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Colleagues, <br>
I think you all would be interested in the following Community building
workshop based on the idea that community building within the
GeoSciences is needed to develop science based requirements and
leverage resources across interested scientists, mangers, and computer
specialists. In addition, both the draft US-GEO IEOS and now the NOAA
Data Management plans site the increase use of teams and community
building as essential to developing our data systems for the coming
decade. <br>
<br>
I am glad to be a part of the Planning Committee for this effort and
highly recommend this activity being lead by Kelvin Droegemeier (OU)
and Bob Wilhelmson (NCSA). If you can't come, please send someone who
you think will be an active participant and benefit from being at the
meeting. the Agenda is below.<br>
<br>
P.S. Admiral Lautenbacker has been invited for Friday
morning and we'll know soon if he'll be speaking. The agenda is not
yet finalized (and I did not place my name at the "NOAA" level slot). <br>
Regards, Glenn<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<div align="center"><b>Announcing the Inaugural Meeting of the: <br>
<br>
<font size="4">National Forum on Geosciences Information Technology<br>
</font> <br>
October 6-7, 2005<br>
Wardman Park Marriott<br>
2660 Woodley Road, NW <br>
Washington, DC<br>
<br>
Registration and Agenda:<br>
</b><a href="http://www.fgit.org/">http://www.fgit.org/</a><br>
<br>
<font color="#ff0000"><b>Hotel reservations must be made by September
9th
to guarantee rate and availability! <br>
</b></font><b>They can be made directly with the hotel after submitting
your
registration through the FGIT registration web page if you are not
applying for travel assistance or through the FGIT web page if you
are.<br>
<font size="4"> <br>
</font></b>The National Forum for Geosciences Information Technology
(FGIT) serves as a focal point for a national dialog on information
technology and cyberinfrastructure (CI) related issues and challenges
across all of the geosciences through exchange of ideas, experiences,
and
requirements. It will foster and support the leveraging of efforts and
the development of guidelines, best practices, new development and
deployment teams, and interoperable software standards. There will
be ample time for discussing topical issues of interest to attendees in
the interactive and participative format of Open Space Technology (see
description after schedule below).<br>
<br>
<b>Should You Attend?<br>
<br>
</b> We are encouraging attendance by CI project leads, developers,
users (researchers and educators including graduate students and
post-docs), systems administrators, representatives from funding
agencies, and other interested parties. <br>
<br>
Sponsors: NSF and NCSA
(<a href="http://www.ncsa.uiuc.edu/" eudora="autourl">http://www.ncsa.uiuc.edu</a>)<br>
<br>
<br>
<b>Agenda<br>
<br>
</b></div>
<b><u>Thursday, October 6, 2005<br>
<br>
</u></b>8:00 – 8:15
am
Overview of FGIT Concept and Goals, Organization of the Meeting<br>
<br>
8:15 – 9:00
am
NSF Strategy for Cyberinfrastructure (A. Bement – confirmed)<br>
<br>
9:00 – 9:45
am
“A Summary of Community Cyberinfrastructure Planning and Current
<x-tab> </x-tab><x-tab> </x-tab><x-tab> </x-tab>
Activities in the Geosciences” (M. Leinen – to be confirmed)<br>
<br>
9:45 – 10:00
am
Questions and Discussion (Bement and Leinen)<br>
<br>
10:00 – 10:15
am Break<br>
<br>
10:15 – 11:30
am Agency
Activities in Geosciences Technology Development and Deployment <br>
<br>
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NOAA - Glenn Rutledge - to be confirmed<br>
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<b>NASA - to be determined<br>
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DOE - to be determined<br>
</b> <br>
11:30 – 12:00
pm Lunch (box
lunch served - participants can mingle)<br>
<br>
12:00 – 1:15 pm
<x-tab> </x-tab> Open
Space Agenda Setting And Discussion Group Sign-Up<br>
<br>
1:15 – 5:00
pm
Open Space Discussion Groups ( three 75-minute blocks - break food
available mid-afternoon)<br>
<br>
5:00 – 7:00
pm
Reception and Technology Demonstrations/Posters/Booths<br>
<br>
7:00
pm
<x-tab> </x-tab> Dinner (on your
own)<br>
<br>
<b><u>Friday, 7 October 2005<br>
<br>
</u></b>8:00 – 8:15
am
Announcements <br>
<br>
8:15 – 9:45
am
<b>Global Theme #1</b>: Data Challenges (three 30-min
presentations)<br>
<br>
·
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Data Management Practices and Challenges in Geosciences Today – Chaitan
Baru<br>
·
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Distributed Data Management – to be determined<br>
·
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Metadata Challenges – Sara Graves <br>
<br>
9:45 – 10:00
am
Break (food available)<br>
<br>
10:00 – 11:30
am <b>Global
Theme #2</b>: Analysis and Visualization Challenges<br>
<br>
·
<x-tab> </x-tab><x-tab> </x-tab>
Visualization Tools and Challenges in the Geosciences – Don
Middleton<br>
