ExCom June2014

June ExCom - 2014-06-13, 3 ET

Participants

Peter Fox, Bruce Caron, Christine White, Emily Law, Bill Teng, Roberta Johnson, Margaret Mooney, Chuck Hutchinson, Erin Robinson

Minutes

1. Approval of May Minutes

   No quorum at the beginning of the meeting. Minutes will be approved electronically.

2. President's Report - Peter Fox
   • Peter reported that a press release has been prepared to go with the Sustainable Science Data Infrastructure workshop report due out in the next week. This is a follow-up from the sustainable science data infrastructure workshop that ESIP held in January.
   • Peter will be putting out a “State of the Federation” report in preparation for the summer meeting. He would like thoughts about this regarding what you consider newsworthy to include.
   • EC Director search: Erin sent email about the job description and advertisement; this should be considered draft. ExCom and Foundation Board should provide input quickly. We need to get these finalized ASAP. Bruce pointed out that meeting planning was not included in the job description, and that is a large part of the job. Additionally, having knowledge of social media outreach should be added.
3. Staff Report - Erin Robinson
   • Erin reported that the Summer Meeting is coming together with over 200 people registered. The agenda is set and it has been publicized. Thanks to Chuck we have added Jeff Morisette from DOI to our list of plenary speakers. In addition to the longer plenary speakers, we'll also have 2-4 Ignite-style lightning talks. Also supporting the meeting theme, we'll have a 1/2 day workshop on Agile development methods and a 2-day workshop led by Software Carpentry.
   • Cheryl Levey has joined the staff as a part-time assistant to Erin. She previously worked with Paul Uhlir in BRDI and has had extensive experience the past 25 years in planning meetings, facilitating and putting out communications, and providing support work for data-intensive groups like ours.
4. Committee Reports
   • Strategic Plan - Emily Law reported that the strategic plan for 2015-2020 is currently requesting input from the ESIP Assembly on goals for the plan based on the 2009 and 2011 goals. The request for input is open until June 19. So far we have received over 40 responses. The majority said to carry forward with the eight goals as presented, but there were a few suggestions for modifications. Once the poll is closed, we will post the results online and plan to synthesize the input during this month and share the results during the Thursday town hall at the Summer Meeting. In an attempt to gain additional input, we will put the set of goals on flip charts and collect ideas on actions that will help us reach those goals. Emily request that a small team from ExCom form a short-lived working group to help with these next steps. Consider the type representatives as part of this group. Erin noted that the Foundation can continue to provide staff support to help as well.
   • C&B
     • Quorum changes - (1) Currently the bylaws define quorum as a percent of active members. The C&B is recommending that the percentage is turned into an actual number in a policy document so that it does not have to be calculated before every business meeting. (2) We have some long-standing inactive members, C&B is suggesting that inactive members are warned that if they do not become active their membership will lapse. They will have one year to respond and at the end of the year, if no action has been taken will be removed. This change is to clean up the membership and have a more realistic sense of our true membership. C&B will draft policy guidance. Partnership Committee would be responsible for implementation.
     • ESIP Incorporation - After the Winter 2014 ESIP Meeting it came to light that ESIP is actually a quasi-legal entity. The C&B Committee has begun a discussion about the ESIP Federation incorporating. Bruce started an FAQ doc and discussion on the wiki.
   • Data Stewardship
     • Erin reported that Ruth Duerr put together a resolution for the ESIP assembly to vote to endorse the Force 11 Data Citation Principles (see wiki). This resolution emphasizes the work that the ESIP Federation has done leading the field in data citation and allows us to be part of something bigger. Bruce motioned that this resolution be sent to the assembly for a vote. Emily Law seconded. The motion was approved by acclamation.
   • Education
     • Education Strategic Plan Update - Roberta Johnson reported that they met on the 28th and used that meeting to catch up on items that had been neglected in the past year. Now looking at the educator challenge and the process in place for graduate students.
