Community Forum planning

As the workshop in January will be closed, in order to get community input we will create a place on the web, which we are calling the Community Forum.

Forum goals: inform the community, gather input.

Part 1, purpose for this Community Forum

The amount of scientific data gathered and created is growing exponentially. The landscape of tools for analyzing and sharing data is evolving rapidly. Many trends are impacting scientific culture and leading to fundamental shifts in the practice of science, presenting both great opportunities and great challenges.

As data are the foundation of science, a unifying vision is needed to guide the development of cohesive, effective strategies and policies and address the data grand challenges that span domains and organizations.

The National Academies of Sciences is a private, non-profit organization created by law in 1863 to provide independent advice on science, engineering, technology and health. The National Research Council (NRC) is the "operating arm" of the NAS that conducts studies and writes expert reports at the request of federal government agencies or other sponsors seeking answers to a set of questions. Study sponsors use the result to guide them in their decision making.

ESIP and representatives from the National Research Council (NRC) Board on Research Data and Information (BRDI) have been discussing the possibility of a NRC study to accomplish that convergence for the science data enterprise. In July 2013, a plenary discussion at the Summer ESIP meeting brought these issues into focus as panelists considered the need and feasibility of establishing a NRC study on data developments, management, and stewardship in the Earth sciences realm. In January ESIP will be holding a workshop of invited participants to discuss the matter further.

Our goal is provide a set of recommendations to the NRC regarding the scope and conduct of the study. A more complete discussion of the idea is presented in this article that was submitted to AGU EOS: http://wiki.esipfed.org/images/2/2f/EOSPaper_Forum.docx. If this study is conducted and is successful, it is possible that future studies would follow and the endeavor could become evolutionary.

ESIP is a community-led organization. This Forum exists in order to inform our community of these efforts. We also need to hear from the community in order incorporate community input into our recommendations. Please consider the questions below and let us know what you think!

Current Events

Events at AGU

Town Hall Monday, 12/9: TH15F. TH15F. Connecting Data Stakeholders for a Long-term Vision of Data Stewardship 6:15 PM - 7:15 PM; 306 (Moscone South)

Presentation Friday, 12/13: IN51D-08. Establishing Long Term Data Management Research Priorities via a Data Decadal Survey 9:45 - 10:00 AM; 2020 (Moscone West)

Part 2, Questions for the community

• Thinking 5 years down the road, what trends will impact the way your agency collects, manages, stewards and uses Earth science data?
• What trends or technologies will have the biggest impact?
• How will your agency respond to these trends? What will be constant? What will have to change?
• Is there an aspect of your job that keeps you up at night? What would make your job easier?
• What is your vision for the future regarding scientific data? Please be bold and include fanciful, idealistic, lofty, and even utopian ideas.
• Do you think an NRC study would be useful and worthwhile? Why?
• If so, what do you think should be the scope of the study? How can we avoid a study that is so extreme in either depth or breadth that it is not useful?
• Should the study be limited to Earth and Space Science only or should it be broader to include, say, biomedical, physical, and social sciences? If broad, how broad?
• Does it make sense to focus the study at a low level, focusing on details in scientific domains of limited scope and then generalize? Or, as data management problems across domains have some similar characteristics, should we start with the a broad perspective and descend into greater detail later?
• Should the study also consider software and methodologies involved in data creation?
• Any other comments?