Community Services

Status Report: March 2014 - September 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:

Community Outreach and Services

  • Organized Unidata Seminar Series talk on GEOSS Common Infrastructure (Stefano Nativi)
  • Distributon of Lightning data from Earth Networks Total Lightning Data is under discussion
  • 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
  • Representing the Unidata community in professional society events such as the AMS and the ESIP summer meetings and federal events such as the NOAA NWS Community of Services meeting
  • Participating in the AMS's Committee to Improve Climate Change Communcations (CICCC)
  • Actively engaged in the UCAR Education Working Group and UCAR-Connect to explore novel techniques and applications for the educational community
  • Work with UPC staff to aid in the set up of EDEX servers for equipment award grantees

Social Media Outreach Activities

  • We have continued to update the Facebook and Twitter feeds.
  • We continue to publish 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:

  • Begin creating "Teaching Respources" for the community using RAMADDA and the IDV
  • Unidata site visits to the university member community
  • AGU annual meeting December 2014 - presentation(s)
  • Booth at AMS 2015 January annual meeting
  • Table at AMS 2015 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.

All Community pages

Most recent six months

  • 43,313 unique pageviews (up from 41,637 in previous period)
  • 7.1% of total unique pageviews to site (up from 4.9% in previous period)
    (NOTE: This reflects a change in the way netCDF documentation is presented on the Unidata site, dramatically reduced the recorded number of unique visits to the site, thus increasing the percent of total views for all other pages.)

Top community pages

  1. All blog pages
    News@Unidata blog and developers' blog
    • 31,724 unique pageviews (29,370 in previous period)
    • 73% of total community unique pageviews (71% in previous period)
  2. About Unidata (www.unidata.ucar.edu/about/)
    Information about Unidata
    • 3877 unique pageviews (4167 in previous period)
    • 9.0% of total community unique pageviews (10.0% in previous period)
  3. Events pages (www.unidata.ucar.edu/events/)
    Information about training courses and other events
    • 3379 unique pageviews (2522 in previous period)
    • 7.8% of total community unique pageviews (6.1% in previous period)
  4. Community pages (www.unidata.ucar.edu/community/)
    Information about Unidata community events and governance
    • 3217 unique pageviews (3424 in previous period)
    • 7.4% of total community unique pageviews (10.4% in previous period)

Social media statistics, March 5, 2014

  1. # of Twitter followers: 359 (330 in March 2014)
  2. # of Facebook followers: 317 (290 in March 2014)