Discovery Environment

The Discovery Environment is a powerful web-based platform developed by CyVerse that enables researchers, educators, and students to manage, share, run, and visualize data, analyses, and results — all within a single, unified workspace. Designed to support data-driven discovery, it serves as an open science workspace for collaborative research across the life sciences.

With much of its complexity hidden beneath a simple user interface, the Discovery Environment empowers novice users to accomplish their research goals without needing to master command-line tools or learn new software for each type of analysis. At the same time, users with command-line expertise can unlock advanced functionality to tailor workflows and analyses to their specific needs.

Data Management

• Easy-to-use interface for managing the full data lifecycle, from upload through to publication
• Built-in features to help make data more FAIR — Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable
• Access and use publicly available datasets for research purposes
• Granular control over data access and permissions
• Secure, reliable storage for datasets actively used in research and education

Running Analyses

• Hundreds of open-source bioinformatics applications available, including interactive apps such as RStudio and JupyterLab
• Use hundreds of command-line analytical tools, utility tools, and scripts without needing to learn the command line
• CyVerse automatically returns analysis results to the user's Data Store and sends notifications upon completion

Sharing and Collaboration

• Enables collaboration by allowing users to share data, analyses, workflows, and results with others
• Users can add their own command-line tools or executables, create or edit customised app interfaces, and automate workflows by chaining apps together

Teaching and Training

• Supports teaching computational methods and bioinformatics workflows to students within a consistent environment
• Computational resources can be reserved to support workforce or community training workshops

Getting Started

1. Share a file in the Discovery Environment
2. Move data within the platform
3. Manage analyses in the Discovery Environment
4. Analyze your data using available tools and apps
5. Interact with your data while an analysis is running
6. Use CyVerse for teaching purposes

Upcoming Features

• Run VICE apps on Jetstream2 nodes for more powerful computation
• Support for multiple versions of apps to improve reproducibility

The Discovery Environment is part of the broader CyVerse platform ecosystem, which also includes a Data Store, Data Commons, Science APIs, and cloud automation tools. Documentation, guides, and webinars are available to help users get the most out of the platform.