Draft Excom Minutes

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Draft Minutes for 11/12/2009

Executive Committee Minutes November 12, 2009

Present: Tamara Ledley Steve Berrick Karl Benedict Chris Lenhardt Patricia Huff Bruce Caron Peter Fox James Frew Carol Meyer Michael Goodman Brian Rogan Margaret Mooney

The meeting began at 2:02 PM with a discussion of the Martha Maiden award. A quorum was achieved at 2:05 PM

1. Adoption of Minutes A motion was made to adopt the minutes. It was seconded and approved.

2. Copyright policy for website Brian presented the draft copyright policy to the committee based on his research of the Creative Commons site. The report was received generally favorably with the following suggestions: -Check the GNU compatability of the WIKI -Send a copy to John Wilbanks of Creative Commons for suggestions -Contributions to the website need to have more clarity. Karl Benedict offered to send some wording suggestions to incorporate into a new draft. -It was noted that people who use our materials need to have correct attribution.

It was decided that this would be reworked and prepared to bring this to the floor at the winter meeting with the goal being to leave the December telecon with a document that can be given to the entire membership.

3. ESIP Federation Business • Partnership Election Update We are in the last few days of the voting. This will bring us five new members to the meeting. We are beginning to look at the process of what we do with inactive members. Michael Goodman and the bylaws committee will look into this process. • January Elections (Officers, Committees, Type Reps) We are hoping to run an electronic election before the winter meeting. This would not include the type representatives which would be nominated and elected at the winter meeting. There was a suggestion put forth of whether or not we whould we have a longer voting period. It is typical that the nominations tend to come in at the last minute so the length of time for nominations isn’t that important. The fourth of December will be the nomination deadline, which will give time for a longer voting period. Everything is set up for nominations to be posted on the Wiki. • Winter Meeting The agenda has really taken shape in the last few weeks. The different tracks are well underway. • GEO Plenary We will have a presence at the GEO Plenary this coming week both in the presentations as well as having a booth.

4. Policy for Committee and Working Groups Budget Reviews The committee adopted a budget policy for committees and clusters back in September 2009. Bruce Caron, chair of the finance committee was invited to give a presentation.

There were some issues about budget requests for a project that would require a sustained funding beyond the lifetime of a one time event which prompted the discussion.

Rob Raskin spoke specifically on the Product and Services group budget request which was at the heart of the discussion.

The discussion centered around the following issues: -Should long term funding be a standard? -Should the Executive Committee give oversite or should it come through FUNding Friday. -If a product is used federation wide, such as the testbed proposed and resides on the ESIP website should the maintenance be funded? -The ficom issue was that the committee was being funded to do project work and that some of it was long term issue of the work. Is this the right process for this kind of work? There may be a conflict if it isn’t presented to the entire assembly since there may be others interested in the work.

Chris Lenhard observed that there were a lot of policy questions being raised in the discussion and that there was a need for outside advice on this issue. According to Carol we are very much in line with what our funds may be used for in terms of work.

Products and Services, through Rob Raskin, agreed to hold off on their budget request until there is further clarification on the issue.

Conclusions

-The question before the committee now was whether or not it can consider the budget requests or should decisions be held off until there is more clarification. -It was felt that we could move forward with some that are clear on their requests.

It was decided that this could not be finalized at this meeting. The document needs to be refined and then brought up again at the next telecon or to go before a larger body.

Carol agreed to work with Bruce and Rob to edit and clarify the document, and bring it back before the committee.

5. Other

Bruce Caron was the lone nominee for the Martha Maiden Award. There was discussion that followed on whether the group was comfortable moving ahead or should there be a subcommittee?

It was felt that it was best to at least do “due dilligence” so that the nomination appeared above board.

It was decided that in the next ten days there would be a decision through the committee after supporting materials are sent out.

Since this year there was only one nomination, it was felt that there needs to be a way to increase the nomination probably by setting the date much earlier in the year. Carol will update the wiki to allow for rollover nominations.

Meeting was motioned to adjourn by Michael Goodman and seconded by Steve Berrick. Meeting adjourned at 3:17 PM

Draft Minutes for 12/10/2009

ExCom Minutes – December 10, 2009

Present Carol Meyer Steve Berrick Marilyn Kaminski Michael Goodman Brian Rogan James Frew Chris Lenhardt Rob Raskin

Meeting was called to order at 2:05 PM

1. Adoption of Minutes

There was no quorum so the minutes from the previous meeting could not be adopted.

2. Update on copyright policy for website Brian gave an update on the copyright policy. • There is no compatability issue with GNU and the Creative Commons license will be fine. • John Wilbanks did send a reply to a request to look over our policy. He felt that the full assembly needs to discuss it so that ESIP as a whole is comfortable with the policy. He felt the policy is fine as written.

3. Update on Committee Budget Process FY10 Committee/Working Group Budgets There was a small group telecon of Rob Raskin, Bruce Caron, Chris Lenhardt and Carol Meyer that discussed the committee budget process. • There was reluctance on the part of the FiCom to approve all aspects of the budget. Some of the issues that needed to be dealt with needed to be transparent • There was also a question related to fairness since some budgets were significantly larger than others and seemed ambiguous in terms of what they were asking for, especially open ended projects. Rob proposed that another group be formed that could answer these questions and would include the VP as chair and the type reps. In the long run there might need to be an infrastructure committee particularly for long term budget requests.

4. ESIP Federation Business

Annual Election Update 

Michael reported on update for administrative positions. It is in good shape with just a couple of positions to finish. He will caucus with Carol to finish the process at AGU. At this point the administrative positions are all set, except for a couple of seconds, and are ready to be voted on. Business Meeting Carol gave an overview of the meeting. There is a plan to bring up more issues of substance to the group, including The copyright policy, a Report on the new working group that speaks to infrastructure requests related to budget and a report from Data Preservation on a statement of principles related to open data. The question was raised as to how to deal with a lack of a quorum. Carol mentioned that there will be a lot more virtual capability than at previous meetings. . Chris mentioned that is is important to remind members to vote or to name a proxy. Carol has invited Lawrence Friedl to speak on the importance of having a strong relationship with GEO. Stefan Falke will also talk about the evolution of the Air Quality group which has petitioned to be a community of practice for GEO

Winter Meeting

We have passed the early bird deadline and we are at 108. We are expecting another 25 from EPA and we will fill the room to capacity. The hotel will work with us to accommodate the numbers. The agenda is set, we are just waiting for a confirmation for a couple of our speakers. We have gotten two of our four panelists set for the federal panel

GEO Plenary Overview and GEO Call for Proposals

We had a very successful exhibit at the GEO plenary. We had an excellent location and we had a number of inquiries from interested individuals. The real win was the Air Quality being recognized as a community of practice. They organized a side session and had strong attendance. The user interface committee issued a proposal and a few of our members participated. There is no money involved but the people running the committee are looking for specialists to support projects.

Engagement with ESRI

There was an opportunity during GEO to reconnect with ESRI. Carol was able to have a conversation with them and it seems as if ESRI will reconnect through the water cluster and it is expected that there will be several ESRI staff at the meeting.

5. Other Business Michael Goodman mentioned that he needed some seconds for some of the nominated officers. Several folks will send emails to finish the process. Carol will need committee reports by December 28th.

There was a discussion as to whether or not Community Engagement and Commercial Development committees, which are currently inactive, should be disbanded. Rob suggested that this should be part of a larger conversation about the reconfiguring of the federation at the business meeting. This was met with approval by the committee and will become part of the business meeting agenda.

Meeting was adjourned at 2:54 PM