Peter Young, Research Scientist, Environmental Research Institute of Michigan, assigned full-time to the Interdisciplinary Data Resources department of the Consortium for International Earth Science Information Network (CIESIN)
This paper documents CIESIN's use of the Web to meet some of its needs to facilitate access to data and information resources via CIESIN's information networks. The CIESIN Webspace is the cumulative result of the collaborative efforts of many individuals over a period of several years. Particularly noteworthy contributions were made by Chris Davis, Tony Monteiro, Peter Morrisette, and Steve Wise.
In the following sections I will discuss a representative but by no means exhaustive sample of the needs CIESIN has met using WWW technology. Note that in several cases CIESIN elected to use non-WWW technology as an important or principal element of the solution; in those cases I have considered it valuable to explain some of the considerations involved. Even in such cases, though, it is important to observe that WWW has been the essential integrating tool that allows CIESIN's information systems to offer a single, coherent user access path to CIESIN's capabilities.
to provide access to and enhance the use of information worldwide, advancing the understanding of human interactions in the environment and serving the needs of science and public and private decision making.
WWW Solution: CIESIN has recognized from the outset that although it is by definition an Information Networking organization, it cannot perform its mission unless its resources are accessible by its entire user community, including that very substantial segment that has low-bandwidth or no Internet connectivity.
CIESIN's WWW resources are designed with bandwidth considerations in mind. Graphics are kept small so as to avoid undue file transfer time. In the future, CIESIN will provide an additional access path to WWW resources by allowing users to telnet to CIESIN and login to an account running Lynx, the textual browser.
CIESIN maintains a gopher presence at infoserver.ciesin.org . CIESIN recognizes the importance of the large installed base of gopher users.
CIESIN also recognizes that a large fraction of the audience connected to the Internet has e-mail access only, and plans therefore to provide an e-mail/ftp interface to its Catalog Services data dissemination system.
CIESIN's User Services department may be reached via e-mail to CIESIN.Info@ciesin.org; by telephone at 517/797-2700 or by surface mail at 2250 Pierce Road, University Center, MI 48710.
CIESIN Need: CIESIN, like many organizations worldwide, frequently faces the problem of explaining what its principal programs are all about to users who have never heard of CIESIN or the programs.
WWW Solution: CIESIN has found that using WWW to disseminate program information has important benefits over traditional approaches--quicker turnaround time in "getting the message out"; the opportunity for interactivity, using simple WWW forms; and reduced expense (fewer four-color brochures to be printed!)
CIESIN Need: The growth of CIESIN's Information Cooperative program has created a need to provide a starting point to answer basic questions such as " what is the Information Cooperative and what is involved in participating?"
The Information Cooperative is the overarching framework by which CIESIN collaborates with organizations that share CIESIN's objective of making relevant data and information resources more readily available. Partners in the Information Cooperative include data centers, government agencies, national and international organizations (Type I nodes), and national steering committees, whose purpose is to facilitate access to information about developing nations and economies in transition ( Type II nodes ). The Information Cooperative became operational on July 31, 1994 and is growing rapidly. There are currently more than fifteen partners in the Information Cooperative that have signed Memorandums of Understanding (MoUs) or Memorandums of Agreement, and a substantial number more are under development. (Organizations interested in facilitating electronic access to their data are encouraged to contact the author for information about how to join the Information Cooperative.)
WWW Solution: CIESIN uses WWW to present Organizational Guides for each partner. The organizational guides provide each partner organization with a simple yet highly effective point of presence on the Internet that includes key information such as an organizational mission statement, pointers to information resources held by the organization, and key points of contact. Using a standard format across all the organizational guides facilitates user access to the information presented. Guides are developed either at CIESIN or at the partner organization and can reside either at CIESIN or at the partner organization or both. This flexible approach provides maximum value to the user, to CIESIN, and to the partner organization, and is in keeping with the distributed spirit of WWW.
CIESIN Need: To provide integrated access to CIESIN's SEDAC program, which is part of NASA's Earth Observing Systems Data and Information System (EOSDIS).
