Status Report: Community Services

October 2015 - March 2016

Doug Dirks, Jeff Weber, Joshua Young, Larissa Gordon

Activities Since the Last Status Report

Posts to the News@Unidata blog appear regularly, but not on a specific schedule. Some highlights:

Finding community members willing to contribute stories (or story ideas) for the blog is an ongoing challenge

The community services group continues to actively reach out to and engage with Unidata community members.

Assisted the Users Committee in conducting the Unidata 2016 Community Survey (to be discussed separately at the Spring 2016 Users Committee meeting).
A pilot project to assist community members with data management and document the resulting workflows for the DMRC was awarded supplemental funding by NSF. Three academic volunteers are participating (North Carolina State University, Millersville University, and the University of Wyoming). As a part of this project, community services intern Larissa Gordon has joined the UPC through summer 2016.
Community engagement at recent professional society conferences (AGU, AMS, AGU Ocean Sciences)
Engagement with CUAHSI to support the NFIE and WRF-Hydro at the NWC
Continue to serve on the CUAHSI HIS standing committee
Enhancing the Teaching Resource Network
We continue to update Unidata’s social media channels (Facebook, Twitter, Google+)
We continue to publish short videos/screencasts on the Unidata YouTube channel.
We continue to actively support the NCAR/SOARS program
Actively participate in Super Science Saturday

Facilitating community adoption of new technological services (cloud, etc)
Engagement with Unidata social media streams among community members is not particularly high.

Expanded emphasis on cloud-related activities
Provide an initial online training resource focused on Python and Unidata services and tools
Consult with NOAA NWS partners regarding the outcomes of the NWS SOO survey
Release robust case studies for the DMRC with associated outreach through social media and the Unidata blog
Participate in the Science of Team Science conference and identify possible collaborators

Support Committees work towards producing the next Strategic Plan
Feature the DMRC case studies at conferences
Engage community to contribute curriculum and data to the Teaching Resource Network
Continue to engage the hydrologic community regarding WRF-Hydro/IDV interactions and the National Water Center’s efforts

The 2016 Unidata Users Committee community survey was recently completed; however, this is a self-selecting group of individuals that respond to a broad request for participants. Are there particular communities or groups that would benefit from individual outreach (e.g. either staff or committee member call for one-on-one discussions)?

Statistics from the Community pages on the Unidata web site. Comparisons are made with statistics from the previous six-month period.

Most recent six months:

All blog pages
33,825 unique pageviews (19.574 in previous period)
76% of total community pageviews (50% in previous period)
www.unidata.ucar.edu/community/
4119 unique pageviews (3164 in previous period)
9% of total community pageviews (8% in previous period)
www.unidata.ucar.edu/events/
3333 unique pageviews (12010 in previous period)
7% of total community pageviews (31% in previous period)
www.unidata.ucar.edu/about/
2800 unique pageviews (3714 in previous period)
6% of total community pageviews (9% in previous period)

We support the following goals described in Unidata Strategic Plan:

Enable widespread, efficient access to geoscience data
We monitor and collaborate with data sources to stay apprised of impending changes and to advocate for the needs of our user community. We provide user workshops, tutorials, and community workshops to help build supportive relationships between community members.
Develop and provide open-source tools for effective use of geoscience data
We promote Unidata tools and software for multi-disciplinary use, with an eye toward finding additional research and educational communities that can benefit from our work.
Provide cyberinfrastructure leadership in data discovery, access, and use
We work with government and industry data providers to secure access to data for Unidata community members.
Build, support, and advocate for the diverse geoscience community
We coordinate with our governing committees to find ways to expand Unidata's community participation. We use our web site, electronic newsletters, and social media to keep community members informed about enhanced data services, software tools, and cyberinfrastructure.

We participate in UCAR/NCAR and NSF projects for underrepresented populations and minority communities (SOARS, AIHEC, outreach to HBCUs). We provide services and tools to facilitate education and research in diverse communities. We work to broaden the Unidata community by participating in student and professional conferences.

Prepared September 2015