2016 Annual Business Meeting
Time: January 5, 2012, 11am-12:30pm Place: Wardman Park Mariott, Washington, DC
Agenda
- Call to Order
- ESIP/FES Update (Peter Fox, President)
- 2016 Elections (Ken Keiser, C&B Chair)
- Type Caucus - Type Representative Elections and Type Positions on Administrative Committees (Constitution & Bylaws, Finance & Appropriations and Partnership)
- Committee Reports
- Other Business
- Adjourn
Minutes
- 8:15 am Peter Fox calls the 2016 ESIP Assembly to order.
- ESIP/FES Update (Peter Fox, President)
- Nature of the relationship between the Foundation for Earth Science and the Federation of Earth Science Information Partners. Two years ago there was a law change in non-profits that stated people on the ExCom can not sit on the board of the Foundation.
- In the last two years, a lot of effort has gone into separating FES and ESIP. However, recently it has been brought to light that the original reason for splitting (a perceived conflict of interest) was not necessary.
- Board leadership, ExCom, ESIP staff and ExCom have discussed the issue. The conclusion is that the FES/ESIP relationship will return to the dynamic that existed 2 years ago where the FES is the financial and legal entity and ESIP the community.
- The update is that this will impact who can serve on the FES board. There is nothing to be done on this issue at today’s meeting.
- The first action that was taken is that board members for the 2016 FES board are not up for election at this meeting.
- The second action, the FES board meet and approved the addition of the ESIP President, VP and chair of the finance committee will be a part of the FES board.
- Type representatives will be elected today. A potential idea is that the Type Reps will also sit on the FES board.
- Questions:
- How does this impact Federal Employees sitting on the ESIP board?
- The legal council has been in direct contact with our sponsors. The original conflict of interest had to do with financial compensation for acting on the board. The minimal compensation for attending meetings is not an issue. We do not think that everyone elected to a leadership position would be elected to the FES board, i.e. committee chairs will not necessarily be on the FES board. It is possible to set up recusing for particular board activities.
- Are the term members of the current Federation board member’s ending?
- The board had 15 members, 5 were rotating off with 1 resignation. So with the addition of 3 ESIP leadership positins and the remaining 12, the board currently has 12.
- Is it worth creating a ‘legal committee?’
- The FES board created a Finance Committee, which has added more structure. The ESIP Federation has always had a Constitution and ByLaws Committee, which is not composed of lawyers but looks at these types of issues.
- Is there a plan in place to keep an eye on the laws that deal with issues related to the FES/ESIP split?
- The core elements outlined in a 501c3 are what we will need to keep a focus on, which will be a roll of the FES board. We do have a governance committee. At some point there will be voting to changes in Consitution and Bylaws, but that will be a future item.
- 2016 Elections (Ken Keiser, C&B Chair)
- Questions:
When do the new leadership positions take affect? After this meeting. What are the arguments for the Semantic Technologies Cluster? Many of the clusters inside of ESIP are interested in these technologies and external agencies are interested and the academic commuiny are interested. If the ST committee is going to interact with all of these entities it would be better to do this as a committee. For example, the NST EarhCube initiative does not want to reinvent the wheel related to semantic technologies. They are interested in collaborating with ESIP to bring their expertise. RDA is also interested in collaboration around semantic technologies. What is the clarification between a standing committe, working group and cluster. Cluster are the least formal. Working groups can be approved by ExCom and NOT the full Assembly. Committees must be approved by the Assembly. Because committees must be approved by the entire assembly, it gives a big stamp of approval. A committee can have a standing budget, where WGs and clusters are able to receive funding, but not a ‘standing budget.’ Action Item: Create a clear visualization of Clusters, Working Groups and Committees within ESIP
Type Caucus - Type Representative Elections and Type Positions on Administrative Committees (Constitution & Bylaws, Finance & Appropriations and Partnership) Type I Bob Arko - Type I Rep Brian Wee - C&B Rebecca Koskela - Finance Scott Hausman - Partnership Type II Sky Bristol, USGS – Type II Denise Hills, GSA - C&B Helen Connover, UA Huntsville - Finance Ann Wilson, LASP - Partnership Type III Ted Habermann - Type III Rep Li Peng - C&B Regan Moore - Finance Lindsay Powers - Partnership Other New Leadership Emily Law - President Christine White - Vice President Ken Keiser - Constitution and Bylaws Bil Teng - Finance and Appropriations Justine Goldstein - Data Stewardship LuAnn Dahlman - Education Ethan Davis - IT&I Danie Kinkade - Partnership Soren Scott - Products and Services
Committee Reports C&B (Ken Keiser): Constitution and Bylaws have been moved to Github. C&B vetted the Semantic Technologies proposal. C&B will be considering a suplement document to clarify some processes within ESIP. Finance (Bill Teng): Have worked to provide a system to give funding to collaboration areas that do not have standing budgets. Also worked on the longer term ESIP budget. There is an ongoing discussion about travel support for invited speakers, with a formalization of the process before FY17. Partnership (Tyler Stevens): 12 new member applications. Drafted a new ESIP Partnership strategic plan. Defined a process for inactive members. Revised text for the ESIP Member join page. Looking at new members for the future. Data Stewardship (Justin Goldstein): USGS has requested a full proposal from the Data Stewardship forf the data management clearinghouse. Other collaborations AMS Data Citation Recommendations, iSamples program. Five artilces in sholarly journals. Very active with Data Stewardship Maturing Matrix and applying the Matrix to various data types. Asked to weigh in and provide a leadership roll in the GEO Data Management Guidelines. Several members worked on developing the core guidelines which was truly international in scope. Education (Erin Robinson): Teacher workshp at this summer meeting. Collaboration with the Drones cluster on using Drones in classrooms. IT&I (Ethan Davis): They have hosted several Rants and Raves. Ethan invites participation in the cluster. Nominations (Denise Hills): Many thanks to everyone that stepped forward to be nominated. Nominations committee had to struggle a bit in the process of who could serve in what roll. Denise will submit a report to the ESIP President about lessons learned over the past 2 years. Products and Services (Christine White): Very active year in Products and Services. There has been a re-thinking of the way awards were given out through the Testbed. New undertaking of the AIST evaluations in the ESIP Testbed. The FUNding Friday event moving to a happy-hour format has been really successful. Formalizing processes for Testbed activities. Type I (Danie Kinkaid): Danie put together a poster at the Summer Meeting which the other types adopted. Type II (N/A): Highlights will be in the State of the Federation Type III (Ted Habermann): There have been a few attempts to determine how ESIP types can be more active in ESIP.
Other Business 2016 Summer ESIP - Chapel Hill, NC July 19-22, 2016 Steve Diggs will chair Visioneers. Plenary speaker ideas welcome
Incoming President Emily Law gave a very big thank you to outgoing president Peter Fox - an exemplar in the ESIP Community! She is exc
Meeting adjourned at 10:22.