The Socio-Economic Data and Applications Center (SEDAC) at CIESIN is one of the nine nodes that make up EOSDIS. The SEDAC's primary function is to develop new policy-oriented applications and information products that synthesize socioeconomic data with the the earth science and remote sensing data that is available at the 8 other Distributed Active Archives (DAACs) in the EOSDIS system . The secondary function of SEDAC is to serve as a two-way Information Gateway between the socioeconomic and Earth science data and information domains; this function includes some but by no means all of CIESIN's Information Cooperative activities.
WWW Solution: Although an important part of CIESIN's solution to its SEDAC program needs involves the non-WWW CIESIN Catalog Services system--which responds to the functional requirements of EOSDIS--CIESIN has turned to WWW to provide some crucial added value. There is a WWW route into SEDAC via a SEDAC home page which gives information about the SEDAC mission; data domains defined by SEDAC ; and key contacts at SEDAC . In addition, CIESIN uses its WWW Data Set Guides to provide online documentation and user orientation information, which has been identified as an essential functional requirement for interdisciplinary use of social science data.
An interesting point is that NASA/EOSDIS appears to be an example of an entire community which has reached a WWW "tipping point": all the principal organizations (DAACs) participating in the community have WWW servers. It will be interesting to see what implications this has for the growth of EOSDIS and for Web use at EOSDIS sites.
CIESIN Need: To collaborate on infrastructure and data development programs with a wide variety of governmental agencies and international organizations, including the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) , the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) , the Strategic Environmental Research and Development Program (SERDP) , the Office of Science and Technology Policy, and the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) Sustainable Development Network (SDN) . CIESIN also operates the U.S. Global Change Research Information Office (GCRIO) for the Executive Office of the President.
WWW Solution: Observation indicates that news traffic in the comp.infosystems.www.* groups runs at least 7 times the volume of the comp.infosystems.gopher group, which seems to be a leading indicator that development in the Internet community generally is shifting rapidly to WWW rather than gopher. While CIESIN has shifted most of its development efforts to WWW, CIESIN will not hesitate to use gopher when it is the right tool for the circumstances. For example, the GCRIO front end was initially implemented in gopher because of the fact that a large number of foreign users still use gopher as their primary means for Internet resource presentation and discovery. However, GCRIO will soon adopt an interesting approach used by Anne O'Donnell on the NOAA gopher server . GCRIO will maintain gopher as the primary platform, but will add a Lynx link to WWW similar to NOAA's Experimental Link to WWW Servers using Lynx .
CIESIN Need: Support advanced search capabilities across an distributed network compatible with NASA's Earth Observing Systems Data and Information System (EOSDIS).
WWW Solution: CIESIN has used WWW to add a powerful added-value feature to its non-http Catalog Services system. The CIESIN Catalog now includes 266 directory entries describing information resources relevant to CIESIN's mission, including a major collection on the human dimensions of global environmental change. Several hundred more directory entries are in the pipeline for addition to the Catalog. Wherever appropriate and possible, directory entries include URLs. In the Unix version of CIESIN's Catalog Services client, clicking on the URL in a particular directory entry will automatically launch a concurrent version of Mosaic and take the user directly to the designated information resource. (This capability is also under development for the Windows client to Catalog Services.) Thus the user benefits both from the power of a specialized search engine and from the flexibility and transparency of the Web.
Eventually, CIESIN's Webspace will include telnet connections to Catalog Services clients running on CIESIN computers, thus enabling Web users to have transparent access to CIESIN's directory.
CIESIN Need: Provide inexpensive access wherever possible, but provide controlled access where necessary.
WWW Solution: All CIESIN's WWW resources are currently free. CIESIN strives to meet the spirit of the data policy guidelines set out by the U.S. Global Change Research Programme (USGCRP) and the Human Dimensions Programme of the International Social Science Council (ISSC). However, those policies do allow CIESIN and its data providers to recover marginal costs and to control access to resources where circumstances make it necessary. For example, access to information resources must be controlled where there are needs for user authentication ("if you want access to this resource, you must tell us what type of user you are") or cost recovery.
Data and information resources which require authentication and cost recovery services are currently distributed via the non-http Catalog Services ordering system, currently in alpha test. However, CIESIN maintains awareness of authentication and cost recovery mechanisms in WWW, and will consider developing those capabilities in WWW if circumstances warrant.
CIESIN Need: Rapidly grow its information networks.
