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ICAN Prototype - Version 2 Release Notes

Submitted by dawn on 9 January 2009 - 4:20pm.

System Requirements
ICAN 2.0 is developed in Adobe Flex 3. To run it on your Web browser you will need to have Flash Player installed. But no worries. In 90% of the cases, Flash Player is already installed. If not, your browser will install it automatically when you try to open the page (Make sure that you restart the browser after you install Flash Player if needed).

When you try to access the page, it takes a few seconds to load. But once loaded, the application is quite fast.

Features
Major changes occurred in the GUI in version 2.0. The page looks more like a desktop environment rather than a static Web page. Functionalities are accessed through desktop icons and menus. You can open as many windows as you wish within your browser. To profit from the application environment, I recommend that you use the full screen mode – by pressing F11 on IE and Firefox.

The mediation engine is more robust and handles nodes exceptions in a much better way than in the previous version.

A few more functionalities have been added to the mediator:

  • You can visualise the nodes that are plugged into ICAN and check their connection status
  • You can select the nodes that you want to query
  • A broker service allows you to query one node using its own ontology

Bug Fixes

  • A disconnected node does not compromise the functioning of the whole system anymore, EXCEPT for very rare cases where Java seems to have limitations (to be discussed with the ICAN technical team).
  • OCA is actually connected to the network.
  • The bounding box problem is now fixed.

How it Works
Double clicking the “ICAN Catalogue” will open a new catalogue window for you. You can open as many catalogue windows as you wish. The ICAN catalogue window contains the global ontology, a map where you can select a bounding box (press the bounding box button inside the map), an area where you can select the nodes you are interested, and a results area. You can explore the different contextual menus and menu items, etc.

Double clicking the “Network” icon will open a network window where you can see the different nodes. Double clicking a node will open a catalogue window that allows you to query that node using its own ontology.

Double clicking the “Event Monitor” icon will open an event monitor window showing the server logs. This is important to show what is happening behind the scenes.

Next Steps
Version 2.0

  • Validate ontologies and ontology mappings
  • We need a volunteer to compile a help document explaining how to use ICAN (ASAP)

Version 2.1

  • Include Web map services and mapping functionalities

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Dr. Yassine Lassoued
IT Researcher
Coastal and Marine Resources Centre
University College Cork
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