ESIP Update: Summer Meeting Early Registration & ESIP Lab RFP Deadlines THIS WEEK

Register NOW for the ESIP Summer Meeting (July 14th-24th, ONLINE)
The ESIP Summer Meeting is now just 2 weeks away! Have you seen the agenda at https://2020esipsummermeeting.sched.com/?

• 50+ Community-Contributed Breakout Sessions: jump in to learn and collaborate with others on numerous topics.
• 6 Plenary Sessions, including Australia-friendly timeslots: check out some of our featured speakers here.
• FUNding Friday: take part in this fast-paced mini-grant competition.
• Research Showcase: share your work through brief recordings & live Q&A [spaces limited!]
• …and more!

You can find the link to register and more info about the event here.

ESIP Summer Meeting Scholarships Offered Through EarthCube
EarthCube is excited to announce that scholarship applications are now being accepted for the 2020 ESIP Summer Meeting (https://2020esipsummermeeting.sched.com/), which will kickoff virtually on July 14th. EarthCube is committed to creating sustainable community connections. ESIP clusters represent a great way to sustain long-term connections in the geosciences. We also encourage EarthCube members to learn more about ESIP and to consider proposing sessions at future ESIP meetings as a path for outreach and engagement for EarthCube projects and products. Scholarships are open to EarthCube members. Learn more and apply now!

Pre-ESIP Summer Meeting Event – Introduction to ontologies: enabling collaboration, enhancing interoperability (7/13)
You are invited to attend a free virtual tutorial on ontologies that is being co-organized by ESIP's Semantic Technologies Committee and Agriculture and Climate Cluster on 7/13 beginning at 12 pm ET. Deriving transdisciplinary solutions that are responsive to complex socio-environmental challenges require, as stated in ESIP’s mission statement, linking “observation, research, application, education and use of Earth science”. One of the motivations behind the FAIR Principles (for scientific data management and stewardship) is enhancing machine-augmented capabilities to help researchers and practitioners find relevant data and information across “traditional” silos. The aim of this tutorial is to provide participants with an overview of the role ontologies play in enhancing collaboration across these silos. This tutorial also serves as preparatory background for multiple ESIP Summer Meeting sessions. Learn more and find the link to register at http://wiki.esipfed.org/index.php/ESIP_2020_Summer_Meeting_Ontology_Tutorial.

ESIP Lab Spring Request for Proposals OPEN Now (Due *THIS WEEK* 7/1)
The ESIP Lab supports the Earth science community in building innovative, applied technologies through funding and community input. Through this Request for Proposals (RFP), the ESIP Lab seeks projects that lie in the realm of good ideas ready to be tried out. Projects should last 6 – 8 months, with a maximum budget of $10,000. Proposals that address the following needs in the Earth science community will be given priority:

• Modernization of Earth science workflows using community-recommended best practices — the use of open-source software and cloud computing are encouraged.
• Cloud computing use cases for Earth science — creation of well-documented notebooks showing how to collect, distribute, or analyze Earth science data in the cloud.
• Extension of open source software critical to collecting, distributing, fusing, or analyzing Earth science data.
• Comparison or assessment of Machine Learning or Deep Learning techniques with controlled datasets and/or using well-defined benchmarks.
• Linked open data techniques and methods, particularly harmonization of disparate information about the same identified objects and entities.

Although this RFP will give priority to proposals addressing the bulleted topics above, other high-quality proposals will also be given consideration. Read the full RFP here.

Putting Data to Work Webinar – Usability: How Usability Techniques Can Support Your Scientific Communities (Recording now available)
Did you miss last week's Putting Data to Work Webinar presented by Sophie Hou (Data & Usability Analyst, Apogee Engineering – Contractor to the USGS)? If so, please check out the recording now available at https://youtu.be/FTRRL9-aa4M to see Sophie's advice on ensuring that scientific research and products are provided in a useful way to our communities.

More News

Webinar Series: Serving Society with Space Data
Co-hosted by the Space Enabled Research Group (MIT Media Lab) and the Secure World Foundation, this virtual series engages a multi-sector audience in discussions on how space technologies and geospatial applications contribute to better outcomes in critical fields around the world, such as energy, food security, poverty, and governance. Held twice a month, the events bring together stakeholders working in companies, nonprofits, academia, and government to highlight initiatives taken to progress toward the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) using a truly transformative multi-stakeholder approach. The series highlights real-world case studies as well as opportunities and challenges for expanding the use of satellite data in efforts to achieve the SDGs.  This series seeks to look at ongoing work by a variety of actors, with a special focus on development and humanitarian projects. Learn more here. Upcoming webinars include:

