Connect Cube

ConnectCube is a gCube application bundle offering facilities to practitioners wanting to produce information-rich objects, resulting from the aggregation and synthesis of data from multiple sources. It included the following applications.

Enhanced Documents Management This application offers facilities for creating and managing enhanced documents, i.e., rich information objects resembling documents yet aggregating multiple parts. Parts include images, datasets, maps, and graphs. It offers functionality for defining templates the documents should adhere to, as well as facilities for defining and monitoring workflows driving the collaborative production of these "documents".

Fact-sheets Management This application offers a flexible environment for the management of fact-sheets, a special kind of document designed to report key information on a given subject, e.g., fisheries and aquaculture-related subjects. This application builds on the facilities offered by Enhanced Documents Management application and complements them with fact-sheets specific ones, e.g., automatic generation out of customizable database schema, semi-automatic business metadata generation.

Information Object Discovery This application offers facilities for retrieving information objects from multiple collections and information systems in a seamless way. It offers both a Google-like approach and an advanced search allowing users to characterise in detail the information objects they are looking for. Moreover, it includes facilities for presenting the results according to semantic-based clustering.

Messaging This application offers facilities for exchanging messages among users. It resembles an email environment with the distinguishing feature of being integrated with the rest, e.g., it is possible to send as attachment any dataset residing in the workspace without consuming bandwidth.

Shared Workspace This application offers facilities for organising a workspace. It resembles a folder-based file system for managing information objects. The added value is represented by the type of information objects it can manage in a seamless way. It supports items ranging from binary files to information objects representing datasets, workflows, species distribution maps, time series, and comprehensive research products. Through it, data sharing is fostered, making results, workflows, annotations and documents immediately available to co-workers, to anyone provided with URIs, and to any other person authorized via WebDAV.

Social Networking Facilities This application offers facilities for integrating social networking in research environments. It is conceptually close to the common facilities promoted by social networks – e.g., posting news, commenting on posted news, re-share news – yet adapted to promote large scale collaboration and cooperation on comprehensive scientific products, datasets, theories, and tools.

See Also

AppsCube

Applications realising a framework conceived to support practitioners willing to develop applications interfacing and benefitting from gCube facilities.

BiolCube

Applications to generate new knowledge from data (e.g. modeling and analyzing distribution data, comparing checklists, and producing maps).

GeosCube

Applications to help practitioners dealing with geospatial information to properly access, consume, and produce data.

IceCube

Applications offering core facilities for the deployment, operation and management of an Hybrid Data Infrastructure.

StatsCube

Applications comprising support for tabular data validation, data enrichment and efficient analytical tools.