Copy
Preview: MODIS tool, Rant&Rave, 30-day comment period, LAST call for new members, DataONE Drupal Module.

 

View this email in your browser

ESIP Update: October 12, 2015
 

Hi ESIP - As shocking as it may be, there are only three weeks before we close the acceptance period for Winter Meeting breakout sessions for the 2016 ESIP Winter Meeting. The Visioneers will be meeting today to discuss the Winter Meeting theme and other general meeting ideas, please join us if you'd like to participate in the discussion (see esipfed.webex.org, Visioneers, Attendee access code: 23138379, audio connection: 1-877-668-4493) and we 

A quick Monday-morning side note. In case folks didn't see the announcement about the beta release of the Application for Extracting and Exploring Analysis Ready Samples (AppEEARS), I wanted to give it another little highlight. As a long-time MODIS user, I was very excited to see this new tool to extract and visualize time series data from MODIS. AppEARS enables users to input precise sample locations and access analysis-ready data (daily 2000 - present) from tiled land MODIS products held by the LP DAAC. I was particularly excited to see this, because I (and I suspect many before me) coded this VERY application up during my PhD. Seeing the slick GUI version released by the LP DAAC gave me pause to think about the thousands of lines of code on servers and hard drives around the world that, for whatever reason, are never shared. How many of us write and re-write bits of code that already exist? While it may help us learn and better our development skills, I can't help but think it is only slowing our ability to ask and answer the pressing questions of the day. I see ESIP as a key player in the grand endeavor to open, share and collaborate on code/software. The ESIP-supported Toolmatch project is one example of community-driven progress!

Figure 1: Snow surface albedo (MCD43A2) in Senator Beck Basin, CO 2000 - 2015 from AppEEARS. The top panel shows the annual cycles of snow accumulation and ablation causing the rise and fall of surface albedo. The bottom panel shows how snow surface albedo gradually declines from winter to summer as snow both 'ripens' and melts.
 
Try AppEEARS for yourself: https://lpdaacsvc.cr.usgs.gov/appeears/
Watch the webinar: https://youtu.be/AJQ3m3E8SCY
AppEEARS is considered Beta at this time. Feedback about AppEEARS can be sent through the interface: https://lpdaacsvc.cr.usgs.gov/appeears/feedback.
 
If you have any items you'd like to see included in next week's update, hit reply or email me at annieburgess@esipfed.org. - Annie
 
Federation News
  • Postponed: October IT&I Rant and Rave
  • 30-day Comment Period for Strategic Plan
  • 30-day Comment Period for Semantic Technologies Committee
  • Last call for New ESIP Members
  • Call for Nominations
Around the Federation:
  • DataONE Member Node Drupal module
  • Big Data in the Geosciences Workshop at IEEE Big Data
Telecons:
  • Monday: Visioneers, Web Services
  • Tuesday: IT&I, Discovery
  • Thursday: Information Quality, Data Analytics
Link to ESIP's meeting calendar here.
Federation News
 
Postponed: IT&I Rant and Rave with Raj Pandya (NOW Tuesday October 13th) 
13 Oct 2015 ESIP IT&I Rant and Rave seminar, Raj Pandya, Director of the Thriving Earth Exchange, will be discussing and answering questions about the Thriving Earth Exchange and the Sharing Solutions Call for Projects. (More information on this Rant and Rave seminar will be coming soon to the Rants & Raves page [1].)
 
[1] http://wiki.esipfed.org/index.php/Interoperability_and_Technology/Rants_And_Raves_Webinar_Series

30-Day Comment Period for Strategic Plan
As many of you know, over the last 18 months, ESIP has been going through a strategic planning process (workspace) led by ESIP VP, Emily Law. It started with an assessment of where we were. Then the ESIP assembly reviewed the previous strategic plan goals and collectively with the 2014 Summer Meeting attendees modifed the goals to move ESIP forward for the next 4-5 years. Over the last several months, ESIP leadership has put together a roadmap and executive summary for this new strategic plan. Moving forward, the ESIP community will annually review the goals and align collaboration area activities and member activities around these goals. 

At this point, we are ready for the community to comment one final time on the Executive Summary before the ESIP Assembly votes to accept this document. Please review the the document here: http://wiki.esipfed.org/index.php/2015-2020_Strategic_Plan

Comments can be made below or emailed to the ESIP Excom (esip-excom@lists.esipfed.org). Thanks for your time and interest in ESIP's future! 

 
30-Day Comment Period for Semantic Technologies Committee
The ESIP Executive Committee moved to go forward with promoting the Semantic Web Cluster to Semantic Technologies Committee through the appropriate channels, the 30-day waiting period and then ultimately an electronic vote on the approval by the general assembly. 

The proposed addition to the Bylaws would be:  

Section 5 – Standing Committee for Semantic Technologies                    

V.5.1 The ESIP Federation shall include a Standing Committee for Semantic Technologies. Its roles are:

  • To encourage and promote research and development of semantic technologies in support of Earth science data management, data discovery, data dissemination and data analysis.
  • To collaborate with ESIP members, working groups, clusters, and standing committees to identify semantic methods and tools that support the adoption of semantic technologies within ESIP and across its member organizations.
  • To foster sharing and reuse of ontologies and controlled vocabularies within ESIP and its member organizations.
  • To provide a collaborative environment for the development of ontology-based standards and controlled vocabularies.
  • To maintain a long-term agenda and roadmap for integration and evaluation of semantic projects within ESIP.
  • To collaborate with external groups and agencies, including international organizations, on behalf of ESIP in regards to semantic technologies and furthering the aforementioned roles.

Draft with ExCom comments 

Link to full bylaws: https://github.com/ESIPFed/Governance/blob/master/Bylaws.md


Last Call for New ESIP Members
Last call for New ESIP Members - Application is here. Our Fall 2015 New Member class will close Oct. 15.

Call for Nominations
Its time to think about nominating your colleagues for ESIP Leadership positions & awards. Please think about your deserving peers and contact Denise Hills (dhills@gsa.state.al.us) with your nomination ideas!
Around the Federation

DataONE Member Node Drupal module
Earlier this year, the ESIP Drupal WG hosted a call for all people interested in working on a Drupal module that would provide an implementation of the DataONE member node API. There are many benefits to your data repository becoming a DataONE member node (https://www.dataone.org/benefits-becoming-member-node), and we see this module as a viable way for a Drupal site to becoming a compliant DataONE member node. Currently, we are documenting the requirement of a DataONE Member Node Tier 1 API implementation (https://releases.dataone.org/online/api-documentation-v1.2.0/apis/MN_APIs.html) which will be followed by module development. We will be working on this project on ESIP's Drupal Slack channel (https://esip-all.slack.com/messages/drupal/). If you are interested in participating, join ESIP's Slack team and its #drupal channel and drop a message stating your interest.


Big Data in the Geosciences Workshop at IEEE Big Data
The schedule has been posted for the Big Data in the Geosciences Workshop at the IEEE Big Data meeting in Santa Clara, CA Oct. 29-Nov.1 here: http://geo-bigdata.github.io/schedule.html
Check the archives -> http://esipfed.org/esip_recent-news%20

Annie Burgess
Community Director
Foundation for Earth Science | 585.738.7549 | annieburgess@esipfed.org
@ESIPFed
www.esipfed.org

Remember to check us out on Facebook and follow @ESIPfed and the #ESIPFed hashtag on Twitter to keep up on everything ESIP. 
Facebook
Facebook
Twitter
Twitter
Website
Website
Copyright © 2015 ESIP, All rights reserved.