Status Report: Community Services

April 2024 - September 2024

Doug Dirks, Nicole Corbin, Tanya Vance, and  *Jeff Weber

Executive Summary

Our group lost a team member, Jeff Weber, due to reduction in staff actions July 2024. Reorganization of our group activities is ongoing. We have engaged with historically marginalized and underrecognized communities and institutions as part of NSF Unidata’s outreach efforts to groups such as Rising Voices, SACNAS, AIHEC, TCUs. We participated in outreach to the Earth System Science community at conferences, workshops, and working groups. We also facilitated the 2024 NSF Unidata Community Equipment Awards, supported NSF Unidata UsersCommittee and SAC activities and communications, progressed NSF Unidata’s core award post-submission activities, worked to advance cross-program and cross-organization collaborations and activities, and expanded learning and development materials, resources, and offerings.

Activities Since the Last Status Report

Community Outreach and Services

Community Communications:

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

• Why is the Keras 3 Release a Big Deal for the Deep Learning Community?
• SSEC Unidata Server Shutting Down in April 2024
• Welcome Summer Intern Ana Castaneda Montoya
• Welcome Summer Intern Leo Matak
• Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) for Earth Systems Science
• NSF Unidata Funding Proposal Approved by U.S. National Science Foundation
• NSF Unidata at the 2024 Earth Educators' Rendezvous
• New eLearning: Machine Learning Foundations in the Earth Systems Sciences
• Summer 2024 NSF Unidata Interns Wrap Up Their Projects
• Recent Changes at the NSF Unidata Program Center
• Software release information
• A new series of posts on AI/ML topics
• Many AWIPS Tips and MetPy Mondays episodes

• AWIPS Tips is no longer in development as of July 2024, as a result of staff reduction
• MetPy Mondays is currently on hiatus

• Community meetings and other announcements
• Updates to NSF Unidata’s social media channels (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn)
• Continue to publish short videos on the Unidata YouTube channel

Engagement with historically marginalized and underrecognized communities and institutions

• Supported AIHEC Summer Climate Resilience Student Research Program (Stonie Cooper)
• NOAA Midwest CAP Train-the-Trainer and NICC Weather Station Installation in Santee, NE (Stonie Cooper)
• Umoⁿhoⁿ Nation Engagement and Weather Station Site Evaluation in Macy, NE (Stonie Cooper)
• Delivered Machine Learning Foundations in the Earth Systems Sciences (CyberTraining Project) at MSU Denver
• Sovereign Data Network efforts moved to NSF NCAR Directorate Office with Jeff Weber’s role transition.
• See conference, workshops, events, and working group activities below.

Outreach to the Earth System Science community at conferences, workshops, events, and working groups

Conferences: 

• Presented at NSF CSSI/SCIPE/CyberTraining PI meeting (NC)
• Presented at Earth Educators’ Rendezvous, 2024 (NC)

Workshops and Events: 

• Presented and participated in Rising Voices 12th Annual Workshop, ‘Co-creating Research, Policy, and Action: The Rising Voices of Indigenous Peoples and Partners in Weather and Climate Science (TV)
• Participated in Center for Ocean Leadership ‘Fostering a Diverse and Inclusive Ocean Workforce’ Workshop (TV) and UCAR/UCP/NSF NCAR Engagement Reception
• Participated in Environmental Data Science Innovation & Inclusion Lab (ESIIL) Innovation Summit (JW)
• Participated in National Weather Service Partners events and webinars (TV)
• Delivered data analysis and visualization professional development workshop to 30 UCAR interns (NC)
• Supported Colorado State University Python Readiness learning series for new graduate students (NC)

• This is the third iteration of this series at CSU, and the first time it will be entirely student-led

• Drew Camron and Thomas Martin delivered Quantitative Analysis of Meteorological Data with Python to seven USGS staff

Working Groups: 

• See Ongoing Activities section below for working group activities
• NSF SOARS Intern Selection and Community Coach, NSF Earth Data Relations Working Group, NSF ESIIL Maka Sitomniya Working Group, Review panel for CUAHSI fellowship awards and Chair CUAHSI DEI committee (JW)

NSF Unidata Community Awards

 2024 Awards Community Equipment Awards

• The 2024 Equipment Awards solicitation closed on April 12 and the review panel met on April 26 to evaluate the proposals received on April 26. Communications were delayed due to pending core award notification and new guidelines from NSF for issuing subawards under the new core award.
• As of this report, awardee(s) community announcements are still pending finalization of subawards.

DeSouza Award

• Jim Steenburgh selected for 2024 NSF Unidata DeSouza Award and will accept the award at 2024 Joint Fall Committee Meeting.

Supported Users and Strategic Advisory Committee activities and communications

• Led workshop session and conducted thematic analysis resulting in a report on broadening community participation and increasing committee engagement with the Users Committee as well as identified implementation activities.
• Facilitated communications regarding status of our NSF core funding award, and program changes made based on award parameters.
• Facilitated Joint Fall Committee planning  and delivery with members, representatives, and NSF Unidata program center staff

Progressed NSF Unidata’s Core Award

• Supported post-submission actions and committee and community communications.

