A Cyber-Infrastructure for a Virtual Observatory and Ecological Informatics System -VOEIS

The Virtual Observatory and Ecological Informatics System (VOEIS) provides a framework for data acquisition, analysis, model integration, and display of data products from completed workflows including geospatially explicit models, graphs from statistical analyses, and GIS displays of classified ecological attributes on the landscape. VOEIS is intended to complement the capabilities of the Consortium of Universities for the Advancement of Hydrologic Science (CUAHSI) Hydrologic Information System (HIS) by providing sound data and metadata management capabilities for field observations and analytical lab actions. Functionality provided by VOEIS is supported by a Field Data Model (FDM) that enhances the limited geospatial capabilities of CUAHSI’s Observations Data Model (ODM). Access to VOEIS data and metadata is also made accessible via programmatic APIs which facilitates integration with other service oriented “e-Science” architectures and distributed frameworks. Keywords—framework; cyber infrastructure; data and meta-data management