Discovering Scientific Data and Services in the Trees: NASA GCMD's Next Generation Search Interface (Invited Presentation)

The NASA Global Change Master Directory (GCMD) introduced scientists to a structured keyword hierarchical search for discovery of Earth science data sets over 20 years ago. Today, the GCMD search interface continues to offer structured keyword searches (along with unstructured searches), but goes a step further by providing a "Tree Based" refinement option. The tree refinement displays the keywords or "concepts" in a dynamically updating window where keywords are displayed by broader terms at the top with each subsequent level revealing a narrower term. As the user refines his/her query, terms not related to the search drop out while the numbers of records matching the query (displayed to the right of each concept) tell the user exactly how many records match that term. At any time the user can browse the data set titles that match the query in the right hand window. Choosing a title reveals a detailed metadata record in an inline popup window. This advanced search interface is made possible through the application of technologies including Google Web Toolkit, SKOS XML structures, and RESTful web services. The RESTful web services are free and available to partners who wish to build clients on them. In this presentation I will demonstrate the tree refinement and describe the underlying technologies that drive it.