AUTHOR=Goff Stephen A., Vaughn Matthew , McKay Sheldon , Lyons Eric , Stapleton Ann E., Gessler Damian , Matasci Naim , Wang Liya , Hanlon Matthew , Lenards Andrew , Muir Andy , Merchant Nirav , Lowry Sonya , Mock Stephen , Helmke Matthew , Kubach Adam , Narro Martha , Hopkins Nicole , Micklos David , Hilgert Uwe , Gonzales Michael , Jordan Chris , Skidmore Edwin , Dooley Rion , Cazes John , McLay Robert , Lu Zhenyuan , Pasternak Shiran , Koesterke Lars , Piel William H., Grene Ruth , Noutsos Christos , Gendler Karla , Feng Xin , Tang Chunlao , Lent Monica , Kim Seung-jin , Kvilekval Kristian , Manjunath B.S. , Tannen Val , Stamatakis Alexandros , Sanderson Michael , Welch Stephen M., Cranston Karen , Soltis Pamela , Soltis Douglas , O'Meara Brian , Ane Cecile , Brutnell Tom , Kleibenstein Daniel J., White Jeffrey W., Leebens-Mack Jim , Donoghue Michael J., Spalding Edgar P., Vision Todd J., Myers Christopher R., Lowenthal David , Enquist Brian J., Boyle Brad , Akoglu Ali , Andrews Greg , Ram Sudha , Ware Doreen , Stein Lincoln , Stanzione Dan TITLE=The iPlant Collaborative: Cyberinfrastructure for Plant Biology JOURNAL=Frontiers in Plant Science VOLUME=Volume 2 - 2011 YEAR=2011 URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/plant-science/articles/10.3389/fpls.2011.00034 DOI=10.3389/fpls.2011.00034 ISSN=1664-462X ABSTRACT=

The iPlant Collaborative (iPlant) is a United States National Science Foundation (NSF) funded project that aims to create an innovative, comprehensive, and foundational cyberinfrastructure in support of plant biology research (PSCIC, 2006). iPlant is developing cyberinfrastructure that uniquely enables scientists throughout the diverse fields that comprise plant biology to address Grand Challenges in new ways, to stimulate and facilitate cross-disciplinary research, to promote biology and computer science research interactions, and to train the next generation of scientists on the use of cyberinfrastructure in research and education. Meeting humanity's projected demands for agricultural and forest products and the expectation that natural ecosystems be managed sustainably will require synergies from the application of information technologies. The iPlant cyberinfrastructure design is based on an unprecedented period of research community input, and leverages developments in high-performance computing, data storage, and cyberinfrastructure for the physical sciences. iPlant is an open-source project with application programming interfaces that allow the community to extend the infrastructure to meet its needs. iPlant is sponsoring community-driven workshops addressing specific scientific questions via analysis tool integration and hypothesis testing. These workshops teach researchers how to add bioinformatics tools and/or datasets into the iPlant cyberinfrastructure enabling plant scientists to perform complex analyses on large datasets without the need to master the command-line or high-performance computational services.