SOI TN 95-123
SOI Data and Information Services on the World Wide Web
Richard S. Bogart, Philip H. Scherrer, Margaret B. Stehle,
Jayasree K. Suryanarayanan & Karen Tian
Center for Space Science & Astrophysics, Stanford Univerity
Table of contents
Abstract
The SOHO Solar Oscillations Investigation (SOI) will use the World Wide Web
in several ways: as a public information service providing background and
sample data to the public; as a source of rapid access quick-look data for
other experimenters and observers; as the network hub for data distribution
services to team members and guest investigators; as the online library site
for documentation; and as a planning and operational tool to be used by
team members in the definition and conduct of observational and analysis
campaigns. In this poster/demonstration we display those services already
on the Web and discuss the implementation of other planned services.
The SOHO Solar Oscillations Investigation (SOI) has adopted the tools of
the World Wide Web as the primary network communications service to
provide timely information of interest to team members, other scientists,
and the public. The primary functions of the Web services are to provide:
In this poster-demonstration we discuss and illustrate the various
services, both extant and planned, of the SOI Web. The poster is itself
accesible on the World Wide Web at either of the URL's
http://rick.stanford.edu/pubs/Asilomar_3.html or
http://soi.stanford.edu/general/TechNotes/95.123.html.
On the Web the hyperlinks
can of course be followed to illustrate the features discussed.
General Information
As with most World Wide Web servers, the main page and registered entry point,
at URL http://soi.stanford.edu/,
provides general information about the SOI and an index to major categories
of data services. This includes a brief introduction
About SOI,
information (including references to personal and institutional home pages)
about members of the
SOI Team,
information about forthcoming and past
Team Meetings and related scientific and technical conferences, and an
archive of SOI Newsletters (not yet on line). The main and general information
pages attempt to provide the usual complement of external hyperlinks to
related information services on the Web.
The current general information pages have been designed with the SOI
participants in mind, as a way of introducing the more useful technical
features we are constructing. We hope to significantly expand their
breadth, however, to include background and infomational materials suitable
to general browsers and especially students and educators. We are convinced
that with its ease of access and enormous potential audience, the Web can
provide the ideal medium for communicating the excitement and challenges
of this scientific endeavor to the public from whom we must draw both
support and future participation. If we can find support, we would like
to provide analysis tools and sample data for educational exercises. We
are currently exploring links with various educational organizations to
do so.
Quick-Look Data
The Web provides the ideal mechanism for distribution of quick-look data,
i.e. data that have not been definitively analyzed, but are made
available as soon as possible to the scientific community for purposes of
planning and conducting other observations. SOI has the potential to
provide full-disk magnetograms, white-light images, Dopplergrams, and
other more exotic diagnostics such as maps of integrated line-of-sight
velocity power on a very regular basis, without interruptions or variations
in quality. The potential users of such quick-look data include the SOI
team itself and other experiments on SOHO in planning and coordinating
observing campaigns, ground-based observatories in conducting both supporting
observations and their own programs, and solar and space-weather forecasters.
Quick-look data services have not yet been implemented. Several formats
are appropriate, depending on the nature of the data and the potential
applications: HTML-based text and tables, GIF and JPEG images, MPEG
movies, and binary (FITS and/or CDF) data for downloading. So far we have
only made provision for data of the last type to be furnished to the SOHO
Experiment Operations Facility, and this is outside the context of the Web.
Data Services
The enormous quantity and variety of data to be processed in the conduct
of the SOI has required the development and implementation of a fairly
sophisticated database system for tracking data and making them available
to both the processing pipeline and the users. This system, the Data
Storage and Distribution Service (DSDS) is being interfaced to the Web
through query services to provide data access through ASCII reports,
forms-based queries to the database catalog, and requests for export of
selected datasets to the user.
Keywords
Data Access
Data Export
Facilities will be provided to export data from Stanford. A Data Request
form will be provided to fill out the details regarding the data needed and
submitted to Stanford DSDS operator. Depending on the nature, size and type
of data the operator would send the data by 8mm tapes or copy to local disks.
There are presently over 120 SOI Technical Notes documenting various facets
of the investigation, and they continue to be generated at the rate of roughly
20 per year. These notes have been aimed at internal use, although they do
include a number of preprints of scientific contributions. (This poster
is SOI-TN-95-123 for example.) So far the primary mode of distribution has
been on paper, and we have consequently tolerated a wide variety of formats,
whatever has suited the authors, including plain text, Rich Text Format,
FrameMaker, Word for Windows, TeX, PostScript, and HTML.
We are gradually putting as much of this
body of working information online through the Web as possible. A hypertext
Index of Technical Notes is available, referencing each online
document. Since the large majority of the tech notes are not in HTML format,
the index gives information about the format of each note, so the reader
can know whether appropriate tools exist to view the document. So far
only about 20% of the notes are actually online. We are in the process
of assembling as many as possible and providing translations into HTML in
suitable cases.
A number of man pages for the data processing and analysis software
have been converted to HTML format and placed online in the directory at URL
http://soi.stanford.edu/manpages/. This project is not yet
incorporated in the main SOI Web services; it needs to be
brought and kept up to date to be of use. Even more important, the individual
man pages need to be indexed and described in a software user's guide.
Web pages also provide a suitable medium for preparation and dissemination
of scientific papers, but we have only begun to experiment with this
possibility. A few of our contributions to the SOHO Workshop on
Helioseismology at Asilomar (obviously including this one) have been
prepared and will remain on the Web, but we do not yet have a formal
structure for organizing group publications outside that of the Technical
Notes. An obvious advantage to the Web is the incorporation of images,
but the lack of support in Web browsers for mathematical symbols and
typography is a significant drawback.
We use the World Wide Web not only to provide information and public
data, but as an active tool for defining science objectives,
planning and conducting the mission operations and attendant data
processing as well as distribution of data to team members.
SOI is organized into a number of Science Teams with responsibility for
various aspects of the mission. As the team members are
widely dispersed geographically, the Web will be used to
provide them with operational views into all aspects of the
data flow from observations through the production of
organized calibrated datasets. The same tools will be
available to team members and guest investigators
conducting individual science investigations.
The core scientific program of SOI is to be achieved through a set of
well-defined
Team Science Objectives. The activities of each of the
science teams are described in detail under each of a set of
Team Science pages. There is a page of
Guidelines
for establishing, planning, and conducting investigations.
We also provide a form for
Individual Investigation Proposals.