• 7/8 (10:00-11:30am ET) SDG 16: Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions
• 7/22 (10:00-11:30am ET) SDG 7: Affordable and Clean Energy 
• 8/5 (10:00-11:30am ET) SDG 3: Good Health and Wellbeing
• 8/19 (10:00-11:30am ET) SDG 8: Decent Work and Economic Growth
• 9/2  (10:00-11:30am ET) ALL SDGs: Monitoring and Evaluation

FORCE11 Scholarly Communications Institute (FSCI) (8/3-8/13)
Registration is NOW OPEN for the FORCE11 Scholarly Communications Institute (FSCI), which will be delivered virtually from August 3-13, 2020. The theme will be FAIR Data principles and include an array of courses and plenaries on innovative publishing practices, policy implementation, and other aspects of scholarly communication. FSCI Courses range from basic orientations to advanced topics parsed by different domains/disciplines, with the goal to foster community-driven understanding and solutions for the latest trends, technologies, and opportunities that are transforming the way science and scholarship is conducted and communicated. Researchers “return home” from the summer institute with important skills training – but more broadly, are newly equipped with ideas, tools, and tactics for instigating change in their disciplines and at their institutions. Learn more and register by 7/20 at https://www.force11.org/fsci/2020.

OceanHackWeek 2020 (8/10-8/14)
OceanHackWeek is a small hands-on, interactive virtual workshop focused on data science and oceanography that will be held during August 10-14, 2020, featuring five days of tutorials, data exploration, software development and community networking!
Please visit https://oceanhackweek.github.io/ for more details and apply by 7/13.

Help AGI Understand COVID-19 Impacts on Geoscience Workplace & Instructional Environments
The American Geosciences Institute (AGI) is conducting a year-long study to understand the impacts on geoscientists, employers and educational institutions in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, and to discover which of these changes will become permanent. Over the next 52 weeks, survey participants will be emailed a brief online status survey twice a month. The survey will only take a few minutes to complete. For more information about the survey, visit www.americangeosciences.org/workforce/covid19.

SGCI Science Ambassadors Program
Are you interested in a) sharing with others how the use of a gateway has changed your work; b)Training others on the use of your gateway of choice; or c) Presenting your experience of using a gateway for education? COVID-19 is changing the ways we communicate about our science. Given that current outreach to communities is being done virtually or via publications, the Science Gateways Community Institute (SGCI) has redesigned the Science Ambassadors Program to provide funding of up to $1000 per year to scientists who have an appointment or affiliation with a US university. These funds can be used for virtual meeting registration costs, publication costs, and more. Learn more about this opportunity and apply on a rolling basis at the end of each month (starting 6/30) at https://sciencegateways.org/engage/ambassadors.

Earth Lab Professional Certificate in Earth Data Analytics
If you're looking to gain skills in earth data science and scientific programming, consider the Earth Data Analytics – Foundations professional certificate at the University of Colorado, Boulder. This 9 credit program can be completed entirely online or in person over a ten month period from August through June. Applications are currently being accepted for Fall 2020 (priority application deadline is 7/13). The certificate consists of three sequential courses. It provides you with the fundamental skills required to work in the rapidly growing field of earth data science. Graduates will be prepared to launch or advance careers as data scientists, data analysts, GIS/geospatial analysts, remote sensing scientists, or product managers, among other careers. The certificate is appropriate for recent graduates, experienced earth science professionals, and career changers. You can find the entirety of the content covered in the first two courses of the certificate on earthdatascience.org. This content is completely free and available for you to work through on your own time. For more information, please visit this website.

Gateways 2020 Call for Participation
Call for Participation: Gateways 2020 (October 19–21, Bethesda, Maryland) is now accepting submissions of short papers, demos, panels, tutorials, and workshops on the topic of gateways for science, engineering, or other disciplines. Popular topics include: gateway design, use, impact, development processes, sustainability, or best practices, educational topics (tutorials, demos) directed toward the next generation of gateway creators as well as gateways used for education; Any other aspect interesting to fellow gateway creators or users, such as emerging capabilities, approaches or technologies; and Learning Labs (impromptu group discussions and gatherings) will also be welcoming early submissions as well as on-site proposed topics. See more details, including submission deadlines here.

NCEAS Training on Reproducible Research Techniques for Synthesis
Registration is open for a new intensive, five-day immersion course “Reproducible Research Techniques for Synthesis” (8/17-8/21 in Santa Barbara, CA). The course, which will happen quarterly, will enable environmental researchers across career stages and sectors to gain fundamental data science skills in support of open, reproducible research techniques. Major course foci will include managing data to enable better reuse, building reproducible workflows using R and git, and communicating results within the framework of synthesis science. This is an opportunity for students, researchers, data managers, and others to reinforce or expand their learning and become familiar with current best practices and tools in data science and open science. These skills will enable you to maximize your productivity, share your data effectively, and accelerate the scientific community’s ability to work together on solving important questions about the natural environment and our interactions with it. Learn more and apply by 7/20 here.