Rebecca Koskela

and 4 more

The EarthCube Technology & Architecture Committee formed a Resource Registry Working Group (WG) to develop a framework for a registry of EarthCube (EC) resources, enabling users to discover scientific and technical resources (software, tools, vocabularies, etc.) that are relevant to their research. The registry will promote EC investments, reduce time to science, help enable interdisciplinary research, more clearly define what is EC, and provide a vehicle for tool and software producers to notify the community about new products, increase visibility, and gain recognition. A primary requirement is to enable systematic description of EarthCube computational resources in terms of their functionality and interfaces for utilization, to enable users to identify components that can work together in integrated workflows. This requires understanding the specifics of how a software component communicates—both the messaging protocol, and the syntax and semantics of information formats getting data into and out of a component. This registry would work in conjunction with schema.org dataset descriptions being developed by the community to streamline linkage of data and software components for research workflows. The WG created definitions for a set of resources to include in a first iteration of the registry, and a set of properties that should be specified for all resources, as well as properties specific to particular resource types. The suggested resource types are: Software, Interface/API, Interchange format, Dataset, Repository, Service, Platform, Vocabulary/ontology/Information model, Specification, Catalog/registry, and Use Case. Dataset and Use Case resources registration is out of scope for the WG project, to be handled separately. Elaboration of this registry is in the workplan for EarthCube, with the goal maximum reuse of existing vocabularies and technology and compatibility with related registry activities.