Designing Web Database Applications for Ecological Research

摘要

Many sites conducting ecological research must routinely manage a diverse suite of datasets and make them accessible to researchers. This paper presents an approach to creating an ecological data query system that dynamically creates predefined dataset query interfaces for managed datasets. The query interfaces are created from stored dataset metadata and query creation metadata and include only those field selections and filtering options identified as relevant for the specified dataset. Using only stored metadata for query interface creation provides an extensible and scalable metadata framework, creating a standardized, yet robust, system that can handle diverse datasets. This metadata framework also provides opportunities for developing centralized querying of remote datasets and multi-site data exchange through the use of predefined dataset query interfaces.