Scientific resource access system: A concept for getting "living with a star" information to do science

Answering complex science questions often means that a scientist must find and use a variety of scientific resources, including static and dynamically generated data in different formats, complex data assimilation models, and conversion and analysis tools. Although the Internet has led to an explosion of accessible scientific resources, it has also created a Babel of incompatible formats, data descriptions, and access methods from many disparate sources. An evolving prototype called the Scientific Resource Access System (SRAS) is being developed that uses metadata and commonly understood scientific concepts to provide easier discovery and access to these necessarily heterogeneous resources for "doing science." This concept simplifies the integration of distributed scientific resources within a single system and enables the interconnection of complex data systems. An additional goal of SRAS is to eliminate the need for specialized integration software and the need to force data standardization on participating resources. Both are infeasible in Internet-based scientific data environments, where the additional effort and expense required for such solutions would effectively eliminate a substantial quantity of important scientific resources. Instead, the SRAS uses existing protocols and formats along with robust metadata to simplify integration.