This project is applying advances in digital library (DL) technologies to the emerging domain of bioinformatics, and developing interaction tools that support learning based on identifying and visualizing associations among key dimensions of bioinformatics resources. The project is making these current resources, which are mainly utilized by expert biologists, available to bioinformatics students. The project addresses issues regarding: the use of a wide variety of formats and representations to store bioinformatics information; the application of DL technologies particularly in the realm of data description and exchange; mapping of metadata associated with bioinformatics information to data description standards compatible with DL technologies; and building clients that take advantage of data dissemination protocols such as the Open Archives Initiative in order to support novel browse, search, and analysis functions based on visualizations. The project team is also integrating DL and Grid computing technologies, and utilizes bioinformatics resources of Indiana University such as the Drosophila Genome Flybase, the IUBio Archive that contains euGenes eukaryote genes data, and the Bionet news archive and related software.
