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This document is
for historical purposes only, and the information
has been superseded by subsequent releases.
REPORT OF THE MEETING
OF THE SCIENCE USER WORKING GROUP FOR NASA's
GLOBAL CHANGE MASTER DIRECTORY
The User Working Group (UWG) for NASA's
Global Change Master Directory (GCMD) met
on April 17-18, 2001 at Goddard Space Flight
Center's Global Change Data Center. The UWG
reviewed the progress of the GCMD.
The UWG commends the efforts of GCMD Project
Manager, Lola Olsen, and the GCMD Project
Staff. The continued success of GCMD in meeting
the data location needs of Earth science researchers
is a direct result of their efforts. Once
again, the Global Change Master Directory
(GCMD) staff, led by Lola Olsen, has given
an impressive presentation. This year, they
continued to demonstrate both the great success
of the GCMD that is obviously a result of
both Lola Olsen.s outstanding leadership skills
and the capability of the staff. Each staff
member is associated with an Earth Science
topic area or agency for which they are responsible
including: Earth Science, Ocean Sciences,
USGS/BRD Biological and Atmospheric Sciences,
Geosciences, and USDA/Hydrologic Sciences.
Others work with the GCMD system development,
web page, and support. The interdisciplinary
nature of the staff provides comprehensive
science and technical perspectives on GCMD
goals and activities. In addition, the group
appears to be stable and works well together.
Throughout every area, quality assessment
and quality control (QA/QC) appears to be
a high priority, so that only information
and material that has passed the QA/QC review
of staff members is released.
The UWG report focuses on eight major areas:
community building, MD8, technology export
and developer support, portals, services and
analytical resources, competition, charging
for data, and education.
As evidence that the GCMD is listening to
and considering UWG recommendations, a summary
of 2000 recommendations and responses by the
GCMD are presented here.
1. Get the word out
about GCMD.
Recommendation:
In the last UWG Report, the major recommendation
was to "Stay the Course". That recommendation
is now expanded not only to "Stay the
Course", but also to "Wave the Flag".
The GCMD product is excellent, and it's time
to spread the word.
RESPONSE
by GCMD:
- Presented two papers on the proxy implementation
and design of MD8 at EO/GEO 2000.
- Presented four papers on the GCMD at large
conferences: CODATA in Italy, GSA, AMS, and
AAG.
- Wrote two articles for the GES DAAC Newsletter.
- Wrote an article for the EOSDIS "The
Earth Observer".
- Attended 38 conferences/workshops in 2000
vs. 30 in 1999.
- Contributed to 9 papers/posters/articles
in 2000 vs. 8 in 1999. See the State
of the GCMD 2000 for the full list.
2. Capitalize on the
GCMD's concept of "portals" and
collaborations.
Recommendation:
The UWG encourages the GCMD to continue developing
portals and pursuing collaborations but emphasizes
that these must be made to "pay off" The importance
of collaborations and GCMD success in this
area must be communicated to NASA management.
RESPONSE by GCMD:
- Added the creation of keyword portals to
those of free-text.
- Automated aspects of the process of creation
of portals.
- Demand for portals is increasing; therefore
prioritize:
High: will provide entries and financial support.
Intermediate: will provide content OR financial
support.
Low: poor track record; irrational expectations;
ill-defined goals.
3. Enhance visibility
of the GCMD.
Recommendation: In our first recommendation,
we spoke of .Waving the Flag.. The UWG identified
three major areas where greater visibility
might be obtained.
- World Wide Web: Target web sites which
could exhibit prominent links to the GCMD,
such as the NASA Home Page, the ESE Home
Page, the Goddard Home Page, and the Earth
Observatory/Visible Earth.
- Scientific Article and Presentations:
More articles should be written and presented,
focusing on journals and meetings with the
highest exposure to potential users.
- Advertising: The UWG also recommends
purchasing advertisement space in EOS, space
through the AMS - journals or their annual
meeting agendas, etc.
RESPONSE by GCMD:
- Secured new domain name http://globalchange.nasa.gov
- Attempt to purchase domain http://gcmd.com
- Advertised: AMS and AAG Conference Programs
- Assured links from popular sites;
- Earth Science Enterprise (www.earth.org)
- NASA HQ subject list of organizations (www.nasa.gov)
- NOAA/NGDC related site (www.ngdc.noaa.gov)
- USGCRP/GCRIO (www.gcrio.org)
(Currently #3 when searching on "global
change" through Google.)
4. Maintain attention
on the mission and be wary of mission creep.
