Data Management Training/meeting notes 20150714

From Earth Science Information Partners (ESIP)

Data Management Training Meeting Notes - DataONE Users Group Meeting and ESIP Summer Meeting 2015

(Link to Notes in Hackpad format)


  • DataONE Education Roundtable, 13 July, Monday
  • DataONE data management education modules can be found: https://www.dataone.org/education-modules; there is interest in evaluating the use and effectiveness in these modules although no plans to do so at this time (is this correct?)
  • DataONE staff see the utility of having a data management clearinghouse to:
  • Provide an inventory of data management educational resources for Earth Science data including those at the URL above;
  • Provide a mechanism for brokering the existing resources to the appropriate targeted audience, such as early career scientists, but also more established scientists who are beginning to see the need for data management planning since NSF is starting to use the existence and viability of data management planning as a factor in making grant funding decisions
  • The brokering mechanism should focus on needed skills for each targeted audience
  • DataONE is not in a position to ask for more grant funds at the moment as they are in process of going through their 18 month NSF audit, but would be available to participate in the planning discussions for further efforts related to data management training
  • Present: DataONE staff attending: Amber Budden, Matt Jones, Yiwei Wang


  • At Tuesday Lunch Roundtable at ESIP Summer, 14 July 2015
  • Present:
  • Shannon Rauch BCO-DMO / WHOI; srauch@whoi.edu
  • Is an author of data management modules within WHOI focused upon ocean sciences; could repurpose those for Data Management (DM) Short Course modules, possibly.
  • Shelley Stall AGU (Enterprise Data Management Program); sstall@agu.org
  • She didn’t know anything about funding possibilities as she has just started at AGU.
  • She’s most interested in Data Management Maturity Model & Enterprise Data Management (not sure what this means?)
  • Lorri Peltz-Lewis, USGS/USFS; spetzlewis@fs.fed.us
  • She has a poster at AGU & same one at ESIP on use of DOI at USGS.
  • She recommended person (John Carlino?) as being better to be involved in the future than she; Madison at USGS also knew the name.
  • She noted that BLM also has data management classes that could be listed as part of a clearinghouse effort.
  • Madison Langseth, USGS; mlangseth@usgs.gov
  • Has been working with Community Data Integration training resources at USGS; a small amount of money has been made available to support the creation of those resources.
  • She's interested in the clearinghouse idea too.
  • Steve Hughes, JPL; Steve.Hughes@jpl.nasa.gov ;
  • Interested in doing a module on OAIS; he was involved in the original development of the OAIS reference model and of its application to the space community.
  • Ruth Duerr, Ronin Institute; ruth.duerr3@gmail.com
  • Is teaching courses at Graduate School of Library and Information Science (GSLIS), University at Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) on Data Management.
  • Was co-editor of the ESIP DM Short Course and created a number of modules.
  • Interested in the clearinghouse idea; sees utility in the effort.
  • Bob Downs, CIESIN, Columbia University; rdowns@ciesin.columbia.edu
  • Authored many modules for ESIP's DM Short Course.
  • Also teaches workshops to train auditors and help data managers of organizations willing to be audited to be certified as a Trusted Digital Repositories per ISO 18603
  • Has been a co-chair of the ESIP Education Committee and is still a member.
  • Has also been a member of EarthCube efforts to create educational modules, but not at present.
  • Sophie Hou, student at UIUC; hou@illinois.edu
  • Is a student at GSLIS, UIUC and also ESIP Student Fellow for the ESIP Data Stewardship Committee.
  • Interested in marketing the ESIP DM Short Course modules, but also in evaluating them.
  • Wants to put in a proposal for funding through the ESIP Products and Services Funding Friday monies to create an inventory of existing educational resources for data management of Earth Sciences, and also compare the the topics covered to identify gaps in the topics.
  • Sophie's proposal has been accepted per Funding Friday that took place on 17 July 2015.
  • Is interested in authoring modules on the Data Curation lifecycle
  • Justin Goldstein, USGCRP; jgoldstein@usgrcp.gov
  • Current chair of the ESIP Data Stewardship Committee.
  • Interested in continuing the format of the DM Short course (self-paced, online resources for busy people), and of marketing the educational resources available.
  • Supports the idea of having a smaller group work on the furthering the DM Short Course, and other activities that have been proposed that would report back to the full Committee.
  • Thought a useful module would be one devoted to explaining why a researcher should care about data management (already included in several modules to some extent?).
  • Nancy Hoebelheinrich, Knowledge Motifs LLC; nhoebel@kmotifs.com
  • Co-chair of the ESIP DM Short course, and author of several modules.
  • Interested in taking the DM training initiative forward through ESIP in collaboration with other organizations such as DataONE, COPDESS, the UK's Data Curation Centre, and other organizations.


  • From Data Stewardship meetings on Wednesday, 15 July 2015
  • The group thinks the idea of having ESIP be a clearinghouse for Data Management training is an idea worth pursuing.
  • Funding will be needed.
  • May be authors interested in new modules related to data management of physical samples via the EarthCube iSamples group; Sarah Ramdeen suggested Ben Hallett who is interested in creating educational resources on that topic.


Other thoughts:

  • Might it be useful to compare the needed skills against the skills identified in the original NSF Cyberinfrastructure report: NSF 07-28, Cyberinfrastructure Vision for 21st Century Discovery, found at: http://www.nsf.gov/pubs/2007/nsf0728/ , and more specifically in a document indirectly found in the Reference section of the Cyberinfrastructure Vision, National Science Foundation Advisory Committee for Cyberinfrastructure Task Force on Grand Challenges Final Report, March 2011, Chapter 7 Education, Training and Workforce Development in Computational Science and Engineering: at: https://www.nsf.gov/cise/aci/taskforces/TaskForceReport_GrandChallenges.pdf


In summary from all discussions about what a DM work group could do:

  • Set up regular teleconferences for a working group; all interested except perhaps for Lorri who suggested someone else; should include Amanda Whitmire and Jake Carlson from previous discussions.
  • Inventory of topics compared to ESIP’s original outline (Sophie’s Funding Friday work).
  • Evaluation of topics informed by Sophie’s comparison.
  • Evaluation of existing modules.
  • Including: Run some analytics (including Google Analytics) against the ESIP Commons website and possibly the Vimeo website for the modules to see how much they have been used, and other information that we could ascertain; would need to figure out how what could be discovered from Google Analytics and add to Drupal listings, probably. Talk to David Bassendine about this?
  • Market / offer existing DM Short Course modules.
  • Call for authors for new modules and for updates to selected existing modules.
  • Evaluate current DM Short Course template and peer review process
  • Investigate Clearinghouse idea with Erin, FES/ ESIP Exec Committee.
  • If idea is attractive, find funds & organizations to support those kinds of services & organizational structure under the aegis of ESIP or the FES, but in conjunction with others: DataONE, COPDESS(?), DCC?, Software / Data Carpentry, IMLS, NSF, ESRI, AGU, others? (Erin in support of this).
  • Include libraries, other education organizations such as GSLIS, Data curation / data science curriculae, OntoSoft project? (Include Amanda Whitmire (Oregon State) and Jake Carlson, (UMichigan))
  • Might be some funds that could come from ESIP to get started; would need to define what needed to be done and cost those activities.
  • EarthCube funding is a possibility.


For previous meeting notes, see: