The central mission of the THREDDS project is to make it possible for educators and researchers to publish, locate, analyze, and visualize in a wide variety of educational settings. In the initial phase THREDDS established a solid, working prototype of services and tools to enable data providers to create inventory catalogs of the data holdings at their site and educational module builders to author compound documents with embedded pointers to environmental datasets and analysis tools. These catalogs and data-interactive documents can then be harvested into digital libraries using standard protocols. THREDDS Second Generation (THREDDS2G) is expanding the team of contributors and the breadth of data in the collections, taking advantage of recent technological advancements, and integrating THREDDS technologies with emerging standards and related environmental data systems. In addition it is actively engaging new disciplines and incorporating new tools that are making the end products more useful at all educational levels, for decision makers and for the general public. THREDDS2G significantly augments and expands the existing project as it breaks entirely new ground in several areas. The main objectives fall into the following categories: 1. Interactive Educational Modules: work with the community of educational content builders and data providers to create educational modules that incorporate facilities for finding and interacting with environmental datasets. 2. Enhanced Metadata Catalogs: Using tools and inventory catalogs implemented in the initial phase, develop additional catalogs with significantly enhanced metadata to simplify the process of finding and using scientific data, developing standards and tools for enhanced metadata, incorporating scientific ontologies, and implementing scientific data models. 3. Interoperability with Geographic Information Systems (GIS): Create interoperable data systems with coherent connectivity and access to GIS data using GIS and traditional THREDDS clients. 4. Dataset Search and Discovery and Other Web Services: Working collaboratively with NSDL and DLESE, ensure that THREDDS systems evolve toward compatibility with emerging standards in Web services. 5. Education-oriented, Standards-based Client Software: Integrate an education-oriented GIS client analysis and display application called MyWorld to THREDDS data services.
While THREDDS is a highly collaborative project, the Unidata Program Center is leading and coordinating the development, disseminating the software, and supporting the THREDDS community. With strong new partnerships that include leading organizations in K-12 educational technology, hydrology, solid Earth studies, societal impacts, and GIS, the impact of THREDDS2G will extend well beyond even the vast Unidata audience. Significant co-funding of this project is being provided by the Division of Earth Sciences in the NSF Directorate for Geosciences in recognition of the importance that this project has on the development of software tools for accessing, cataloging and analyzing content of environmental datasets.
