Excom February 2016

Attendees

Emily Law, President
Christine White, Vice President
Denise Hills, Chair, Nomination Committee
Ethan Davis, Chair, IT&I
Soren Scott, Chair, Products and Services
Justin Goldstein, Chair, Data Stewardship
Bill Teng, Chair, Chair, FiCom
LuAnn Dahlman, Chair, Education
Bob Arko, Type I Rep
Ted Habermann, Type III Rep
Erin Robinson, Staff
Annie Burgess, Staff
Rebecca Fowler, Staff

Minutes

December Minutes were approved electronically.
- Bill Teng motioned to approve the December minutes. Emily Law seconded.
President's Report
- Highlight
  - Funding opportunity: USGS is interested in standing up a couple of prototypes to demonstrate a PROV registry and an Annotation catalog. The products of these prototypes could potentially become community resources for ESIP. Sky Bristol, Steve Aulenbach, Erin, Annie, Christine and Emily held an initial telecom to discuss how ESIP can facilitate and support this effort. The conversation included how testbed framework can facilitate the prototypes, evaluation of the deliverables, and communication of such distributed architecture and products. USGS is currently crafting a project outline that will allow us to formulate a detailed plan to support their needs. Products and services committee will be involved. No action for ESIP at this time.
  - Meeting: Christine and Emily met at JPL last week and discussed ESIP 2016 work plan. The short distance between us affords regular tag up opportunities to work together closely.
- Actions
  - Committee chairs, working group and cluster chairs/co-chairs (may be Type reps as well?) to update work plan to align with ESIP direction in order to achieve ESIP goals laid out in the strategic plan approved by the assembly during 2016 winter meeting.
  - Excom to submit written report to ExCom wiki shortly after receiving monthly call notification, and read the reports prior to the call in an effort to allow more time for discussion.
  - ExCom to review and add ideas to 2016 work list on the ExCom wiki. We’d like your inputs/feedback as well as help to prioritize this year’s work. This will also assist in identifying opportunities to get involved.
Staff Report
- Highlight
  - NOAA Proposal draft will be shared early next week.
  - Legal update - The conflict of interest law has been changed as of 2013. Federal employees can serve on boards. Waiting for explicit confirmation from NASA and NOAA.
  - Rebecca Fowler is leading a refresh of esipfed.org, adding meetings.esipfed.org and will be working to organize content
  - Annie Burgess reported that evaluation processes are evolving for the Testbed.
  - ESIP is part of a team working to establish a data science internship network.
  - Member highlights from our new ESIP members will be posted on the blog over the next few weeks.
  - Call for sessions for the 2016 Summer Meeting will go out this week.
  - The new website will include a meetings.esipfed.org.
  - Staff has been working to define roles/tasks for clarity. Also created staff email - staff@esipfed.org, for when you are unsure who to contact.
- Actions
  - Website refresh - If you are interested in providing feedback, let Rebecca know.
  - Looking for member highlights and AGU data blog contributors
Committee Reports
- C&B -
  - No activities since winter meeting
  - Will be holding telecon with new C&B members (soon) to discuss (1) updating bylaws with approved changes, (2) draft of a "Standing Rules" document to address ESIP best practices and procedures that are not appropriate for bylaws (will discuss with FICom as noted below), (3) Revisiting officer term lengths discussed last year but put on hold for federation-foundation discussions, (4) prepare for discussion on changes to federation-foundation relationship as necessary
- Finance
  - Status of FY16 proposed budgets: (1) 3 approved (Drupal WG, Data Stewardship Comm, Education Comm); (2) 1 to be submitted (Semantic Technologies Comm); and (3) supplemental travel budget from DS Comm (being reviewed).
  - Request to be sent to those groups who received funding for FY15 for reports on results. This item is on Ficom's list of processes to be (a bit) more formalized.
  - Ficom to follow up with Ken K. re: C&B initiative on compiling ~best practices (or SOPs) for all committees (+other groups?) in some esip wiki space. Aligns very nicely with Ficom's formalization efforts.
- Partnership
  - Partnership is planning to move to monthly meetings. First meeting agenda topic is to strategize/prioritize short-term actions for the committee. Suggested ideas include: Welcome package and/or new member/welcome telecon; review/modify Conduct Code; coordinating with landscape mapping effort; and summer meeting engagement ideas with members.
- Data Stewardship
  - We are developing an outline and aims and scope for a paper concerning the use of identifiers for non-dataset entities, focusing on software.
- Education
  - This brief slide deck outlines the committee's plans to encourage the use of recreational drones for STEM. Planning is underway for two Webinars and a summer workshop for educators.
- IT&I
  - Ethan and Erin will be discussing IT&I plans after ExComm Telecon
  - Follow up on my call-to-action at ESIP Winter Mtg
  - Request for ExComm input (including ideas for Rant/Rave topics)
- Nominations
  - The 2015 NomCom is working on a suggestions/lessons learned document available here: Nomination Committee/Suggestions
- Products & Services
  - Discussing ESIP's potential participation in OGC Testbed 12 and 13.
  - Continuing efforts to expand the tech evaluation process through the P&S testbed with support from interested ESIP members across clusters/committees.
  - Two governance questions to raise: a) (related to Semantic Tech committee discussions) Is there a need or desire to define the RFP and review board processes for all committees, through an ESIP-wide standing rules document? and b) regardless of decision regarding A, can we resolve the outstanding issues around privacy items such as the submitted proposals?
- Semantic Technology
  - Used discussions in January to think about the structure of the committee. Several liaisons to internal and external groups were identified. Had initial discussions with Testbed and Products and Services to leverage expertise. Budget was drafted and sent to Ficom. Identified a few high priority topics to pursue in coming months. Deploying a core set of ESIP Semantic Technologies such as Ontology Repository and Linked Data efforts. One key topic that has emerged is how to govern ESIP semantic resources. Will be discussed at February telecon. Continue discussions with EarthCube Semantics Working group and beginning connections with RDA and OGC.
Type Rep Reports
- Type I - Suggested goals for 2016: 1. Work to align existing online directories (ESIP, COPDESS, CDF, re3data, etc); and 2. Recruit more NSF-supported facilities .
- Type II - Interest in dynamically characterizing ESIP Member Contributions.
- Type III - No Type report.
Other Business
- 2016 Work Plan (Initial tasks)
  - Actions
    - Collect 2016 work plans from collaboration areas.
    - Determine top work items for the year.
- Summer Meeting Updates - Visioneers met last week. Call for sessions will open on Feb.16. (Notes, Slack channel for planning. There is a strong interest in science communication, plenary speakers from diverse disciplines and touching on the story-telling aspects of big data.
- International Data Week
  - RDA, CODATA and the World Data System are coming together in Denver for a joint meeting this fall - RDA and SciDataCon will be the week of September 11th. ESIP has been asked to think about its contribution to International Data Week. Call for sessions has been extended to March 7th.
  - Actions
    - Create a google doc to share ideas for International Data Week.
- Discuss Earth Science Data Analytics cluster's Proposed Definition and Goals of Earth Science Data Analytics
  - ESDA observed that there is not a formal definition for Earth science data analytics. ESDA would like to have an ESIP endorsement of their proposed definition. The first step towards ESIP endorsement is discussion by Excom and, if there are no changes, put the definition as a standing document in front of the Assembly.
  - Actions
    - Excom members should use the discussion section of the Proposed Definition and Goals of Earth Science Data Analytics page to provide comment.