GSoC/GCI Archive
Google Summer of Code 2011

Marine Biological Laboratory - Center for Library and Informatics

Web Page: http://wiki.eol.org/display/public/2011+Google+Summer+of+Code+-+Center+for+Library+and+Informatics+Ideas+Page

Mailing List: http://lists.mbl.edu/mailman/listinfo/open_source_informatics

The Marine Biological Laboratory (www.mbl.edu) is an international center for research, education, and training in biology. The oldest private marine laboratory in the country, the MBL currently supports a year-round staff of more than 275 scientists and support staff working in such fields as cell and developmental biology, ecology, microbiology, molecular evolution, global infectious disease, informatics, neurobiology, and sensory physiology. The Center for Library and Informatics (CLI) at the MBL, established in November of 2010, addresses the challenges of organizing and preserving data, promoting data-driven discovery, and developing innovative visualization and analysis tools. These challenges demand a collaborative response that brings together the expertise of computer scientists, librarians, information scientists and life scientists. The mission of the Center is to provide sustainable, flexible, innovative research and services based on collections of scientific information. The Center includes several cutting-edge research projects, educational courses, and services, including the MBL/WHOI Library, the NSF Data Conservancy project, the Encyclopedia of Life, the annual MBL/National Library of Medicine Biomedical Informatics course, and the History and Philosophy of Science Program.

Projects

  • Encyclopedia of Life More and more information on the web is accessed through mobile devices. Many websites already have created an additional presentation of their site which is catered towards smaller screens and technologies available for mobile handheld devices. Encyclopedia of Life currently lacks such service and it makes it hard to used by an increasing amount of its user base.
  • ImpactProbe: a web application to monitor and analyze awareness through social media (extension of GSoC 2010 project) I propose to further develop ImpactProbe, a web application to be used by primary investigators and others (user) to analyze the social impact of their outreach activities by monitoring Internet social media. Features will be added to optimize collection of relevant data and the application will be extended to gather data from additional sources. A freely accessible public web server will be created allowing users to create password-protected accounts to collect, analyze, and export their data.
  • Species ID by uploading a photo To use the EOL database to provide the public with a means of quickly identifying any species present in images they have taken.