About GLOSS
GLOSS is a collaborative tagging platform for online resources. There are three main differences between general collaborative tagging systems such as Connotea, Del.icio.us, StumbleUpon, etc. and GLOSS.
- GLOSS operates on multiple levels of abstraction
(variables, sets of variables, surveys, sections) whereas each
of the general systems is focused on only one type of objects
(web page, article, workflow).
- GLOSS engages both data producers and data users while
current systems are predominantly user driven and do not allow
for direct data producer participation.
- GLOSS is integrated and operates within the web pages of the online data sources, and thus is open to everyone who visits these sources. Typical online tagging systems require users to visit their own websites in order to discover and share tags.
Team GLOSS
The GLOSS project originated from a series of discussions between Svetlozar Nestorov and Ian Foster about the challenges faced by researchers worldwide: discovery of data sources relevant to their research and understanding of the data and its schema and structure. Aaron Elmore is the lead GLOSS developer. Jonas Mehlich helped developed the initial prototype.