Marymount University was awarded a $144,000 grant from the National Science Foundation to conduct research that will help create the next generation of the Internet, which will make it easier for computers to search and discover scientific data.
“The idea is that the internet is basically made for humans,” said Dr. Tom Narock, an assistant professor of information technology at Marymount. “We’ll be collaborating with six other universities, institutions and non-profits to explore ‘the Semantic Web,’ a set of new technologies and methods that enable computers to reason and understand how data are related.”
Narock will lead Marymount’s efforts working with the following participants: Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Falmouth, Mass.; Columbia University; the University of Maryland, Baltimore County; the University of California, Santa Barbara; Wright State University; and the Consortium for Ocean Leadership.
Woods Hole is the world’s largest private, non-profit oceanographic research institution and a leader in the study and exploration of the ocean. Last year Marymount worked with it to create a prototype search engine called OceanLink.
“We’re taking emerging technology and providing real world applications,” Narock said. “The current project is called GeoLink to indicate that we are beginning to move beyond ocean sciences to include more types of geoscience data, such as ecological data that compliments the ocean data.”
The work at Marymount will involve both graduate and undergraduate students. Those interested in applying should contact Narock.