·
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Visual Analytics - Welge/Cox<br>
·
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Data/Media Fusion, Comparison and Visualization – to be determined<br>
<br>
11:30 – 12:00
pm Lunch (box
lunch served - participants can mingle) <br>
<br>
12:00 – 12:30
pm Open Space
Agenda Revision­topics can be introduced, combined, etc. <br>
<br>
12:30 – 3:30
pm
Open Space Discussion Groups meet in three 60-minute blocks<br>
<br>
3:30 – 4:30 pm
<x-tab> </x-tab>
Open Space Closing Circle: Review of Accomplishments And Next
Steps<br>
<br>
<div align="center"><b>Open Space Technologies<br>
<br>
</b></div>
Both afternoons activities will be carried out using Open Space
Technology
(<a href="http://www.openspaceworld.org/">http://www.openspaceworld.org/</a>),
a simple, powerful approach to dynamically organizing meetings so that
the participants identify and discuss the issues that are most
important
to them. Through this process, they document and prioritize ideas,
data,
recommendations, conclusions, further questions, and “next step” action
plans. Open Space Technology has been used with diverse groups ranging
in
size from 5 to 1000 people, and it is particularly well suited for
dealing with the diverse interests of attendees that cannot be
organized
with an agenda in advance, allowing ideas to surface from the
interaction
itself. The beauty of this approach is that people form or join groups
around topics that interest them, such that the groups are fueled by
people­emerging leaders­who want to take responsibility for that issue.
Participants stay in groups only when they feel that they are learning
and contributing to the topic at hand, otherwise they may move to
another
group. This format particularly supports information sharing across
disciplines because people are not assigned to their groups based on
categories of what they already know. Open Space meetings have been
described as having “the energy of a good coffee break”­referring to
the
common observation that coffee breaks are the best part of a conference
or meeting.<br>
<br>
Although Open Space is a flexible and participant-driven activity, it
produces concrete deliverables. Every single issue that the
participants
consider to be important will be covered, and the groups produce a full
written record of their discussions by the end of the meeting. As
participants share resources and expertise with each other, the
documentation captures all these details. This knowledge base, combined
with rosters of who participated in each session, provides the basis
for
continued conversations in the months that follow the Open Space event.
People can find out who in the participant network shares their
interests
and continue to exchange information and ideas, explore collaborative
efforts, or arrange subsequent meetings. <br>
<br>
Unlike traditional discussion sessions that are tied tightly to
particular presentations, the Open Space discussion at FGIT will allow
people to continue to explore topics raised on the first day during the
second day as well as integrate day 1 discussions more closely with the
global themes topics of the second morning. Thus, the Global Theme
sessions move participants from the big picture of day 1 to the
hands-on
technical elements of day 2, allowing participants to pursue discussion
of themes within the larger context. <br>
<br>
For the FGIT meeting, topics for Open Space discussion as determined by
attendees could include: <br>
<br>
· Data management<br>
· Data publication<br>
· Metadata­generation and
protocols<br>
· Ontology and
cataloging<br>
· Federal agency
initiatives<br>
· How universities can
coordinate their efforts<br>
· Visualization
tools<br>
· Visual analytics<br>
· Data fusion<br>
· Sensors<br>
· Creating integrated
CI<br>
· Nuts and bolts of
running geoscience CI at a local level<br>
· Geoscience CI in
education<br>
· What technologies are
still missing<br>
· Involving the community
in geosciences CI prototyping<br>
· Integration of CI
between different geosciences sub-disciplines<br>
· Role of academic
societies<br>
· Example initiatives of
geosciences CI implementation<br>
· Dynamic and adaptive CI
environments<br>
· Modeling
frameworks<br>
· Streaming/real time
data<br>
· Data and system
interoperability<br>
· Data discovery
systems<br>
· Networking and
telemetry<br>
· Intellectual
property<br>
· Stewardship of
non-digital resources<br>
<br>
<div align="center"><b>More on Motivation and Purpose<br>
</b></div>
<br>
During the past several years, researchers, funding agencies,
lawmakers,
policymakers and private companies have directed considerable attention
to the role, provision, and innovation of persistent information
technology, particularly in the form of cyberinfrastructure (CI), in
the
U.S. science and engineering enterprise. Numerous community workshops
and
other meetings have been held and reports have been written to organize
views on this topic within and across traditional academic disciplines.
