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How We Work

Think of Web Applications as being made up of three main components:

the View: what the users sees: the user interface, reports, Web pages.
the Model: a “place” that keeps the data—as a database, a file store, or a combination of both.
the Controller: how data gets from the Model to the View, and vice versa, as well as what happens with the data in transit. For example, you might want to combine different data sources in between the model and the view, or change something (turn a big image into a thumbnail image, turn a set of coordinates into a map, etc.).

Standards-based (meaning the component adheres to standards of a guiding authority), open-source component projects are usually just one, or parts of one, of the three Web Application components. There are repository (Model) projects, user interface (View) pieces, and many processing tools (Controllers). All these parts must be put together to make a Web application, but this custom assembly provides almost total control of the outcome. Therefore, this outcome is much more closely targeted to the problem the user (customer) is trying to address. Extraneous, irrelevant features that confuse users can be eliminated. The advantage of working with an open-source project is that improvements are made by people around the world who add their unique talents and insights to build a more efficient and robust product.

Science Features :: Web Apps

Tailor-Made: Web Applications for Natural Resources Science and Management

Increasingly, natural resource management agencies are taking a systems and landscape approach to addressing natural resource issues, recognizing the interdependence of not only species, habitats, and other natural resources, but also the agencies charged with managing them. This means bringing together many agencies, components, and disciplines in order to see the “big picture” and to approach a given issue or set of issues from that larger perspective.

As managers and scientists in natural resource agencies grapple with increasingly complex and large-scale management and research efforts, massive amounts of data in many different locations, and additional reporting requirements, they need efficient, easy-to-use systems for finding, accessing, organizing, and providing data. They also need “space” for efficiently and securely collaborating with others and sharing these data, both within and across agencies.

To help meet these needs, the FORT Information Science Branch at the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), Fort Collins Science Center (FORT) provides significant expertise in information technology, management, and delivery. Within this branch, the Web Applications (“Apps”) Team works with scientists and managers to develop products and services that meet a broad range of data management, collaboration, and communication needs—moving us forward in our understanding and management of these complex natural resource issues.

White-tailed ptarmigan. Photo by Cameron Aldridge, CSU/USGS.

Web applications often include species information so that partners can share information on their status, locations, and habitat requirements. (L) White-tailed ptarmigan. Photo by Cameron Aldridge, USGS/CSU. (R) Pygmy rabbit. USGS photo.

The FORT Web Applications Team: Who We Are

The FORT Web Apps Team is a group of application software and systems specialists, programmers, business analysts, technical writers, and other IT specialists who design, develop, and deploy Web-based applications for natural resource scientists and managers. Clients and partners can use these products to collect, integrate, and report data on their science and management activities.

The Web Apps Team is part of the USGS–U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) Joint Development Team (JDT). The JDT was formed by an interagency agreement between the USGS and the FWS that allows the bureaus to share contract staff and physical IT resources. This offers several advantages:

The combined effect of the team members’ diverse talents and experiences generates new ideas, encourages different approaches to identifying and solving problems, and builds expertise to enable needed specialization and technological advances.
Shared staffing provides the flexibility to adjust for production schedules and other customer needs.
Shared hardware, software licenses, and computer support reduces infrastructure costs.

The Web Apps Team comprises federal employees and a large team of contract professionals from the JDT that directly support the USGS and its customers, including the U.S. Department of the Interior and several of its agencies (Bureau of Reclamation, Bureau of Land Management, National Park Service, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service).

What We Do

The Web Apps Team specializes in putting together custom standards-based, open-source component projects to build applications that serve a specific science or management need (see “How We Work,” inset). This original work also involves building and supporting secure environments, including collaboration environments, where USGS scientists and partners can access and interact with distributed databases, files, and one another. The Team’s products fall into three overlapping and often interdependent categories of products and services:

Management and Decision Tools: Specific Web-based applications for the USGS, DOI, and other natural resource partners.
Collaborative Tools: Shared, secure environments within which science communities can correspond and share data and documents.
Infrastructure: Robust, secure, Web-based environments for USGS that offer the speed and capacity to handle advanced and complex operations.

Click on the links above to learn more about the Team’s work in these categories and find descriptions of example products.

For more information, contact:

Tim Kern
USGS Fort Collins Science Center
2150 Centre Ave., Bldg. C
Fort Collins, CO 80526
Phone:970-226-9366
Email: kernt@usgs.gov