Seamlessly collaborate, share, extend, version, and scale science experiments using a workbench

Abstract: 

Issues related to Earth science collaboration are twofold.  First, data, algorithms, and analysis results are scattered at different locations, usually behind complex security and firewall.  Secondly, handful scientific collaboration platforms that offer sharing require scientists to learn new tools.  There is high cost and big learning curve associated with these tools.  To address these two issues, Earth science Collaborative Workbench (CWB) is being developed.  CWB enhances scientist’s existing research environment by extending the tools that they are already familiar with, via plugins.  These plugins allow CWB to provide collaboration capabilities directly but transparently within scientist’s existing research tools using cloud.  Cloud integration from CWB is seamless.  CWB interfaces to cloud services for storage, versioning, and compute resources.  Additionally, CWB also interfaces with a cloud-based middleware that includes a catalog that tracks and mediates the collaboration.