PROJECT OVERVIEW

EuroVO-AIDA aims at unifying the digital data collections of European astronomy, integrating their access mechanisms with evolving e-technologies, and enhancing the science extracted from these datasets. The EuroVO-AIDA project is proposed to lead the transition of Euro-VO into an operational phase.

EuroVO-AIDA integrates the technology, networking and service activities of Euro-VO into a fully functioning structure. It will establish a Registry of VObs-compliant resources; support the network of Data Centres in deploying the VObs eInfrastructure; co-ordinate development of user tools for science extraction; and disseminate results to the astronomical community and identify their needs. The VObs interoperability standards will be updated taking into account feedback from implementation by data centres and from science usage. Specific emphasis will be placed on data access and data models, and on assessing innovative use of emerging technologies such as web 2.0 by data centres for continuous improvement of the eInfrastructure.

The result will be an operating knowledge infrastructure that enables and stimulates new scientific usage of astronomy digital repositories.

The objective of the EuroVO-AIDA project is to lead the transition of the European VObs to operations. EuroVO-AIDA integrates Networking Activities, Service Activities and Joint Research Activities to perform all the aspects of work needed during this transition:

• Construction of a community of science users, and the gathering of their needs. Several Networking Activities will act with this aim, the Science Advisory Committee for general scientific oversight of the project, scientific workshops for the dissemination of good practice and the gathering of science requirements, also community dissemination in conferences and on web pages. Service Activities will also contribute to this objective, with two Announcement of Opportunities for science programs to trigger advanced science usage of the freely available VObs data services, the production of on-line tutorials for community dissemination, data access tools development in response to community needs, and all the preparatory work for the Science Workshops;
• Large scale deployment of IVOA protocols and standards by the astronomical data repositories. One Data Centre workshop will be organised for the sharing of good practice on the implementation of the VObs framework and the gathering of feedback from implementation. Service Activities will also concur to this objective, with the implementation of a European Registry of VObs-enabled resources and of registry curation tools, provision of on-line tutorials for community dissemination, adjustments of VObs tools from data providers feedback, and all the preparatory work for the Data Centre Workshop;
• Maintenance and development of the VObs technical infrastructure. The Joint Research Activities will provide the research work needed for assessing and prototyping the required evolution of the VObs interoperability standards, taking into account feedback from implementation by data providers and from science usage, and for evaluating the potential of new technologies. These tasks have two sets of milestones: the EuroVO-AIDA Technology Forums, gathering the three JRAs for work planning and technology exchange, and the biannual IVOA Interoperability meetings where the IVOA standards are discussed;
• Service activities for higher education and the general public;
• Possible liaison with other scientific domains or with other communities which develop generic frameworks and tools will be explored.