MRI: Acquisition of Equipment to Support Collaborative, Multi-Disciplinary Research and Development of Reliable Software

University Of Texas At El Paso, El Paso TX

Investigators

Abstract

This project from an MSI, developing reliable software in a collaborative setting, requests infrastructure to: Create reliable and maintainable software that connects and disseminates geoscience data sets to the Earth Science community through the GEON grid. Develop, apply, and disseminate techniques aimed at improving the integrity and reliability of software and data, and Educate and train software engineers, particularly those from underrepresented populations who are able to join the workforce and contribute to multidisciplinary projects. The project involves a network, containing two servers and a set of workstations. The first server contains the testbed data necessary for the development and verification of software to transfer and process geospatial data from disparate sources. The second server provides the computing throughput necessary to process large data sets and serves as the backbone of the experimental node on the GEON grid. The equipment supports development of the Geospatial Network (GeoNet) and a toolset for data validation, analysis, and visualization. The lab will also house an experimental node on the GEON Grid. SMART Board Interactive Whiteboards with multicolor and touch-sensitive drawing tools are also requested. These boards interface easily with software available to collaborators and facilitate distance collaborations. The project targets the instrumentation of the Collaborative Affinity Research Laboratory (CARL), providing a collaborative environment that is configurable, and that supports local, remote, synchronous, and asynchronous collaborations. The university will continue using the infrastructure to enhance diversity utilizing their Affinity Research model. Thus, students will benefit.