Project description
The VL-e project aims at building an open and configurable Grid-based framework and a variety of generic tools and mechanisms, in order to facilitate scientists with their experimentations. The role of the CO-IM group at UvA is the design and development of the COLIM component, focused on collaborative information management, encompassing the provision of advanced, user-friendly tools and mechanisms to assist scientists, developers and VL administrators. Among the main ‘open issues’ to be tackled, we can mention design and development of a “generic and extensible information management architecture” to support the VL-E application domains; exploring the potential of Grid technology as the base infrastructure for building the federated information retrieval and federated query processing functionalities; and development of flexible approaches for the automatic generation of database schema definitions based on the ontology entries provided by expert scientists. In 2004, the design of the COLIM component for the VL-e project has started. Also as the starting point, an existing proof of concept module for virtual laboratory information management, developed earlier by the CO-IM group, was enhanced into a prototype running the existing scientific applications.