Advancing Open Science Through Innovative Data System Solutions: The Joint ESA-NASA Multi-Mission Algorithm and Analysis Platform (MAAP)'s Data Ecosystem

Collaborative open science practices are changing the way research is conducted. These changes affect how scientists work together on data, code and information. Data systems enhance open science by offering forward thinking technological solutions, such as providing data and computation on the cloud, to enable collaboration, sharing and analysis. In this paper, we present our vision for a conceptual data system on the cloud that enables open science. We also present our work on the Multi-Mission Algorithm and Analysis Platform (MAAP) which has served as a pathfinder data system for this conceptual approach.

1. Introduction

Open science, or “the idea that scientific knowledge of all kinds should be openly shared as early as it is practical in the discovery process,” [1] has been a topic of much discussion within the scientific community of late [2]. While the scientific community has always attempted to maintain some level of openness through the journal publication process, open science as a topic has gained more attention due to the Science 2.0 phenomenon where scientific information and data can be communicated via the Internet [2]. These technological advances have changed the way scientists work and collaborate. Through the Internet, scientists work together by quickly sharing data, code and information. This ease of sharing has ensured that scientific research is no longer confined to a lone researcher in a lab and is instead becoming much more cooperative.