virtual file system for managing distributed NMR data

A key aspect of data cyberinfrastructure is the middleware for managing distributed scientific data with services for organizing, publishing and preserving data entities in a collaborative, data sharing environment. In this paper, we describe a virtual web-based file system for managing NMR (Nuclear Magnetic Resonance) data from multiple, distributed NMR spectrometers across the campus of UC San Diego. The environment provides an authenticated, web-based, single point of entry for users to access their data from any of the NMR systems. An intuitive graphical user interface allows users to view, annotate, search, refresh, upload, and download their own data files or files belonging to a group, based on user privileges. We provide details of the system, including the design of the NMR Portal, the central NMR data repository, and the data harvesting process.