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Purdue to Release New Version of HUBzero Open Source Cyberinfrastructure

• By Rhea Kelly
• 09/07/12

Purdue University has announced the latest version of HUBzero, an open source platform for web tools that enable scientific research and collaboration.

New capabilities to create collaborative project areas within a hub, federated identity management, e-mail integration, design improvements, and other features will be released this month at HUBbub 2012, the annual HUBzero users conference.

Developed at Purdue University and winner of a 2011 Campus Technology Innovators award, HUBzero is in use by 40 virtual communities for research, education, and training in fields ranging from nanotechnology and cancer treatment to earthquake engineering and the bonds between human and companion animals.

Among the highlights of the latest version of HUBzero:

• A new project management and collaboration tool for managing data, workflow, and communication. Features include a Git-based file repository with version history keeping; wiki space for notes and documentation; to-do lists; and a Facebook-like microblogging tool providing a stream of project updates from team members with the ability to comment on activities.
• Federated identity, allowing integration with social networking sites. Users can log into a hub using their Facebook, Google, or LinkedIn accounts.
• A hub e-mail gateway that automatically processes forum posts and support tickets, making it easier for users to receive status messages and reply to them directly without having to leave e-mail and go to the hub.
• User interface and tag improvements including cleaner, configurable administrative and starter templates; a sleeker, better integrated user profile page; and tags with new categorization options, aliases and version histories.

HUBzero allows users to deploy computational research codes, and visualize and analyze results, all through a web browser. It makes posting tools about as easy as posting a YouTube video and eases the task of accessing high-performance and cloud computing systems. Built-in social networking features create communities in almost any field and facilitate communication and collaboration, distribution of research results, training, and education.