Community Services

Status Report: October 2013 - March 2014

Doug Dirks, Jeff Weber, Joshua Young

Strategic Focus Areas

Community Services supports 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 underrepresnted 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:

• Using METOC Geospatial Intelligence in anti-Piracy Operations
• New IDV Tutorial Videos: the Mapes IDV Collection
• A Nice Global Weather Visualization in your Browser
• Unidata Funding Proposal Approved by National Science Foundation
• Unidata Program Center Welcomes Christian Ward-Garrison
• Unidata Program Center Welcomes Ryan May
• AMS 2014 Conference Highlights from the Unidata Staff
• Software release information
• Community job postings
• Community meetings and other announcements

Community Outreach and Services

• Distributon of Lightning data from Earth Networks Total Lightning Data is under discussion
• Coordinating with Peter Neilley, The Weather Companies, and Ben Kyger, NCEP, about the Open Weather and Climate Service and how we might work cooperatively to provide a server at Reston, VA that could make high-resoluton datasets that are in demand, but not currently available, to our community. This is an exploratory project where Peter Neilley is the lead. This service will not supersede CONDUIT. (For more information, see the relevant slides from the August 2013 NWS Partners meeting.)
• Coordinating with ESRL/GSD on distribution of HRRR, FIM, and HIWPP data
• Participate in weekly AWIPS II meetings with NCEP Headquarters and NCEP Centers technical staff discussing progress and technical issues
• Participating in the AMS's Committee to Improve Climate Change Communcations (CICCC)
• Continue to mentor SOARS proteges, and serve on the SOARS selection committee.
• Actively engaged in the Education Working Group at UCAR to explore novel techniques and applications for the educational community
• Attendance and active participation at the AMS annual meeting and student conference in Atlanta, GA. and the AGU in San Fransico.
• Planning for the second NCAR & UCAR Research and Partnerships Summit to explore potential collaborations with the private weather enterprise

Social Media Outreach Activities

• We have continued to update the Facebook and Twitter feeds.
• We have begun publishing short videos/screencasts on the Unidata YouTube channel.

Planned Activities

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
• Triennial workshop planning and coordination

New Activities

We plan to organize or take part in the following:

• AGU annual meeting December 2014 - presentation(s)
• Booth at AMS 2014 January annual meeting
• Table at AMS 2014 January student conference

Relevant Metrics

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

Prepared March 2014