ECAI Information Technology Architecture

Block Diagram of General IT Architecture
Diagram of IT Architecture and Data Flow

The Information Technology Architecture for ECAI is designed to support the dual mission to provide a new paradigm for data access through visual time/place interfaces and to support collaboration among ECAI participants; primarily, researchers in humanities and social sciences. The two key elements that support these missions are the Information Management/Cataloging functions and the Information Producer Tools. (See the Block Diagram of General IT Architecture for more detail.)

The central unifying element of the Information Technology Architecture is the ECAI Metadata Clearinghouse System. The Clearinghouse is a database system, which serves as the catalog of ECAI data. It includes an online Web-based Metadata editor and browsers. The Clearinghouse allows participants in ECAI to describe their data in a standardized way. For instance, the time and place elements in different databases developed by different researchers will be named differently and use different coding and standards. By identifying to the Clearinghouse, the location, identity and properties of these elements, data from different sources can be layered and viewed simultaneously in the same map/time interface. The ECAI Metadata Clearinghouse was designed through collaboration of participating scholars and is extendable to include additional elements in the future.

ECAI is a federated data system. The Metadata Clearinghouse System allows access to data across the Internet. Information can be stored and maintained by its owner or an institutional archive and still accessed through the ECAI User Interfaces. An additional advantage of the federated architecture and the centralized Metadata Clearinghouse System is that multiple user interfaces can be used to access the data depending on the users needs and interests. Several user interfaces, as indicated on the Architecture diagram, are currently under development. There is no limit to the additional user interfaces that can be developed.

Many ECAI participants are actively developing creative systems within their areas of expertise. Others have valuable data to which they would like to give their colleagues greater access. The collaborative design of ECAI encourages cross-fertilization in the development of data management and access systems. The technical team structure of ECAI capitalizes on the skills and experiences of ECAI members. A central focus of the technical teams is in identifying and building support structures, standards, research aids, technical tools, system resources and database models to assist participants in their research and in making their data available through ECAI.