Summer intern develops a data catalog for ACEP
Jenae Matson talks about her internship work during her presentation.
September 5, 2024
ACEP researchers produce and work with a lot of data resources. This has created a long-standing problem where data was stored in numerous ways, in a variety of locations and only the researchers involved knew where to find it.
During the 10-week ACEP summer internship program, University of Alaska Fairbanks computer science major Jenae Matson worked to develop a data catalog for ACEP under the guidance of Elizabeth Dobbins, a lead on ACEP’s Data and Cyberinfrastructure Management team.
The catalog creates a simple, centralized place where researchers can post their data and others can find it.
Matson met with a variety of staff at ACEP to identify its needs and to gather feedback and suggestions. She then dove into software development, code writing and utilizing open-source extensions to add features and customization to the catalog. She conducted user tests to identify bugs and issues remaining in the program.
The data catalog will be a site where ACEP researchers can more easily share their data with other researchers. It will also be a way to share data with those outside of ACEP such as funding organizations, collaborators and community members.
Jenae Matson shows off the home page of the new data catalog in front of a sticky-note to-do list for the development process.
Working to develop this product for ACEP gave Matson new experience and insights into software development and scientific data management. While she enjoyed developing this program, she realized this is not just a coding problem.
“There’s a lot that goes into making this [program] fit smoothly into the workflow at ACEP,” she said.
There is more work to be done before the catalog goes public, noted Matson. She plans to continue to develop it as a student worker during the fall semester.
“This is exactly the kind of work I want to do, using my computer science skills to support important work like ACEP’s,” Matson said. “I’m excited to keep working on this catalog and help it become a natural part of work at ACEP.”
Hailing from Nome, Alaska, Matson previously worked at Bering Air, creating a system to organize aircraft maintenance records. This sparked an interest in data management, which, along with her experience in computer science, brought her to the data librarian position at ACEP.
This internship is funded by the National Science Foundation through ACEP’s Research Experiences for Undergraduates program. View the final presentation for this project on ACEP’s YouTube Channel. For more information on this project, please contact Liz Dobbins at eldobbins@alaska.edu.