CEOS Cal/Val Portal: Tools, Data Access and Scientific Collaboration Environment.
Burini, Alessandro1; Bojkov, Bojan2; Goryl, Philippe2; Storm, Thomas3; Brockmann, Carsten3
1Rheagroup, ITALY; 2ESA, ITALY; 3Brockmann Cst, GERMANY

The exploitation of Earth Observation data depends with increasing importance on multi-source intercalibrated data, as demonstrated, for example, in the ESA DUE GlobColour project. The subgroup on Calibration and Validation of the Committee on Earth Observation System (CEOS) formulated a recommendation during the plenary session held in China at the end of 2004, with the goal of setting up and operating an internet based system to provide sensor data, protocols and guidelines for the purposes of efficiently supporting sensor calibration, inter-calibration and product validation.
The CEOS Cal/Val Portal, developed by ESA (http://calvalportal.ceos.org), is utilised for the provision of information and data for Calibration (Cal) and Validation (Val) of EO data. The Web Portal Provides description of methodologies and instrument characteristics and access to instruments metadata, EO data over internationally agreed sites, in-situ data and calibration/validation software. During the past years, an increasing number of tools and web instrument have been installed into the portal, such as OLIVE (OnLIne Validation Exercise), DIMITRI and the 6s Input Configuration Tool; thanks to the cooperation with NASA, through COVE the Portal provides the community with a ground campaign planning tool. The Content, initially focused on Infrared and Visible Optical Sensors (IVOS), has been integrated with information on Validation of Atmosphere, taking on board the Dobson Spectrophotometer community.
The portal is powered by an open source Content Management System (Liferay) providing collaborative web features to the community (wiki, forum, blogs, etc...), easily improving the communication between scientists and the scientific collaboration between national space agencies and research institutes. This paper reports on the achievements within the project, the technical improvement of the portal in terms of content, tools and system upgrades.