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Report

Teaser, summary, work performed and final results

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - EVER-EST (European Virtual Environment for Research - Earth Science Themes)

Teaser

Summary

In Earth Science terabytes of data are produced daily with vital information about our planet and its evolution. A number of non-resolved issues limit many scientists capability to fully exploit these data and properly share and preserve their research; in many cases they work in isolation with limited possibility to easily rely on collaboration with their colleagues. At the same time, the general public is generally unaware of findings in scientific research, due to the lack of mechanism to properly share information between the scientific world and the generic audience, including decision makers.
The EVER-EST project aims tackling these problems by developing a generic Virtual Research Environment (VRE) providing earth scientists with the means to manage both the data involved in their disciplines and the scientific methods applied in their observations and modelling. The EVER-EST VRE allows scientists to develop their research and to attribute their findings, validate and share them within the scientific community or the general public. EVER-EST leverages previous work results of several EU R&D projects on Earth Science data catalogue federation, access, search and retrieval, data processing and long-term preservation. Such data management capabilities have been augmented with models, techniques and tools necessary for the preservation of scientific methods and their implementation as scientific workflows, which are increasingly used in the Earth Science domain. Central to this approach is the concept of Research Objects (ROs) as semantically rich aggregations of data, methods and people in scientific investigations. ROs allow encapsulating scientific knowledge and provide a mechanism for preserving, sharing and discovering assets of reusable research. The EVER-EST VRE is the first RO-centric native infrastructure leveraging the notion of Research Objects and their application in observational rather than experimental disciplines. The project has followed a user-centric approach with four real use cases driving the implementation of the VRE. EVER-EST user communities range from bio-marine researchers (Sea Monitoring use case), to Common Foreign and Security Policy institutions (Land Monitoring for security use case), natural hazards forecasting systems (Natural Hazards use case), and disaster and risk management teams (Supersites use case). The resulting requirements for heterogeneous data management, preservation of data and related workflows and user experiences, data exploitation and other e-research services for communication, cross-validation, sharing of science products, have been addressed through the proposed EVEREST VRE solution which is now operational. The EVER-EST project has a duration of 36 months.

Work performed

The project started in October 2015. Work performed during the reporting period:
WP1 (Project Management): Periodic Reviews prepared and successfully held with the EC. Deliverable D1.1 Project Quality and Management Plan updated regularly to reflect changes in the project. Chair of plenary teleconferences (twice per month) and meetings (twice per year). All WP deliverables submitted to the EC.
WP2 (Community Building and Dissemination): WP2 is responsible for the engagement of the VRCs user communities to the EVER-EST vision to sustain reproducibility of research results and scientific domains interdisciplinary, that together with science ethic and gender in science are recognised as four of the main grand challenges of Science in 2030. Dissemination activities after the deployment of the final release of the VRE, were focused on a wider audience, with the pre-selected communities acting as evangelist and early adopter of the VRE to demonstrate its value to potential new communities and new customer segments identified by the sustainability plan.
WP3 (VRE Use Cases): During the second phase of the project, functionalities of the VRE have been evaluated against the VRCs use case scenarios and requirements to demonstrate reproducibility and inter-disciplinary science and sustain FAIR principles and Open science. The results are documented in the VRC Use Case Demonstration Reports and Final Assessment report which also provide the results of the assessment performed to measure the impact and value proposition of EVER-EST service portfolio.
WP4 (Research Objects in Earth Science): WP4 has worked on multiple fronts during period 1 involving the adoption of research object concepts, technologies and work practices in Earth Sciences.
WP5 (VRE Design and Development): The system architecture has been agreed among technical partners and all related services as from WP5 tasks were implemented and updated by the end of WP5 activity (M20). Currently RO-HUB can interface with all components of the infrastructure allowing an almost transparent use of ROâ€™s into the Earth Science domain. Services for Virtual Machine (VM) creation and deployment, data search based on Open Search, GUI and User experience enhancement, sharing, preserving and publishing research have been defined and implemented according to schedule.
WP6 (VRE Deployment and Operations): The VRE has been consolidated and fully deployed. The Operations and Maintenance phase has been the main focus of the WP over the last year of the project. WP6 managed the collection of feedbacks from the user communities by means of formal anomaly reports and requests for improvement. The detected malfunctions have been fixed, thus improving the quality of the system. Several improvements have been addressed during the period.

Final results

EVER-EST will facilitate research and implementation of innovative ideas across different Earth Science communities by providing easy data access and sharing of knowledge, resources, tools, fostering collaboration between researchers and increasing their productivity and creativity. It will contribute to the uptake of collaborative research results and data sharing by new disciplines, research communities and stakeholders. It will lay the foundations for establishing a network of VREs in different application domains based on the RO concept, and will support European ICT industries that could benefit from the project, disclosing a possible market for developments and investments in scientific e-infrastructures, services and tools.
The EVER-EST VRE will provide scientists with tools and services for:
â€¢ Easy interpretation (and consequently facilitating usage) of data, by associating them with the information required to understand them;
â€¢ Access to typical user experiences and workflows used for the generation of relevant products for the purposes of re-use or refinement;
â€¢ Easy discovery of heterogeneous data and science products from a wide range of providers;
â€¢ Facilitating development and refinement of algorithms and models;
â€¢ Publishing and storing of scientific results with full traceability of input data and the models used;
â€¢ Online collaboration for the generation of application-oriented research products addressing user needs;
â€¢ Preservation of all the knowledge necessary to enhance the comprehension of newly created or pre-existing data.
It will impact data providers through enhancing capability to monitor needs and trends in the Earth Science community, to engage them by providing innovative services for data exploitation and use, and to preserve information on end user experiences to potentially improve and develop the knowledge associated with the data.