Data in the Classroom

Today I successfully configured a simple Web form for accessing data on our Live Access Server (LAS). During this project, I'll be designing custom forms that students can use to access scientific data about a number of Earth systems. However to start, I wanted to make sure I understood how to make a simple form work. Notice how straightforward the sample form is compared with the standard LAS interface.

A lot of the parameters that appear on the standard interface can be hidden so that the resulting custom form is intuitive and easy-to-use. My goal for the project is to make sure that the online data tools are straightforward and relate nicely to the curriculum activities we're developing. We're trying to avoid having too many parameters that might lead students down blind alleys — at least at first. As students become more familiar with accessing online data, we can offer more capabilities and more sophisticated tools.

Setting up this sample form was challenging, but it was a really good exercise because it forced me to look closely at how the LAS Javascript components work. The original sample form was published in the LAS documentation, but I had to make a number of changes to make the form work with the latest version of LAS. I wrote a summary of these changes that I sent to the LAS mailing list.