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"User Near" Software puts the data up front

Looking for a data-visualization tool with the power of a research tool and an interface that your students can master in five minutes? The DDTF tool philosophy is simple: build a suite of modular application so that each individual application is easy to use, and, in combination they provide a wide range of capabilities. While the tools within the application harness the power of top-end research data engines (such as Kodak's IDL), the application interface contains only the interactivity that the student needs to use the data to complete the module. We call this "user near" technology.

No Data to tough to handle

DDTF technology can handle a wide variety of data types. While there might be some data formats that the current software cannot read, there are an impressive number it can: from raster satellite data to medical images , and from maps to models. the technology can run and analyze the output of about any model that can run on the local desktop. And it can do a variety of statistical and numeric operations on data sets, and graph the outcomes.

Custom Tools offer curricular fit

The whole premise of the DDTF is that an educational tool should be targeted to a learning moment: inserted into the curriculum precisely where needed, fulfil the task without undue overhead, and propel the student to a new level of understanding where this tool is no longer needed. The student progresses through a series of tools. Each tool offers a learning experience appropriate for the day's (or week's, or month's) curriculum. The tool is then set down as the student moves on. Eventually the student progresses to a research-level tool with a broad scope and complex capabilities.

Off the shelf and onto your desk

The DDTF is looking to build the user-tools that can bring live data visualization and analysis from the research community to the college classroom. This toolkit of mini-applications is being built on a platform of leading commercial off the shelf software and shared authoring code. The result is the following: full power to access and visualize data sets and a user interface with a five-minute learning curve.

DDTF applications can be downloaded or ordered on disk. You can incorporate existing tools into your curriculum, or ask the foundry to make up new tools (with a modest amount of funding—the foundry has support to operate, but needs to share the cost of new development). The best thing is that the foundry operates on a code-once and use-many-times philosophy. So any new coding adds to the software "tool-and-dies" that can be used again and again to make other tools.