ESIP UPDATE: New Year… new clusters… new ways to get things done

Above: After a great Winter Meeting, new clusters are poised for take-off

Good morning all – It's Monday. Do you know when your next cluster call is? Did you get out of the shower with a great idea for some new work and could use a dozen people to give this idea a workout? ESIP is your community, a great pool of knowledge and skills that you contribute to every time you step up on a call or at a meeting to offer your own expertise. And it's waiting there to help you solve your most immediate problems in return. Does the notion of proposing a workshop to an agency to be held in 2018 at a cost of $50k seem like the wrong way to get answers to an important issue today… then just contact the ESIP VP (Christine White) and tell her you want to start a new cluster. ESIP will have you set up with a virtual workshop in a few days. Then you can do ESIP a favor and email your agency program manager. Let them know you didn't ask them for another $50k for yet another face-to-face workshop.

You are also invited to add your thoughts (and words) to an ESIP response to the NSF RFI on cyberinfrastructure needs.

Remember, if there is anything you'd like to see included in next week's Monday Update, send it to Bruce Caron (brucecaron AT esipfed.org). 

Best, 
Bruce 
brucecaron AT esipfed.org

Federation News 

• ESIP response to NSF cyberinfrastructure needs RFI
• Newish Cluster, CLEAN Network wins award
• New Cluster: VR/AR for Science
• New/old Cluster: Web Services
• New/old Cluster: Science Software

Around the Federation

• Monday: Data Stewardship
• Tuesday: CLEAN Network, Education, Program Committee, Discovery
• Wednesday: Science Software VR/AR, Visioneers
• Thursday: Data Analytics, Drones
• Friday: 

See the full telecon calendar here. Select the meeting you'd like to attend, login instructions are included in description. 

Federation News

ESIP response to NSF cyberinfrastructure needs RFI
ESIP President, Emily Law, invites you to participate:
“Many in our community have expressed interest in providing inputs to the NSF call for advanced cyberinfrastructure needs:
As the leading community in advancing the use of Earth science data, it is in our interest to provide a consolidated ESIP response to this RFI.
You are invited to contribute to this collective response by using the Loomio platform (in conjunction with Google Doc). The platform promotes shared document editing (Google Docs) and discussion (Google Docs and Loomio) and transparent decision making (Loomio).
Please join us by hopping on: https://www.loomio.org/invitations/70d1c101c699ae5c3a22
In order to meet the RFI submission due date on April 5, 2017, please complete your edits of the Google Docs (thru Loomio) by March 10. That will allow time to complete discussion by March 24, and to finalize by March 31.“
 

Newish Cluster, CLEAN Network wins NCSE Friend of the Planet award
From the award announcement: “It is with great pleasure that I write to tell you that the Board of Directors and staff of NCSE have  chosen the CLEAN network for a 2017 NCSE Friend of the Planet award, which is given to an individual or organization we believe has made a substantial contribution to climate change education or to NCSE. The Friend of the Planet award joined NCSE’s 30-year-old Friend of Darwin award in 2014 and, as you’ll see from the list of previous recipients, CLEAN is in excellent company!
In selecting you for this award, we took note that the Climate Literacy and Energy Awareness Network (CLEAN) represents the most extensive online resource for educators on climate and energy issues. In addition to creating a network of informal and formal educators as well as those who work with them, CLEAN is the steward of the largest and most valuable collection of climate and energy educational resources on the internet. We particularly appreciate that all of the resources in your searchable database are vetted by both scientists and educators, to ensure that only quality materials are used in classrooms across the country. An incredibly important resource to educators, CLEAN is well deserving of the Friend of the Planet Award. I hope you will convey to your many CLEAN collaborators how much NCSE appreciates their work!” CLEAN became an ESIP cluster last November.

