As a community-governed program, Unidata depends on guidance and feedback from educators, researchers, and students in the atmospheric and related sciences. The Unidata Community Survey seeks your feedback both on existing Unidata services and possible future directions for the program. Your ideas will help inform Unidata's path forward; your participation is much appreciated.

Read on for details on how to participate.

As many in the Unidata community are aware, on January 14, 2015 the National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) began producing Global Forecast System (GFS) model output with 0.25-degree resolution for use in weather forecasting operations. This output is now available to be added to the Unidata Internet Data Distribution (IDD) system's CONDUIT data stream.

We would like to better understand the level of interest in receiving this model output among Unidata community members. We are also soliciting information on Unidata sites' capacity to receive this volume of data via the CONDUIT “push” mechanism. We have created a short online questionnaire to collect community input; read on for details.

The iSamplES (Internet of Samples in the Earth Sciences) Research Coordination Network (RCN) is an EarthCube activity that seeks to advance the use of innovative cyberinfrastructure to connect physical samples and sample collections across the Earth Sciences with digital data infrastructures to revolutionize their utility for science. The ultimate goal of this RCN is to dramatically improve the discovery, access, sharing, analysis, and curation of physical samples and the data generated by their study for the benefit of science and society.

For many years, the Unidata program has been active in helping university departments deploy and use Unidata technologies. Through our governing committees (which are composed of faculty and staff from member universities), we've learned a lot about the current state of information technology support in geoscience departments today. In hopes of learning more about the evolving university IT landscape in today's budget-constrained environment, we are hoping other members of Unidata's university community will spend a few minutes to give us some insight into how information technology support works in your departments.

During late March and early April 2012 the Unidata Program Center conducted a survey of Cooperative Opportunity for NCEP Data Using IDD Technology (CONDUIT) users to determine which of the model output currently included in the feed are in use, which are candidates for removal from the feed, and which new model runs (if any) should be added to the feed.