Overview of Project Goals and Achievements

Summary
Original Goals
Products

Summary

The aim of the Jalama project is to create a flexible, easy-to-use system for automatic creation of metadata and data entry forms, for use in ecology lab and field environments. Such a system will enable researchers to provide critical structured metadata in order for their work to participate in a distributed Knowledge Network for Biocomplexity.

Original Goals

The funding proposal to the National Science Foundation (available in PDF format) stated that:

" the principal research goal of this project is to build a flexible, intuitive metadata and data entry tool that provides an effective and efficient user interface on desktop and handheld computers for arbitrary metadata and data schemas."

More specifically, the research plan and approach would comprise the following three main goals:

  1. Handheld/Desktop Application for data entry and documentation:
    Design and implement a flexible computing application for data entry and documentation that functions on handheld and desktop computers. The features of the application most useful in field ecology were identified as:
    • Separation of schema, logic, and layout
    • Declarative configuration (Schema configured using DTD/XML Schema / RELAX NG; Logic specified using XML configuration file; Layout determined at run-time via stylesheet (e.g., XSL, CSS))
    • Support “wizard” style editing and tabular editing, easy, intuitive GUI
    • Layout can be optimized for either handheld PDA or desktop use
    • Cross platform compatibility (Windows, Mac OS, PalmOS, WindowsCE, Linux)
    • Support data entry aids (e.g., bar code readers, GPS receivers, digital cameras)
    • Output data and metadata in XML format
  2. Training and field testing:
    Train researchers and students in the use of these tools for designing customized forms for collecting structured data and metadata–and collaborating with PISCO, MARINE, and SBC-LTER researchers for field testing of the applications
  3. Make products and documentation available to the general scientific community

 

Products

A summary of the project's achievements to date are as follows:

  1. Handheld/Desktop Application for data entry and documentation:
    The Jalama Field Data Collection application is targeted at ecologists using EML to document field data collection. It provides a way of automatically generating data-collection forms from existing EML datasets, and then importing collected data (potentially from multiple handheld devices) into new datasets. The application is available on the downloads page, and comprises 2 separate components:

    - a plugin for the Morpho Data Management Software that allows the user create field-data-collection forms automatically from Ecological Markup Language (EML) documents (typically on a desktop computer) and then synchronize forms and data with handheld devices

    - software for handheld devices (currently for use on a Windows XP tablet PC), allowing users to collect data in the field, and then synchronize that data back to the desktop machine running Morpho, where a new EML data set is created to describe the data

    - Here is a simple overview of how the software works  >>.

    Additional software implemented in the course of our research (See the developer documentation for details of how to obtain and build the source code; please note that this is research software, and may not be fully functional):
    • Forms for Editing XML Metadata with Arbitrary Schema: The form-generation software component used in the Morpho plugin also works with arbitrary schema (not only EML), and can generate forms for editing metadata as well as data. This form generation application can be accessed via the Whippet web interface (see online demo) . You can submit an W3C XML schema, an XML instance document or both , and the application will attempt to generate a user interface for editing the fields defined in the XML. The user interface can be viewed in the Mozilla Firefox browser, since it is defined using Mozilla XUL and XBL bindings. Available on the downloads page.
    • Jalama EML Package Wizard: a stand-alone Java application used to generate EML-compliant metadata documents, using XUL-based interfaces. The software was the first available to generate EML 2.0.0 metadata documents, compatible with the Knowledge Network for Biocomplexity. It uses the Jalama framework to provide the "back-end" functionality for a simple XUL wizard, and runs on Windows, Linux and MAc OS X (relying on the Jalama project's port of the Mozilla 'Webclient' library for Mac OS X). Available on the downloads page
    • Mac OS X Port of Mozilla WebClient: A code contribution to the Mozilla project that enables the Jalama framework to run on Mac OS X. This package includes a simple coding example using the CocoaComponent API for embedding Gecko in a Java frame on the Mac. Available on the downloads page
  2. Training and field testing: This aspect is yet to be completed; we are in the process of purchasing handheld hardware and making it available for use by our testing teams.
  3. Make products and documentation available to the general scientific community: this website is the primary source of Jalama product and documentation.