Status Report: Community Services
April 2017 - October 2017
Doug Dirks, Jeff Weber, Joshua Young
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:
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:
- Fine tuning the text of the next Unidata Strategic Plan, with guidance from the Strategic Advisory Committee.
- Work with Communications Intern Aubrey Kane on evaluating additional freely-available open source tools for inclusion in the DMRC.
- Planning for participation in upcoming professional society conferences (2017 AGU Fall Meeting and 2018 AMS Annual Meeting)
- Planning and support for the 2018 Users Committee Triennial Workshop
- Engagement with CUAHSI to support the NFIE and WRF-Hydro at the NWC
- Engagement with EarthCube as a Co-Chair of the Liaison Team
- Continue to serve on the CUAHSI HIS standing committee
- 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
- Engage and support the Undergraduate Leadership Workshop (ULW) at UCAR
- Support the development and operation of the UCAR:NCAR Equity and InclusiON (UNEION) community of practice
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:
- Engagement with EarthCube, ESIP, and science or cyber communities at large
- NAWIPS migration to AWIPS, including the overall AWIPS project
- Ongoing development of news articles for publication through News@Unidata
- Continue to support and contribute to governing committees
- Seminars
- Outreach
- Inclusion and equity
- 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
- Engage other UCAR/NCAR divisions regarding Unidata software use i.e. CESM/IDV
New Activities
Over the next three months, we plan to organize or take part in the following:
- Expanded emphasis on cloud-related activities
- Seek additional resources to continue the online training resource focused on Python and Unidata services and tools
- Support the Users Committee’s work towards planning the next Triennial
Over the next twelve months, we plan to organize or take part in the following:
- Continue to engage the hydrologic community regarding WRF-Hydro/IDV interactions and the National Water Center’s efforts
- Seek additional opportunities to engage and listen to the community
Beyond a one-year timeframe, we plan to organize or take part in the following:
- Provide additional data management and cloud-related training
Areas for Committee Feedback
We are requesting your feedback on the following topics:
- Please visit the DMRC and OTP; these are both pilots but we would welcome your suggestions.
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:
- 56,470 unique pageviews (51,121 in previous period)
- 10.1% of total unique pageviews (8.4% in previous period)
Top community pages
- All blog pages
41969 unique pageviews (39592 in previous period)
74% of total community pageviews (77% in previous period) - www.unidata.ucar.edu/events
8476 unique pageviews (4045 in previous period)
15% of total community pageviews (8% in previous period) - www.unidata.ucar.edu/community
2782 unique pageviews (3814 in previous period)
5% of total community pageviews (7% in previous period) - www.unidata.ucar.edu/about
2660 unique pageviews (2971 in previous period)
5% of total community pageviews (6% in previous period)
Social media statistics, March 31, 2017
- # of Twitter followers: 738 (up from 631)
- # of Facebook followers: 707 (up from 645)
Strategic Focus Areas
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 2017