Status Report: Outreach Activities
April 2016 - September 2016
Ben Domenico
Activities Since the Last Status Report
Continue to work with OGC to augment international CF-netCDF standards that have been established over the last several years and on phase 2 of ODIP.
Progress has been made on the following:
- Represented Unidata at OGC Technical Committee meetings
- Chaired OGC NetCDF Standards Working Group
- Served as UCAR business and technical representative to the OGC.
- Represented Unidata at ODIP Steering Committee telecons
- Acted as Unidata host for ODIP Workshop in May 2016
- Started transfer of responsibility to other staff for ongoing projects.
Dependencies, challenges, problems, and risks include:
- There is a question of what resources should be committed to these projects beyond the beginning of the 2017 calendar year when Ben retires from Unidata.
Collaborative project with George Mason University to make Unidata real time datasets available to researchers and educators in other disciplines
Progress has been made on the following:
- Maintained periodic contact with Liping Di, the GMU PI on the project.
- Did mid-course correction to objectives based on one year no cost extension to the project.
Dependencies, challenges, problems, and risks include:
- The one year extension enables us to use the remaining resources available in the project to accomplish tasks that are in line with the strategic goals for the new version of the TDS and to ensure that our data are available via standard interfaces such as those provided by the Data Discovery and Access Broker of the Italian CNR groupPython Workshop Notebooks on alternative platforms.
Due to reduced FTE commitment, no effort is being expended on cloud software development
Ongoing Activities
- Coordination and collaboration with NCAR GIS
- Represent Unidata and UCAR in OGC
- Participate in ODIP 2 as resources allow after hosting workshop in May
- Continue as co-PI on Earthcube Cyberconnector project.
Note that the responsibility for these ongoing activities is being transferred to other staff.
New Activities
No new activities are planned. For the remainder of this calendar year, the objective is to keep current activities going as well as possible with resources available and make arrangements to complete those that can be completed. Note that, in response to last year’s budget crunch, Ben reduced his Unidata FTE commitment.
Areas for Committee Feedback
Suggestions for the transfer of responsibilities to other staff members are welcome.
Strategic Focus Areas
We support the following goals described in Unidata Strategic Plan:
- Enable widespread, efficient access to geoscience data
Work with representatives of other disciplines and serve on their governing boards where appropriate, e.g., NCAR GIS for Geographic Information Systems, CUAHSI (Consortium of Universities for Advancement of Hydrological Science), ODIP (Ocean Data Interoperability Platform), etc. - Develop and provide open-source tools for effective use of geoscience data
Work with Unidata collection of Ipython notebooks in cloud development platforms and on native Microsoft Windows. - Provide cyberinfrastructure leadership in data discovery, access, and use
Continue to work with Opengeospatial Consortium (OGC) to augment international CF-netCDF standards that have been established over the last several years. - Build, support, and advocate for the diverse geoscience community
Serve as Co-Investigator on Earthcube Cyberconnector project which will make Unidata data available to a wide range of research and education communities beyond the traditional Unidata community.
Prepared September 2016