Agclimate telecon 2014-04-07

Agenda

Jim Fox's presentation on Climate Resilience Toolkit (CRT)
Preparation for July ESIP on the wiki and on the Commons

Minutes:

Recording of the Telecon Meeting: (Starts 30 minutes in) Jim Fox Presents on Climate Resilience Toolkit

Jim Fox presented on the Climate Resilience Toolkit
The Design of the Climate Resilience Toolkit (CRT) website follows the agenda of the CRT: getting useful data in a form people can easily use

Goals:

Moving from data acquisition to action
Provide things that will help with risk and uncertainty
Help to look at things from a value perspective
Provide decision making building blocks - need to relate the data to what people care about

Workflow to answer three basic questions:

Did you know?
Why should I care?
What can we do about it?

There are other ways to dive into the data (examples - Topic Based & Use Cases) which get at a lot of problems which result in the lack of widespread adoption of Earth Science data.

Data in easy, usable formats
Trust
Traceability

Who are the users?

Decision Makers
Community Level
Staff and county managers - the planners who are accountable to elected officials
Not usually elected officials

What scenarios are highlighted as use cases are specifically Taking Action Stories: This is a way to connect to the information. Bringing people directly to case studies to see how they can relate and what could be useful to them. They can filter by problem topic, by examples, by areas of interest. For example:

People in the Agriculture Sector:

What tools they are using
What data they are accessing
Case studies show their progress on their action goals
Case studies tell their story

Climate Explorer: Another Way of Interacting (Interactive Map View)

Spatial and temporal data
directed by map viewer by topic
interactive and very easy to interact with
transparent layers, legends and data sources available to download
permalink allows users to share with other users they map they create

Taking Action:

Tools - and how the tools take action
Not trying to replicate, trying to point at sources and key aspects - linking to other data sources
Not every single tool is linked to a use-case, but that is the goal (don't really like having "orphan tools")
Different teams lead different topics - to add data and tools
The CRT is a working prototype: to see and include the tools that people are using
Looking for: user friendly tools with a web base (something like WARF might be "too heavy" for example)
Focus/Weigh the Tools: Used to build resilience. Used to take action. Look at the near term, cause and effect. Is there a tool to address specific stresses?
Case Studies: Must have a "Take Action" component
If people are not sure how to ask the questions they are looking for, CRT also connects them with experts
Experts - pulls up contact information of people in a geographic area (nearby from the user)
Looking to build local trust and provide good lines to good information, connect with a trusted source
Thinking about Crowdsourcing Information. CRT isn't built to do so now, but is considering that direction.
Anyone can link into the CRT, as the CRT isn't serving the data, which can make action applicable on a local scale

Discussion
When does scaleability become an issue?
How does the CRT decide between case studies? How does it manage them? Archive them? Who are the contributors and what is teh process for determining what is useful, and also what the user may have overlooked?
Good question - has not really been determined quite yet. Still getting started. ESIP groups are trusted sources and could be really helpful in finding that knowledge that is out there? Also CRT is continuing to work with the end user (and with the end user in mind), rapid prototyping and learning by doing. CRT is interested in moving people from simple exposure to go on to action, in connecting the dots. Figuring out what people are concerned about and develop the tools that are driven by the values of the end user.
CRT is not about reinventing the wheel, it utilizes the top 10-15 tools and portals that people are using globally and is integrating them. There are references to these tools and portals as well, for more information/use. CRT has templates for use-cases (which could be useful for AgClim/ESIP), as well as the networking and the benefit of an "easy to understand story".

How are the Use Cases "nominated" and How many people are on the CRT Team?
CRT was started a year ago, initial launch in November. Small team with people dedicated to specific subject matters and topics. Case studies are nominated in conversation with the people. CRT asks to make sure these are case studies that are good to be used on the website. It's a conversation, and to see if it is really helping the end user.

Summer Meeting Session:
Continue to discuss this type of conversation/collaboration? Maybe something with other ESIP groups (like the Energy group).

Attendees: Nancy Hoebelheinrich, Lindsay Barbieri, Jim Fox, Richard Eckman, Brian Wee, Arif Albayiak, 2 Callers