     • NSTA Sessions - With NESTA, the ESIP Education submitted a session to Fall NSTA conferences and is now waiting for approval.
     • Summer Meeting - Margaret reported that there will be one education session on Thursday at 11 am. We have speakers from NASA, NOAA and CIMSS for a 60 minute webinar. We plan to advertise with teachers who attended previous ESIP related meetings and also plan to publicize on various list-servs. Roberta reports that although the testbed proposal submitted wasn’t accepted, we hope to build from it, and we want to continue the web seminar momentum. This is a great way for people to participate who can’t travel.
     • NESTA Newsletters - Erin reported that the ESIP education committee is in a couple of newsletters (NESTA membership and Windows to the Universe) that have reasonably large subscriber numbers. This is a great opportunity to get the word out.
   • Finance - Funding criteria
     • Bill reported that the committee had discussed the draft and reached agreement. Emily raised a few additional questions about appropriate documentation for funded projects. Peter requested that the Finance Committee should revisit the draft and adjust wording on documentation. He requested a motion to approve this but delay voting until we make the change, and then vote by email. Christine White motioned to accept the document pending the revised wording. Roberta Johnson seconded. The vote is tabled pending discussion and changes.
   • Partnership - Welcome Packet & Draft Criteria for Membership
     • Erin reported that over 40 organizations have voted in the current new member election. They will be full members by the summer meeting. While only 1 or two will be at the Summer Meeting, most have plans to be at the Winter meeting. The Partnership Committee is also working on a packet for the new members.
   • Products & Services
     • Testbed Project Status - Christine reported that there are three funded projects working through logistics with Erin. The testbed projects will be covered in the ESIP 101 session, Tues morning at the Summer Meeting. Christine is also prepping a slide on the testbed that can be used in other sessions where the Testbed is mentioned. CW Update 08/11: The third funded project (EarthCube Prototype Catalog - WHOI) was withdrawn; may resubmit in the Fall.
     • FUNding Friday - P&S is having a no-host happy hour at the Incline Bar @ Copper, Thursday night to work on posters so that they can be up Friday morning. Peter will mention FUNding Friday at ESIP 101 and during his opening plenary remarks. This year, we will emphasize stronger project criteria of innovation, collaboration, and value to the ESIP scientific community.
     • AGU Session - Our session at AGU 2014, "Mash-up of Heterogeneous Data Systems for Better Data Integration: Furthering Interoperability through Collaborative Communities" was accepted. The session is co-convened with Peter, Bernd Ritschel and Toshihiro Iyemori. This session will be one place to highlight the outputs from the ESIP community like Testbed projects and FUNding Friday awards that couldn't have been done without collaboration.
   • IT & I
     • Rant/Rave - Erin reported that this past month’s rant/rave was well attended on CMMI work that AGU is doing.
     • IT&I Sponsored Workshops - IT&I is sponsoring two workshops on Tues - (1) the Agile workshop (2) the USGS has two sessions.
   • Type Rep Reports
     • Margaret reported that the type reps are currently discussing a more formal set of roles/responsibilities to be discussed at the Summer Meeting. She also requested that a prepared blurb be sent to the type reps for dissemination.
5. Other Business
   • Summer Hiatus
     • Peter congratulated the ExCom on doing a tremendous amount of work in the first part of the year. He acknowledged that the summer is a lull time and suggested that groups consider taking the rest of July and part of August off from actions after the ESIP meeting.

The meeting adjourned at 4:09.

Actions

• Action: Erin will send the press release to EC for comment.
• Action: Erin to book a meeting for this on the afternoon of the first day (Tueday).
• Action: Send Peter items to include in the 'State of the Federation' mid-year review.
• Action: When the FiCom Special Projects document is stable, Erin will post an announcement with a link and call for the vote.
• Action: Roberta will follow-up with Emily to discuss the Education Challenge.
• Action: All review quorum changes on the wiki and comment by the next telecon.