On Thursday, January 7th, 2016, the ESIP Data Stewardship Committee (the Committee) held its 2015 Report Out and 2016 Planning session as part of the ESIP Winter Meeting 2016. Although it was the first time in the recent years that the Committee combined the Report Out and the Planning sessions into one, the Committee members utilized the allotted time efficiently and were able to complete the discussions and set up the next steps for all the key collaboration areas identified in the agenda (the full session agenda and notes are published in the ESIP Commons and can be accessed and viewed directly via the following link: (http://commons.esipfed.org/node/8767).
As a result of the three-day Winter Meeting and the Committee's February monthly call falling on a federal holiday (Monday, February 15th, as 2016 President's Day), the Committee members voted to not reschedule the February monthly call. Instead, the Committee will resume the monthly call in March (Monday, March 21st, at 2pm ET/11pm PT). However, this does not mean that the Committee’s activities are on hiatus during the meanwhile. The following are updates for three key collaborative activities from the Committee since the Winter Meeting:
- Data Management Clearinghouse Project: At the ESIP Winter Meeting 2016, Nancy Hoebelheinrich, Committee member and Data Management Training sub-group Chair, and Sophie Hou, Student Fellow for the Committee, led the “Data Management Training Resources Survey and Clearinghouse Project Report” breakout session (http://live.commons.esipfed.bluedotapps.org/node/8755). During the session, Nancy provided an update for the Committee's Data Management Clearinghouse proposal, which was submitted in October 2015 in response to the Request for Proposal (RFP) from U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Community for Data Integration (CDI). Prior to the ESIP Winter Meeting, CDI members had voted the Committee's initial Statement of Interest proposal as one of the most highly ranked among those received, and issued an invitation for the Committee to proceed with the full proposal submission process. The proposal was subsequently delivered by the January deadline, with the CDI review currently in process. The Clearinghouse project’s effort to collect learning resources related to data management for Earth sciences will start with the learning resources that Sophie found as part of her FUNding Friday project. The FUNding Friday project compared existing data management training resources, including those produced by Clearinghouse participants (e.g. DataONE and USGS), with those that ESIP created as part of the Data Management for Scientists Short Course. We look forward to hearing the announcement for the awarded projects on Wednesday, March 9th, 2016 and sharing the news with the Committee as well as the whole ESIP community.
- “Identifier Paper”: The original concept and discussion for the Committee’s latest “Identifier Paper” was initiated during the ESIP Summer Meeting and was the subject of much discussion during the aforementioned Winter Meeting “Report Out and Planning” session. The committee expressed interest in focusing this paper on use cases pertaining to the assignment of identifiers to physical entities, especially software. The group is in the process of developing initial use cases around which to build the paper, with the hope of submission for publication consideration by the end of the summer.
- Data Stewardship Maturity Matrix (DSMM): Ge Peng, Committee member and Information Quality Cluster Co-Chair, is arranging a half-day workshop to be convened at the upcoming 2016 ESIP Summer Meeting in Chapel Hill, North Carolina during the week of July 19th to 22nd (http://commons.esipfed.org/2016SummerMeeting). The current tentative agenda for the workshop features a panel of representatives from different organizations who are exploring various metrics for measuring data maturity from different perspectives. The panel will aim to describe different maturity models and share their lessons learned and to invite the workshop attendees to share the data maturity challenges that they face in their respective data environment. DSMM use cases from various institutions will also be presented to the workshop attendees. Together, the panel and the workshop attendees can have hands-on experience with the DSMM (http://wiki.esipfed.org/index.php/Data_Maturity_Matrix) during the workshop by discussing the case studies and through creating any additional DSMM use cases.
Additional monthly meetings have already been scheduled to discuss these activities as well as for the Committee’s other collaborative areas. As the Committee continues to make progress, we look forward to sharing our updates through our monthly calls as well as the student blogs.