WWW Solution: One significant advantage of WWW in the context of CIESIN's mission is that technically trained people typically have little difficulty learning basic HTML. This means that a growing organization such as CIESIN can rapidly respond to increased demand for WWW services by reassigning and retraining staff as needed. WWW also supports CIESIN's emphasis on collaborative work with other organizations because IT staff at partner organizations are typically aware of WWW, interested in learning more about it, and able to educate themselves using the abundance of pedagogical resources available on the Web.
CIESIN Need: To provide access to distributed Internet resources relevant to its mission.
WWW Solution: CIESIN has chosen to be selective in linking to information resources which are already online in WWW-linkable technologies. The reason for this selectivity is that CIESIN's emphasis is on linking on the basis of relevant content, as opposed to the common Internet problem of links that are based on compatible technology but have very little quality control. For example, each of CIESIN's seven Thematic Guides includes a selection of Internet resources selected for their high quality and relevance to the human dimensions of global environmental change. ( "It's the content, stupid." ) Here is an example .
CIESIN Need: To support the interdisciplinary integration of data from the social sciences and the natural sciences.
WWW Solution: Part of the target audience for CIESIN's Thematic Guides to the Human Dimensions of Global Environmental Change are global change researchers, expert in their own discipline, who are seeking to come up to speed in related disciplines so that they can perform interdisciplinary research on global change issues. For this reason the Thematic Guides provide systematic, peer-reviewed overviews of the literature, with thorough, hypertexted bibliographies ( example ). Even more important, the Guides include the full text of hundreds of seminal publications. This combination of features provides an unparalleled facility to support scholars in interdisciplinary global change research.
CIESIN Need: To secure permission to extensive collections of proprietary copyrighted material. As stated above, a principal objective of the Thematic Guides project was to provide direct access to the full text of hundreds of scholarly publications.
WWW Solution: CIESIN policy requires that when CIESIN wishes to disseminate a data or information resource via its information networks, it must have written permission from the copyright owner. This applies even in the case of data that would appear to be in the "public domain" (whatever that is--CIESIN's experience with the concept has not been a happy one!) Even if legally speaking a work is not copyrightable (e.g. a product of a U.S. government agency), CIESIN prefers to maintain a reputation for scrupulous respect for the wishes of data producers.
Letters seeking permission to use a work in CIESIN's Thematic Guides were sent to the persons and organizations (typically, publishing companies) who held the copyright for more than 561 data and information resources. The responses fell into several main categories:
Naturally, CIESIN abided by firm "noes". No copyrighted material appears in the Guides without permission. Each information resource cited in the Thematic Guides includes a pop-up permissions template ( example ) which states whether CIESIN has received permission to publish the resource in the Guides and indicates how the user might obtain a hard copy of the resource. The permissions template also provides a convenient location to display customized information on a case-by-case basis. A small number of publishers required the display of special messages or statements.
The most problematic issue for publishers was WWW's capability to deliver files to users' desktops. Most publishers had little difficulty with the idea of allowing online viewing of their materials, but some became uncomfortable when they realized that the technology also allows capturing the complete text of viewed files. CIESIN's perspective is that Web browsing will stimulate, and not undercut, the sale of hard copy books; capturing an ASCII file and reading a thick, ugly laser-printout printout is a far cry from buying a handsome hard cover book and keeping it on one's desk for handy reference.
Lessons learned? Putting diverse copyrighted material on the Web requires a major commitment of resources, but it can be done. The permissions effort for the Thematic Guide was a major project that took one person full time for almost a full year and required at least 25% time from eight to ten other project staff for almost the same amount of time. On the whole, CIESIN was pleasantly surprised that more than 80% of its initial requests eventually met with affirmative responses. The upshot was that CIESIN's Thematic Guides now include several hundred articles from more than 80 publishers--one of the largest, most diverse, and highest quality collections of copyrighted materials available anywhere on the Web.
CIESIN need: Information must be framed within a coherent context.
WWW Solution: CIESIN's broad definition of the proper context for Web information resources includes:
CIESIN has devoted considerable attention to the organization of its home page and Webspace. The organization of the Webspace is driven in a top-down fashion by CIESIN mission and program requirements. CIESIN's Webspace is only a partial mapping of CIESIN's missionspace (i.e. all current and potential data and information resources which are relevant to facilitating understanding of human interactions in the environment). The critical decision that CIESIN has made is that CIESIN will not throw up ad hoc, unorganized areas of Webspace for public browsing.
