The National Science Foundation has recently funded a project to conceptualize a Geospatial Software Institute (GSI) as a long-term hub of excellence in software infrastructure that can serve diverse research and education communities. To achieve the goal and associated aims, the project will design a community organization called the Geospatial Innovation Consortium for High-Performance Software and Discovery to mobilize and serve pertinent communities and stakeholders in a sustainable way. In connection with this initiative, broad community input is being sought to help design the GSI. An online survey is available and responses are requested no later than January 25, 2018.

Unidata Software Training Workshops provide training on software packages created or supported by Unidata, and provide background information and context to help attendees make more effective use of the software in their own scientific workflows. While the workshops are designed primarily to benefit the academic community, representatives from government agencies and commercial entities are also invited to participate.

Traditionally, Unidata Program Center staff have provided training workshops each year. In recent years, attendance at workshops in Boulder has declined, raising the question of whether this is the best way to serve our community.

The Open Commons Consortium (OCC) NOAA Data Alliance Working Group is seeking feedback to help prioritize which datasets will provide maximum impact for the scientific community. They are collecting suggestions in an “Environmental Data Wish List” via a short online survey.

You can read more about their request for input on the OCC Blog, or head directly over to the survey.

Earlier this year, the Unidata Users Committee asked members of the Unidata community to participate in a survey regarding their use of scientific software packages, software training, and community services, and to favor us with their insights into possible future directions for the program. You can read an overview of the survey results in 2016 Community Survey Results.

While Unidata's governing committees and the Unidata Program Center staff will continue to analyze the survey comments in the process of crafting Unidata's next Strategic Plan, individual Program Center development groups are also using the survey as input into their own development plans. This series of articles provides responses from different development groups to comments or concerns raised by the survey. Under review in this article: Python activities at Unidata.

Earlier this year, the Unidata Users Committee asked members of the Unidata community to participate in a survey regarding their use of scientific software packages, software training, and community services, and to favor us with their insights into possible future directions for the program. The survey ran through early February, and collected responses from 261 individuals from 25 countries. Both the Users Committee and the Unidata Program Center staff thank those who completed the survey for taking the time to participate and for providing such thoughtful feedback.

The survey comprised 107 questions on a variety of topics (although the survey was structured to allow respondents to skip over sections in which they had little interest or expertise). Read on for a summary and access to the full survey results.