The gCube system is composed of a set of interacting services providing:
- a set of typical DL functions, like search, annotation, personalisation, document visualisation;
- access to information sources and applications provided by third-parties;
- features necessary for handling the shared content and application resources; and
- support for the creation and operation of on-demand, transient virtual research environments.
From the logical point of view, the gCube system is organised according the following layers:
Collective Layer
The Collective Layer enhances existing Grid collective services with the functionalities able to support the complex services interactions required by the Digital Library Layer. The Collective Layer contains services that are not associated with any one specific resource but rather are global in nature and manage interactions across collections of resources.
Digital Library Layer
The Digital Library Layer selects, integrates and enhances a set of reliable and dependable production-quality services, developed in digital library projects and applications, in order to cover the fundamental functionalities required for any virtual research environment in the e-knowledge area. The services of this layer provide submission, indexing and discovery of mixed-media objects (documents, videos, images, environmental data, etc.), and the management and processing of these objects through annotation, composition, cooperative editing, etc. It also supports the dynamic creation and access to transient virtual research environment.
Application Specific Layer
The Application-Specific Layer contains application specific services. Third party providers are enabled to migrate their data or functional components to the gCube framework. Specifications are being produced that facilitate the plug-in of legacy components needed to support user-specific scenarios and enable the re-use of existing content and applications.