Status Report: Community Services

April - September 2015

Doug Dirks, Jeff Weber, Joshua Young

Strategic Focus Areas

We support the following goals described in Unidata Strategic Plan:

1. 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.
   
2. 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.
   
3. 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.
   
4. 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.

Activities Since the Last Status Report

News@Unidata blog

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

• Unidata Workshop at the University of South Florida
• GIS Tutorials for the Atmospheric Sciences
• 2015 Community Equipment Awards
• MetPy: An Open Source Python Toolkit for Meteorology
• A New Look for Unidata's Web Site
• GFS 0.25° Model Output Added to CONDUIT
• 2015 Users Workshop Explores Python, Cloud Computing, Data Management
• DOIs Available for Unidata Technologies
• Unidata Intern Wraps Up Summer Projects
• Unidata Program Center Welcomes Tom Hollingshead
• Software release information
• Community job postings
• Community meetings and other announcements

Dependencies, challenges, problems, and risks include:

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

Community Outreach and Services

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

Progress has been made on the following:

• Facilitating the release of GFS 0.25° model outputs to the community
• Organization of the 2015 Triennial
• Community engagement at upcoming professional society conferences (AGU, AMS, AGU Ocean Sciences)
• Identifying other resources for the DMRC
• Supported the launch of the National Water Center with remote, daily weather briefings
• Engagement with CUAHSI to support the NFIE at the NWC
• Continue to serve on the CHUASI 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.

Dependencies, challenges, problems, and risks include:

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

Ongoing Activities

We plan to continue the following activities:

• NAWIPS migration to AWIPS II, including the overall AWIPS II project
• Ongoing development of news articles for publication through News@Unidata
• Continue to support and contribute to governing committees
• Seminars
• Outreach
• Engagement with professional societies
• Support for cloud-related projects
• Further development of the Data Management Resource Center
• Further work on Agile Data Curation
• Site visits as the budget allows
• Continued additions to the Teaching Resource Network

New Activities

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

• Expanded emphasis on cloud-related activities
• Support the Users Committee in conducting a community survey

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

• Coordinate a pilot effort to develop online training materials focused on Python and Unidata services and tools
• Consult with NOAA NWS partners regarding the outcomes of the NWS SOO survey
• Engage partners to develop case studies for the DMRC
• Engage community to contribute curriculum and data to the Teaching Resource Network

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

• Conduct NWS SOO type surveys in other lines of NOAA or other Federal partners
• Provide additional data management and cloud-related training

Areas for Committee Feedback

We are requesting your feedback on the following topics:

1. Are you using cloud-based services currently or do you have any plans to do so?
   
2. We would like to document the use of various open-source services for data management and the user experience associated with those services. We are looking for various size projects (e.g 1 grad student, 1 PI, or a small project ~ 3 people). Do you have any suggested partnerships?
   

Relevant Metrics

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

All community pages

Most recent six months:

• 39,360 unique pageviews (40,128 in previous period)
• 6.9% of total unique pageviews to site (7.1% in previous period)

 **Note:** This value is artificially low due to an interruption in collection of statistics for blog visits in June, July, and August. (Rough estimate of total unique pageviews: 54,000.)

Top community pages

1. All blog pages
   19,574 unique pageviews  (27,062 in previous period)
   50% of total community pageviews (67% in previous period)
   **Note:** Statistics collected for blog visits were interrupted after our switch to the new web server on June 16, 2015, which means that the blog pageviews count is missing 2.5 months worth of traffic. The actual traffic would have been significantly higher. (Rough estimate: 35,000 unique views.)
2. www.unidata.ucar.edu/events/
   12,010 unique pageviews (4676 in previous period)
   31% of total community pageviews (11.6% in previous period)
3. www.unidata.ucar.edu/about/
   3714 unique pageviews (3590 in previous period)
   9.4% of total community pageviews (9.0% in previous period)
4. www.unidata.ucar.edu/community/
   3164 unique pageviews (3825 in previous period)
   8.0% of total community pageviews (9.5% in previous period)

Social media statistics, September 15, 2015

1. # of Twitter followers: 450 (up from 397)
2. # of Facebook followers: 428 (up from 383)

Prepared September 2015