New paradigm for search and order in EOSDIS

Through the 1980s and 1990s iterative search and retrieval was the defacto data access paradigm. For the first 10+ years of planning the EOSDIS system, this search and retrieval paradigm was accepted by managers and systems designers as the system interaction standard. Since very few data and information systems existed at the time, users accepted this paradigm and worked within its framework. In the past year, another data access paradigm has emerged and is gaining popularity among members of the EOSDIS user community. The new approach is one of discovery and navigation where the user interface shows the user everything that is available and the user simply navigates to what is needed. The authors have also seen that some of their more serious or routine users have special needs and require very flexible user interfaces to meet their special needs. To meet these new challenges, EOSDIS is developing a new information management system that will support varied paradigms needed by their user community. This approach calls for an architecture that requires different protocols and standards than previously used