Cross-program and cross-organization collaborations and activities

• Participate as member and subcommittee lead for NSF Unidata DEI Committee
• Spearheaded planning and coordination for  the NSF Unidata All Staff Retreat
• Led the planning and completion of UCAR Community Programs (UCP)’s Strategic Plan, provided consultation support for UCP Implementation planning, and provided oversight advice on UCAR’s Strategic Plan
• Provided formal mentorship for the 2024 UCAR Leadership Academy Cohort and for the UCAR Mentorship Program

Learning Services

Web presence

• Science Gateway Reimagined project –  a community-directed virtual hub to enable learning and support research for current and future earth systems students, educators, and professionals.

• Phase 1a: Rolled out a beta test of the JupyterHub request form. See Cloud Computing Activities for more details.
• Phase 1b: Beta test for the Education Hub (catalog of available learning resources) coming late October 2024.

• Actively collaborating with COMET on a unified experience for eLearning access, coming tentatively in early 2025.

New learning offerings

• NSF #2319979 “Machine Learning Foundations and Applications in the Earth Systems Sciences” (Nicole Corbin, PI and Thomas Martin, Co-PI) in collaboration with Dr. Keah Schuenemann (MSU Denver) and Dr. Karen Kortz (Community College of Rhode Island)

• Module 1 is live for public enrollment
• Presented a poster at the Earth Educators’ Rendezvous and the NSF CyberTraining PI Meeting
• The preliminary evaluation shows that the material is challenging yet attainable, and learners are able to make connections between ML concepts and the physical sciences. The evaluation also revealed a few areas to refine for the next delivery in Spring 2025.

• Partnered with COMET and USGS on development of a series of NetCDF/CF learning resources, to be live soon

• Three modules on MetEd: Reading NetCDF Metadata, Visualizing NetCDF Data, Subsetting and Appending NetCDF

Ongoing Activities

We plan to continue the following activities:

• Ongoing activities related to above (community communications, support for governing committee activities, facilitating awards, outreach and engagement, supporting cross-program, cross-organization, and external collaborations, learning services, etc.)
• Participation in Working Groups: 

• Serve as Ambassador on NSF NCAR Convergence Science Program Ambassadors Community of Practice and Community Interest Network (TV)
• Participate on the NSF NCAR-MSI Collaborators Community of Practice and Community Engagement Group (TV)
• Participate on the NSF NCAR/UCP/UCAR Community Engagement Group (TV)

• Seeking partnerships to build and deliver community learning and development
• Ongoing work to transition NSF Unidata’s website to UCAR-mandated system
• Support the pursuit of funding and bringing greater public awareness to NSF Unidata

New Activities

Over the next three months, we plan to organize or take part in the following:

• Participate and present at UCAR Members Meeting
• Roll out a beta version of the NSF Unidata Education Hub
• Progress First Phase of Community Gap Analysis and Needs Assessment (i.e. Community Input Gathering)
• Progress Committee Model Structure Efforts
• Progress SAC Decision-making Framework for Community Priorities and the NSF Unidata Portfolio
• Progress priority implementation activities from the Users Committee Brainstorming Workshop on Community and Committee Engagement
• Support conference participation efforts and materials

Over the next twelve months, we plan to organize or take part in the following:

• Delivery of NSF Unidata Education Hub website
• Delivery of all three Machine Learning in the Earth Systems Sciences learning modules
• Execute Community Gap Analysis and Needs Assessment
• Engage other historically marginalized communities and institutions
• Follow up proposals and collaborative activities
• Support and implementation of annual award tasks for year one

Beyond a one-year timeframe, we plan to organize or take part in the following:

• Continued maintenance of the reimagined NSF Unidata Science Gateway, including community contributions and adding resources to the Education Hub
• Champion CARE and FAIR principles

Areas of opportunity and challenge:

• Community communication content and engagement with NSF Unidata social media streams.
• Diverse and sufficient pool of committee nominees and community award proposals.
• Broadening our applications, reach, and impact across new Earth System Science communities with varying resources, capacities, and expectations.
• Resources to develop new learning experience materials.

Relevant Metrics

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

All community pages

Most recent six months:

• 30,191 unique pageviews (39,397 in previous period)
• 17.3% of total unique pageviews (18.2% in previous period)

Top community pages

1. All blog pages

25571  unique pageviews (32549 in previous period)

85% of total community pageviews (83% in previous period)

2. www.unidata.ucar.edu/community
   2113 unique pageviews (3937 in previous period)

7% of total community pageviews (10% in previous period)

3. www.unidata.ucar.edu/about
   1374  unique pageviews (1686 in previous period)

5% of total community pageviews (4% in previous period)

4. www.unidata.ucar.edu/events
   782  unique pageviews (886 in previous period)

3% of total community pageviews (2% in previous period)

Social media statistics, September 3, 2024

1. # of Twitter/X followers: 2083  (up from 2056)
2. # of Facebook followers: 913 (up from 912)
3. # of YouTube subscribers: 3960 (up from 3798)
4. # of LinkedIn followers: 210 (up from 185)

Unidata eLearning statistics, September 3, 2024

1. Total unique users: 300 (equal to April 2024, note that several inactive accounts were deleted)
2. Enrolled users in Machine Learning Foundations in the Earth Systems Sciences: 7 (new course)
3. Enrolled users in Learn AWIPS CAVE: 256 (up from 215)
4. Enrolled users in Learn Python-AIPS: 35 (up from 23)

• Note that microlearning courses are available without an account and are unable to be tracked

Prepared September 2024