ESIP Data Stewardship Strategic Plan Calendar Year 2017

From Earth Science Information Partners (ESIP)

Data Stewardship Committee Strategic Plan 2017


ESIP Data Stewardship Committee Vision

Promote excellence in Earth science data stewardship including preservation, information quality, and development of a cadre of excellent data managers for the future

ESIP 2015-2020 Strategic Plan Goals

The Data Stewardship Committee supports the achievement of ESIP's overall goals and objectives as follows:

  • Increase the use and value of Earth science data and information. (Items #2, 3, 6, and 9 below)
  • Strengthen the ties between observations and user communities (e.g. technologies, research, education and applications). (Items #1 and 8 below)
  • Promote techniques to articulate and measure the socioeconomic value and benefit of Earth science data, information, and applications. (Items #3, 4, 7, and 10 below)
  • Position ESIP to play a major role in Earth science issues (e.g. addressing effects of climate change mitigation, adaptation and supporting sustainable science data infrastructure). (Item #5 below)

Resources: 2015-2020 Strategic Plan Executive Summary
Strategic Plan Roadmap


Data Stewardship Committee Plan

Data Stewardship Committee Objectives:

The mission of the Data Stewardship Committee is to assist ESIP to continue its leadership role in promoting the collection, stewardship, and use of Earth science data, information, and knowledge that are responsive to societal needs. As such, the Data Stewardship Committee:


(1) Develops and fosters practices and standards that ensure continued and reliable information content, quality, access to, and usability of Earth system science data for as long as they are deemed to be of value.

(2) Facilitates the long-term preservation, stewardship, curation, and access of/to Earth system science data and information.

(3) Advances the development of data science as a professional discipline that adds value and increases the use of Earth system science data.


The group is very proud of our very high level of productivity, including our international reputation for standards development, an extremely strong publication record, and our recognized involvement in many other external organizations which are nationwide and international in scope. The section below contains a non-exhaustive list of such entities, thereby affirming our interest in continuing involvement with these many entities.


Things we may do to fulfill our objectives:

Some selected activities pursued by the committee, along with their points of contact (POC), are listed below. The reader is directed to the ESIP 2015 Strategic Plan for further details pertaining to the mapping of these to those of ESIP as a whole.


1. Data Management Training (Objectives (1) and (3)). POC: Nancy Hoebelheinrich

  • Continue development of the Data Management Training Clearinghouse, a collaborative, crowd-sourced clearinghouse for data management training resources through seed funding from the USGS Community for Data Integration.
  • Marketing the Clearinghouse to increase cross domain usage.
  • Collaborating with ESIP and the broader Earth science community as represented by USGS, AGU, and other organizations, to evaluate and add to the topics recommended for learning resources on data management.
  • Pursuing funding for updating and increasing the breadth/depth and reach of the ESIP Data Management Short Course for Scientists.


2. Provenance and Context Content Standard (PCCS, Objectives (1) and (2)). POC: Bob Downs and H.K. “Rama” Ramapriyan

  • Continuing to participate in ISO TC 211 Working Group 7 (WG-7, Information Communities) in assessment of and revisions to the proposed new standard: ISO 19165 -”Geographic Information - Preservation of digital data and metadata”.


3. Updating the ESIP Data Citation Guidelines to include guidance on citation of dynamic data resources based on the RDA Dynamic Data Citation recommendations. (Objectives (1) and (2)). POC: Ruth Duerr


4. Developing a committee recommendation on software stewardship and citation. Leveraging the success of the data citation recommendation, and tying into other community efforts on software management, such as the Force11 Software Citation Principles. (Objectives (1), (2), and (3)). POC:


5. Fostering overlap in membership to engage with various organizations, including the EarthCube Council of Data Facilities, the Research Data Alliance, CODATA, GEO/GEOSS, the NASA Earth Science Data System Working Group (ESDSWG), the Coalition for Publishing Data in the Earth and Space Sciences (COPDESS), the UK Digital Curation Centre (DCC), and the USGS Community for Data Integration (CDI) as appropriate. Please note that the above list is not meant to be exhaustive. (Objectives (1), (2), and (3)). POC: many

  • Reports from committee members attending meetings/workshops on these efforts


6. Developing recommendations and technical approaches for connecting related resources across different repositories, e.g. datasets, publications, and software. Investigate the applicability of frameworks like Scholix and tools like RMap. (Objectives (1) and (2)). POC: Matt Mayernik


7. Assessing and supporting the sustainability of repositories. Developing approaches for evaluating the investment and effort required to steward data over the long-term, and the pay-off (monetary and scientifically) of those investments. ((Objectives (1) and (2)). POC: Bob Downs.


8. Data Stewardship Maturity Matrix.

  • Developing a matrix to be used by developers and users of data for quantifying the maturity of datasets. Work this Calendar Year involves (1) updating the matrix, (2) applying it to various datasets, and (3) submitting related papers for publication consideration in peer-reviewed journals. (Objectives (1) and (2)). POC: Ge Peng


9. Information Quality Cluster - Develop and analyze use cases, arrive at recommendations regarding data quality information and promote standards and best practices for data quality for adoption by inter-agency and international data providers. More details at IQC 2016 plan (Objectives (1) and (2)). POC: H.K. “Rama” Ramapriyan, David Moroni, Ge Peng


10. Develop paper investigating and recommending approaches for persistent identifier use for non-data products, building on previous data-specific work (Objectives (1) and (2)). POC: Justin Goldstein


In order to inform the community about our efforts and continue momentum, frequent updates on all of these will be provided during monthly telecons, special telecons devoted to particular subjects, the Summer 2017 meeting, and in written form, all at the prerogative of the chair and vice-chair and the activity POCs.


Things our collaboration area needs to deliver our objectives?

  • Budget
  • Funding of occasional testbed activities to try out some recommended approaches.
  • Support for development of ESIP Data Stewardship introductory collateral (e.g., miscellaneous printed materials for ESIP 101).
  • Funding for conference, workshop, or meeting attendance where an ESIP Data Stewardship presence is requested and/or deemed valuable to the larger Data Stewardship and ESIP communities.
  • Reimbursement of publication fees.
  • Staff Support
  • Student fellow (2 for CY 2017 onward budget permitting).
  • Continued involvement of ESIP staff in informing community activities; communication with ExCom through our committee’s leadership.


How will we know we are on the right track?

1. Performance/Quality - How the Committee will keep an eye on the resources/measure the quality of resources, activities.

  • Analytics for Data Management Training (DMT) modules and the Data Management Clearinghouse.
  • Comments and discussions pertaining to information, including those during routine telecons.
  • Outputs from engagements (deliverables, comments, new contacts).
  • Results of the peer-review process for publications.
  • Extent of grant funding where applicable.
  • Requests for Participation in various efforts.


2. Relevance - How the Community will ensure that its research agenda and outputs (content and format/channel) are relevant to their core audiences

  • Community input drives agenda.
  • Periodic revisiting of ongoing activities to ensure relevance.
  • Periodic publications.
  • Outreach beyond ESIP, fostering overlap in membership (see Item 6 under the "Things we may do to fulfill our objectives" section).
  • Representation in conferences and workshops, both domestic and international.


How will others know what we are doing in & out of ESIP?

  • ESIP blogs
  • ESIP bi-annual meeting sessions and presentations
  • Telecons, email lists, the #stewardship channel on ESIP-All Slack
  • Presentations/Posters at conferences
  • Liaisons with other data stewardship organizations


Cross-collaboration area connections

  • Information Quality Cluster
  • Data Management Training Working Group
  • Sustainability Cluster
  • Documentation Cluster
  • Semantic Technologies Committee