New Cluster: VR/AR for Science
Calling all futurists! Join other science data users and technologists in the newest ESIP Cluster: VR/AR for Science. The purpose of the VR/AR for Science Cluster is to help ESIP members understand the emerging virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) technologies that are available and how they can be leveraged for scientific research, visualization, and communication. The VR/AR for Science Cluster allows ESIP partners to share demonstrations of VR/AR technology, use cases of this technology for science, developments in the hardware/software related to the technology, and experience and suggestions for implementation. The Cluster provides information to ESIP members as to how VR/AR technologies are used currently, with a continual focus on cutting edge developments in the gaming sector (hardware, controllers, etc.) that can be applied to scientific domains. The VR/AR for Science Cluster fosters a collaborative environment for sharing resources and a foundation for building a community of scientific users of these technologies. Email Shanya Skolnik <sskolnik@navteca.com> or Christian Alarcan <christian.alarcon@jpl.nasa.gov> if you are not yet on the ESIP-all Slack team, they will send you an invitation to join to VR/AR channel.

New/old Cluster: Web Services: invitation to participate
Cluster organizers propose that the cluster look at measuring web services patterns of use at sites where large servers are run (e.g., NASA and NOAA). A casual observation is that subsetting services for data access are underused relative to simple file-access, but to qualify and quantify this more data about access patterns are needed. OPeNDAP has some experience with analysis of access data for web services (e.g., server logs) and often has found very telling patterns that can be used to improve server performance, so even if the perception regarding under-utilization it false, there will be significant benefit to the analysis of use. If it is the case that web services are underused, we should ask why. Is it because users lack knowledge about them? Or do these services underperform users' expectations?
ESIP represents an excellent forum for this investigation since it is unique in having people representing all three groups of users (implicitly) mentioned above (end-users, system developers and data center managers).

Email James Gallagher <jgallagher@opendap.org>  if you are not yet on the ESIP-all Slack team, he will send you an invitation to the web services channel.

New/old Cluster: Science Software: invitation to participate
Alert – the Science Software group is bootstrapping itself back to life – join our brainstorming telecon on 15 February noon – 1:00 PM EST/9 am PST.  Please contribute ideas ahead of time to the agenda found here.

Around the Federation

Force11 opens a scholarly communication summer institute
ANNOUNCING FORCE11 SCHOLARLY COMMUNICATION INSTITUTE, July 30 – August 4, 2017, San Diego, CA USA FORCE11 is pleased to announce the launch of its new annual Summer Institute in Scholarly Communications: the Force 11 Scholarly Communications Institute at the University of California, San Diego (FSCI@UCSD), July 30-August 4, 2017.  www.force11.org/fsci 
FSCI@UCSD is a week-long program that offers participants training, networking and skills development in new modes of research communication.  The UC San Diego Library is hosting the event that will take place at the Institute of the Americas on the UC San Diego Campus.

AGU Medals and Honors Nominations:
The call for these nominations is HERE:
Nominating a student, colleague, peer, or mentor for an AGU Honor highlights their achievements in Earth and space science research and provides them with the recognition they deserve. Receiving an AGU Honor is an esteemed recognition for those who have made profound contributions and breakthrough achievements in the Earth and space sciences.

Training in Open Science and Synthesis
Application Open for Training in Open Science and Synthesis through the Gulf Research Program. Members from NCEAS, DataONE and Data Carpentry are teaming together to provide an NCEAS led, 3-week open science training event.   This training event will be hosted by the National Center for Ecological Analysis (NCEAS), Santa Barbara CA, July 10th – 28th.  Early career and established researchers from the Gulf research community are encouraged to apply.
Travel support and accommodation is provided. The funding for this project is provided by a grant from the Gulf Research Program, dedicated to improving understanding of the Gulf of Mexico’s human, environmental, and energy systems in response to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.
Full details of the training course and information on how to apply can be found at: https://www.nceas.ucsb.edu/OSS2017

Early Career Travel Grant for the 2017 EarthCube All Hands Meeting
All Hands Meeting Dates: June 7-9 in Seattle
Travel Grant Deadline: March 15
Are you or do you know an early career scientist* planning to attend the 2017 EarthCube All Hands Meeting? The deadline for the Early Career Travel Grant applications is March 15. Please distribute to your colleagues and departments. Thank you!