CIESIN Need: Data and information resources available via CIESIN must be externally reviewed.
WWW Solution: CIESIN has established stringent internal and external review processes to assure that all the WWW resources it puts online are of sufficient quality to withstand searching expert scrutiny. For example, the online Thematic Guides to the Human Dimensions of Global Environmental Change were reviewed by an outside Editorial Board prior to public release. Similarly, the SEDAC Users' Working Group provides independent outside scrutiny of all data and information resources made available via the SEDAC.
CIESIN Need: Data and information resources must be well documented. CIESIN staff have spent the past three years talking with data providers and data users all over the world. One of the most important recurring lessons has been that many if not most data are almost worthless without thorough documentation. Many data providers will not disseminate data through CIESIN unless proper documentation is also provided.
WWW Solution: CIESIN has used WWW to meet these concerns by creating Data Set Guides which provide basic information to orient the user to new data. An innovative feature of some of the Data Set Guides is that they provide searchable data dictionaries using WAIS .
CIESIN Need: Data and information resources must be made visible to the CIESIN user community. CIESIN's data selection efforts have chosen to emphasize providing access to data not previously available elsewhere or not previously available in electronic form. One of the less obvious consequences of this decision is that CIESIN has a need to inform users that these resources are now available at CIESIN.
WWW Solution: CIESIN has begun an Internet visibility effort aimed at drawing users' attention to the unique resources it can make available. The Internet visibility effort uses a variety of Internet channels, including announcements to mailing lists and Usenet newsgroups such as comp.infosystems.announce and comp.infosystems.www.* hierarchy. One lesson learned from this effort is that there may be a need for a comp.infosystems.www.announcements newsgroup.
There is a WWW element to the Internet visibility effort: CIESIN has compiled a list of key sites relevant to its mission and sends e-mail announcements to the webmasters at those sites when new resources come online. In addition, CIESIN has just begun a series of announcement to the NCSA What's New page. A lesson learned from these announcements is that the What's New page is swamped--there is almost a month's delay between submission and posting. At present the What's New system appears to be bogging down. I believe the What's New page needs to be radically reorganized with a distributed subject hierarchy which will facilitate both rapid posting and rapid user access to new information.
A worm's-eye answer is that without the Web, CIESIN's information systems would be much less integrated and much less readily accessible. WWW has enabled CIESIN to harmonize a variety of potentially conflicting information sharing requirements and to provide a rich, coherent context for a highly diverse collection of data and information resources, all in a cost-effective, easily accessible, aesthetically satisfying way.
A broader answer is that without the Web, millions of human beings would never have experienced the rich and diverse set of communications and experiences that have culminated in this 2d International Conference on Mosaic and the WWW . One might as well ask how would the world be different if jazz had never been born. Or one might conclude--along the lines of Jimmy Stewart's despairing, then redeemed, character in Frank Capra's classic film--that "It's a WWW onderful Life."
Frederick Zimmerman graduated from Swarthmore College with Honors in May 1982 with a major in History and a concentration in International Relations. He is a Research Scientist at the Environmental Research Institute of Michigan (ERIM), where he is assigned full time to the Consortium for International Earth Science Information Network (CIESIN) . He attends the evening program at Wayne State University Law School, from which he expects to graduate in May 1996. His wife Cheryl and daughter Kelsey are looking forward to it!
In his (almost nonexistent) spare time, he maintains the World Wide Web Virtual Library on Literature.
Peter Young, a 1984 graduate of Northern Michigan University in mathematics, is a research engineer at ERIM. He has worked on a variety of image processing, analysis and display applications, primarily on Unix platforms. Since January of 1994 he has been assigned to CIESIN, focussing on development of the CIESIN WWW server with special attention toward the Thematic Guides. This effort has entailed linking hundreds of essays, articles, images and indices into a coherent guide to human interactions with the environment. Mr. Young is currently pursuing a MS in Interdisiplinary Technology at Eastern Michigan University.
Internet e-mail: Frederick.Zimmerman@ciesin.org