[Go-essp-tech] Minutes: 9/30/09 ESG Model Metadata Demonstration
Sylvia Murphy
murphys at ucar.edu
Thu Oct 1 14:10:55 MDT 2009
Present:
Eric Guilyardi
Julien Chastang
Luca Cinquini
Serguei Nikonov
John Krasting
Gerry Devine
Chris Rehbein
Lori Steadman
Sophie Valcke
Marie-Pierre Moine
Aparna Radhakrishnan
On 9/30/09 the Curator team conducted its latest demonstration of
the developmental state of the model metadata display within ESG-
CET. Thanks to everyone who participated particularly those from
GFDL, who in addition to their participation provided us with our
sample CMIP5 instance. The following items were covered:
* A general review of the trackback for those who had not seen it.
* A status report on the changes requested at our last demonstration.
* A demonstration of the enhancements made to the trackback tab
structure including the introduction of sub-tabs, a new experiments
tab, and a back to search target feature.
* A demonstration of the new definitions pop-ups capability.
* An initial look at a CMIP5 example from GFDL.
* A quick examination of a CMIP3 simulation instance harvested from
the ESG database.
* A description of the design for the new component navigation
(completion is targeted for the Jan 2010 release).
PREVIOUS ACTION ITEMS:
The following action items from the June 2009 demonstrations have
been implemented:
* Definition pop-ups
* An "all properties" tab
* A link to GFDLs gridspec documentation on the grids tab
* A test of access to a controlled vocabulary server
The following item is carried over
* Connect the grid netCDF files to the grid tab and the grid metadata
ACTION ITEMS :
There was much helpful discussion about the structure and utility of
the ESG model metadata trackback pages. Below is a summary of the
generated action items:
1) Move "Year released" from the technical properties tab to the
basic properties tab
2) Add a description of the date format to the definitions of
X_StartDate & X_EndDate
3) Remove links to components in the grid tree
4) Change the simulation search on the search interface so that
simulations are only associated with full models - sub-components of
simulations won't be returned as search results (Luca)
5) Define the targets on the search interface somehow (Luca)
6) Fix synch issue with the esg.owl file. The latest file with all
corrections made to the definitions was accidently ovewritten.
The following is a summary of some of the general discussion:
* Several participants reiterated the need for a better component
navigation mechanism. Users are having difficulty determining where
they are in the component tree. Sylvia described the design for the
new component navigation that was hashed out after the demonstration
dry run. The full fledged component navigation will be in place by
the January release. In the short term, a "back to most recent
search target" button has been added to the trackback pages.
Everyone seemed satisfied with this and how it functioned including
the removal of the link if the user returns to the initial search
target.
* Sylvia reported that Metafor is developing a list of key properties
for the various components. These properties include things like the
basic approximations used in the model and some geographical
information. Eric suggested that this information would be best
displayed under the basic properties tab. He warned that he thought
there would be too many to display. This will be examined once all
the properties are in the system and a suitable example created.
Marie-Pierre agreed to provide Sylvia with a sneak peak of these
properties.
* Several questions arose about the names of the components in the
tree and whether or not there was an ESG naming convention in
place. Sylvia indicated that the names of search targets (models,
model components, simulations, datasets, and software tools) are up
to the users. ESG's software is designed to display what it is
given. It is possible that Metafor may wish to establish a naming
convention for simulations rather than let the users decide.
* Sylvia asked the Metafor representatives if they wanted to see
URLs and citations treated differently on the reference tab. Eric
looked at the questionnaire and reported that it was likely that
references would come in as strings (e.g. a citation), as well as
URLs. Sylvia reported that ESG could handle both. Eric suggested
that Sylvia look
carefully at references in the latest questionnaire (alpha 5). He
indicated there are other fields in the questionnaire that should not
necessarily be displayed.
* Sylvia mentioned that another user of ESG was thinking about the
need for references on individual controlled vocabulary terms. To
be clear, these are the values of the attributes and not the names
of the attributes. e.g. name="Mixed Layer Momentum Scheme", value =
"TKE turbulence closure"). The reference would exist on the value
"TKE turbulence closure". Marie-Pierre indicated that it is
Metafor's long- term goal to provide definitions for all controlled
vocabulary values. She thought the logical place to add a reference
was to this definition.
* Sylvia reported that she had examined the questionnaire (alpha 4)
to better understand conformance, boundary conditions, and initial
conditions. She asked the Metafor representatives how they might
like to see these items displayed. First, they thought that
conformance should only appear on the trackback for the root of the
simulation tree. Sylvia indicated that if the output of the
questionnaire comes in that way, that would happen automatically.
Second, they thought that the initial conditions, boundary
conditions, and conformances should appear as subcategories on the
experiment tab. They anticipate conformance referencing initial and
boundary condition attributes (e.g. "This simulation conforms to
experiment X because of initial condition Y"). Sylvia indicated
that ESG could handle strings of this sort without difficulty and
could display them in a conformance section. Sylvia anticipates
having these items included in the ESG display by the January release.
* Lori Steadman of GFDL agreed to work with Sylvia to identify some
scientific properties that are well defined for the GFDL instance.
Sylvia will then work with Metafor on the definitions and labels for
these properties and get them into the ESG ontology. Julien will
modify the trackback display accordingly. The goal is to have these
into the system for the October release. The remaining scientific
properties are scheduled to be in by the January release.
* Sylvia, Cecelia, and Luca plan to examine the entire user
experience from datasets to simulations, various search scenarios
etc. The purpose of this examination is to ensure the system is well
defined for a public release that contains limited metadata
instances. This may result in changes to ESG's search interface.
-----------------------------------------------------
Sylvia Murphy
Project Manager
Earth System Modeling Project
http://www.esmf.ucar.edu
National Center for Atmospheric Research
1850 Table Mesa Drive
Boulder, CO 80305
303-497-1882
murphys at ucar.edu
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