Using Web Services for Customised Data Entry

Yanbo Deng, Walt Abell, Clare Churcher  Applied Computing Group,ESDD, P.O. Box 84,Lincoln University, Canterbury, New Zealand   Email:{dengy6, abell, churcher} @lincoln.ac.nz

John McCallum, Crop and Food Research, Private Bag 4704, Christchurch, New Zealand                Email: McCallumJ@crop.cri.nz

Keywords

Data integration; Data management; Data loading; Web services

Abstract

Databases for scientific analysis often need to be integrated with a variety of different applications. While there are many ways to retrieve and analyse data already in a database, it can be more difficult to load data which may be stored in a variety of different formats and software (e.g. spreadsheets, other databases, statistical packages). This project investigates how to provide the ability to customise data entry and loading for Germinate, a database for plant genetic information. The approach uses web services to provide a platform and language independent way to provide centralised data loading and maintenance functions. These functions can be called from the various applications that provide source data for Germinate. The web service allows developers and competent end users to customise data entry to fit the way they have structured their data with minimal effort.