Visionary plans also abound.<br>
<br>
Further, a large number of CI research and development projects are
underway in the geoscience and related communities for enabling
breakthrough and grand challenge research. Government agencies are
supporting numerous team efforts to develop and apply CI technology to
meet needs across the geosciences and related domains (e.g., CLEANER,
CONDUIT, CRAFT, CUAHSI, DLESE, EarthScope, ESDIS, ESG, ESMF, GCMD,
GEON,
LEAD, LOOKING, MADIS, MAEVis NEESGrid, NEON, NOMADS, NVODS, ORION,
SCEC,
SEEK, THREDDS). These projects often include domain researchers,
education experts, computer scientists, and computer applications
specialists, demonstrating the many areas that CI technology must cover
and support. The large number of these efforts illustrates the
magnitude
of the current effort in the geoscience community to realize the
benefits
of advances of CI in research, operations, and education. <br>
<br>
Not surprisingly, these projects have many common requirements
including
the use of new sensors, powerful computers, large storage devices, fast
networks, and federated data repositories. Software requirements
include
assimilation and predictive models, data mining/analysis and
visualization, grid and web service development tools and, ultimately,
standards for integrating these components. However, these projects
face
duplication of effort, emerging but incomplete standards, notable
disconnects between the research and operational communities, unstable
middleware environments on which applications are being built, and a
lack
of support for technology deployment, adoption and maintenance.
Further,
the potential implications of these developments for current and future
local computing environments (e.g., department computer systems) is not
broadly understood. Thus, the potential impact of CI activities on
research, education, and operations is not being fully realized. <br>
<br>
<i><a name="OLE_LINK1"></a>The National Forum for Geosciences
Information
Technology</i> (FGIT - pronounced “figit”) is proposed as a focal point
for a national dialog on technology across all of the geosciences<i>
</i>to address these CI issues and challenges through exchange of
ideas,
experiences, and requirements. It will foster and support the
leveraging
of efforts and the development of guidelines, best practices, new
development and deployment teams, and interoperable software standards.
Participants will include project leads, developers, users (researchers
and educators including graduate students and post-docs), systems
administrators, representatives from funding agencies, and other
interested parties. FGIT meetings will include selected updates on
important CI issues from the agency, university, and corporate
perspectives, on key advances in CI that can benefit the geosciences,
and
on topics that cut across the geoscience and environmental communities.
Attendees will be active participants in the meeting, bringing their
interests into discussion groups through the use of Open Space
Technologies. They will have ample opportunity to interact with one
another, sharing practical concerns and solutions to CI related issues.
In this way, FGIT will augment other national and international
meetings
that have more disciplinary and/or developmentally focused CI agendas
(e.g., the AMS IIPS Conference, AGU meetings, Global Grid Forum).
The theme of the inaugural meeting of FGIT is <i>Advancing the
Development, Coordination, Deployment and Use of Information
Technologies
for Enabling Research, Education, and Operations in the
Geosciences<a name="OLE_LINK1"></a>.<br>
<br>
</i>FGIT will not duplicate or supplant other planning activities or
projects but rather provide a broad communication fabric of benefit to
them. <i>The principal outcome of FGIT is expected to be a better
educated and more effective information technology literate geosciences
workforce and an associated CI enterprise that develops and supports
tools/capabilities that lead to new insights, improved education, and
informed public decision making</i> <br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
Glenn K. Rutledge
NOMADS Program Manager
NOAA Meteorologist / Physical Scientist
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
National Climatic Data Center
151 Patton Ave
Asheville, North Carolina 28801
(828) 271-4097
The contents of this message are mine personally
and do not necessarily reflect any position of the
Government or the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration."</pre>
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