New Media Research Institute

June 17, 2001
NSDL Data Discovery

This NSDL Services project is developing an initial set of "data discovery" tools to enable students to manipulate real (and real-time if needed) data sets for visualization purposes. In addition, an Internet-based community center for further tool building, the "Foundry", is being created. The proposed data discovery tools are based on a novel technology that combines the data visualization and analysis capabilities of Kodak's Interactive Data Language (IDL) product with the interactive, multimedia authoring capabilities of Macromedia's Director. The key to this authoring technology is the EDMI (Earth Data Multimedia Instrument) software. The EDMI is a very simply a cross-platform Windows and MacOS compatible IDL plug-in to Macromedia Director. Since the proposed tools are all based on leading off-the-shelf software, there are already many potential partners within the NSDL community capable of joining in this effort on the tool development side. The initial set of tools and those developed subsequently by the community are linked to Internet-based curricular material, which means that teachers looking for a digital laboratory exercise can either find an existing tool that does precisely what they need to accomplish in the classroom, or they can make use of the Foundry to collaboratively create a new tool or a new lab exercise for an existing tool.