[open-science] iemHUB, HUBzero, myexperiment

Sun Aug 19 23:40:11 UTC 2012

iemHUB  http://iemhub.org/  (IEM==integrated environmental modeling)
HUBzero http://hubzero.org/

Dunno how suitable these are as open-science platforms, since I know
much too little about them, but they seem interesting. (Esp since
there seems to be some US-governmental interest in backing it--see
references to EPA (a Federal agency), and RTI (a large NGO/contractor)
below.) So I'm passing along some all-too-rough notes (I just don't
type fast enough) from an "iemHUB 101" session I recently attended.
(I'll try to get/pass the slides.) I'm hoping more knowledgeable folks
will render their considered judgments on either HUBzero or the
UK-based myexperiment.org, to which the presenter explicitly referred.

I'm especially interested in the compute platforms (e.g.,
OpenScienceGrid). Suppose we use the term "computationally poor" to
refer to those lacking access to high-performance scientific computation
(and expensive proprietary software, e.g., ArcGIS) but can't afford it,
à la the "scholarly poor" who need to read scholarly literature but
can't: how accessible and useful are these platforms to the
"computationally poor"?

<notes>

HUBzero developed @ Purdue http://hubzero.org/
"HUBzero is the underlying software" for iemHUB
"large integrated feature set", community/collaboration platform
real differentiator is the computational platform (more below)
"closest thing to HUBzero is myexperiment.org in the UK" 
http://www.myexperiment.org/

hubs are HUBzero instances
iemHUB has "no specific organizational identity", is open to anyone interested in IEM (integrated environmental modeling)
http://iemhub.org/

then long talk about the software, HUBzero
collaboration focus
can publish software tools on it, but VC == subversion :-(
biggest community is nanotechnology: "nanoHUB is the oldest hub" http://nanohub.org/ "going for about a decade"
forums: answering questions earns points
bugtracker
this is sounding a lot like sourceforge (which they namecheck, also github)

MAJOR DIFFERENCE: can run software on their cloud !?!
"lots of grids out there you can submit jobs to", e.g., OpenScienceGrid
http://www.opensciencegrid.org/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Science_Grid_Consortium
sounds like iemHUB is front-ending to them!
one can also install software (he specifically mentions R) on the hub!

"rapture is a tool available within iemHUB" for q'n'd GUI creation: works with fortran as well as the usual suspects

while speaker goes on, look around:
https://iemhub.org/groups/d4em
> Data for Environmental modeling (D4EM) is a comprehensive set of
> tools that obtains and processes data for models. This fully
> integrated, open source software was originally conceived to
> populate the geospatial data inputs required for multimedia modeling
> studies, such as those performed using the Multimedia,
> Multi-pathway, Multi-receptor Exposure and Risk Assessment (3MRA)
> modeling system. The D4EM is a collaborative effort led by EPA’s
> Office of Research and Development (ORD) in Athens, Georgia, in
> conjunction with RTI International, AQUA TERRA Consultants, and
> Idaho State University.

> Managers: Rajbir Parmar, Aaron Parks, Kurt Wolfe
> Members: 37
...
> Created: 13 Jan, 2010

"can also publish seminars and tutorials" e.g. this meeting will be on iemhub.org
"can also publish data" see nanoHUB

HTH, Tom Roche <Tom_Roche at pobox.com>