Biodiversity decline and climate change are among the most important environmental issues society faces. Information to address these issues has benefited from increasing big data, advances in cloud computing, and subsequent new tools for analytics. Accessing such tools is streamlined by virtual laboratories for ecological analysis, like the ‘Biodiversity and Climate Change Virtual Laboratory’ (BCCVL) and ‘ecocloud’. These platforms help reduce time and effort spent on developing programming skills, data acquisition and curation, plus model building. Recently this functionality was extended, producing EcoCommons Australia—a web-based ecological modeling platform for environmental problem-solving—with upgraded infrastructure and improved ensemble modeling, post-model analysis, workflow transparency and reproducibility. We outline our user-centered approach to systems design, from initial surveys of stakeholder needs to user involvement in testing, and collaboration with specialists. We illustrate EcoCommons and compare model evaluation statistics through four case studies, highlighting how the modular platform meets users' needs.

中文翻译：

---

具有云计算的 EcoCommons Australia 虚拟实验室：满足用户对生态建模和决策的多样化需求


生物多样性下降和气候变化是社会面临的最重要的环境问题之一。解决这些问题的信息受益于不断增长的大数据、云计算的进步以及随后的新分析工具。用于生态分析的虚拟实验室，如“生物多样性和气候变化虚拟实验室”（BCCVL） 和“ecocloud”，简化了对这些工具的访问。这些平台有助于减少用于培养编程技能、数据采集和策展以及模型构建的时间和精力。最近，此功能得到了扩展，产生了 EcoCommons Australia（一个基于 Web 的生态建模平台，用于解决环境问题），升级了基础设施并改进了集成建模、模型后分析、工作流程透明度和可重复性。我们概述了以用户为中心的系统设计方法，从利益相关者需求的初步调查到用户参与测试，以及与专家的合作。我们通过四个案例研究来说明 EcoCommons 并比较模型评估统计数据，重点介绍模块化平台如何满足用户需求。