Recommendation:
The UWG recommends that GCMD examine their
current mission statement and ask: Does the
mission statement need to be modified? Are
there any changes needed to make it consistent
with current NASA objectives? Is there an
evolving paradigm with less of an emphasis
on population of the database by GCMD itself
and more on using collaborations to populate
the database? If the existing mission statement
is no longer adequate, what process should
be instituted to make changes? By revisiting
the mission statement and identifying and
articulating specific objectives that will
enhance the basic mission, it will help to
distinguish those "opportunities" that will
help achieve the mission (and hence be pursued)
and those "opportunities" that are peripheral
or even counter to the mission and whose costs
outweigh their benefits.
RESPONSE: Where We Have Been Wary:
- Held 3 full-day staff "retreats"
since the last UWG to focus on planning strategies
and priorities - keeping the mission in mind.
- Focused highest priority on data set population
- whether meeting scientists at conferences,
developing new software, or designing portals
for project participants.
- Developed robust authoring tools to lasso-in
content.
RESPONSE - Where We Have Not Been
Wary:
- Held 3 full-day staff "retreats"
to focus on planning strategies and priorities
- looking beyond the current mission.
- Entertained thoughts of glorious futures
by dreaming of getting users directly to data
"they can use".
- Embarked on a trial offering of data-associated
Analytical Resources (and liked it)
- Agreed to attempt a crawling exercise for
DODS (didn't like it).
- Assisted HQ with strategic planning exercise.
5. Suggested GCMD Enhancements
During the course of discussions, the UWG
came up with several suggestions for improving
the usability of the GCMD. These include:
exploiting potential cross linkages within
the GCMD DIF displays, improving linkages
between DIFs, providing additional information
about the content of web addresses provided
in DIF entries. We also discussed the idea
of user profiling to provide more efficient
searches by repeat users. However, we concluded
that the overhead associated with linking
user profile information to the DIFs would
likely outweigh their value. Moreover, the
internal-cross linkages (our first suggested
enhancement) might go a long way towards meeting
these needs without the need to track individual
users.
RESPONSE: Cross
link within DIF displays and between DIFs:
1. Cross-link
keywords within the DIF display to other DIFs
so that searches can be done directly from
the keywords within a DIF.
- Cross-linking among DIFs results from
carrying out the first bullet.
- Other links can be made through the Related_URL.
- Here we showed the full Group: Related_URL
2. Add
information on web addresses:
- Related_URL in the DIF has a content
type and descriptions fields that can be
used to describe the resource.
- Example: Data Access content type can
be used to identify URLs that are linked
directly to data.
3. Try User Profiling:
- Requires use of "cookies",
which are not permitted on government sites.
- Deemed "user" surveys and forced
secondary logins as too intrusive and too
high a risk.
- Preferred suggestion on possibility of
highlighting a discussion center on our
site.
The UWG was very pleased with the presentation
on .community building. presented by Lola
Olsen. It was a good example of the proactive
thinking that has characterized some of the
most important GCMD developments. The consolidation
of user communities that use GCMD not just
for data, but also for intercommunication
within the communities themselves would be
a very useful development. By participating
in interactions within those communities,
GCMD developers would be able to gain unique
insights into the needs of the communities
and how to help meet them. The
UWG recommends that the GCMD continue its
efforts in community building.
Drawing together user communities is not
without challenges. The thing that unites
GCMD users is their need for data, but users
span traditional disciplinary boundaries,
so that existing modes of electronic interaction,
such as discipline-oriented newsgroups may
not be meeting the needs of this community.
There are a pair of approaches that we believe
may be worth evaluating. One is to provide
a place for GCMD users to provide comments
on individual DIF entries, search interfaces
and other system features. In the case of
DIF entries, comments could be used to evaluate
DIF utility or even to prioritize DIFs for
display, with DIFs receiving more positive
ratings or comments ranked first. An example
of a similar system is the rating system used
by the Internet Movie Database (http://imdb.com), which queries users for ratings
and comments about movies. These comments
and ratings could be displayed along with
the DIF, but doing so would require human
mediation to assure that inappropriate or
obscene comments were not displayed. A second
approach is to provide a home for a newsgroup,
chat room or email thread aimed at global
change data. However, before doing this, it
would be a good idea to evaluate existing
groups and chat rooms to see if there are
any that would be applicable to GCMD and could
be linked to without "recreating the wheel".
Given how busy many researchers in the global
change community are, it will be hard to predict
the volume of traffic. However, since these
systems are easy to establish, the costs of
an experiment are not inordinately high.
The UWG was very impressed with the progress
of development of MD8. The well thought-out
plans presented in 2000 have evolved into
an impressively functional system in 2001.
The staff should be commended on an architecture
that is portable, flexible, extensible and
scalable. The adoption of platform-neutral
technologies such as Java, Jython, and XML
should make code maintenance and porting much
easier than in the past. Additionally, the
important task of installing and updating
MD8 at other institutions should be much easier.
The UWG was also impressed with the number
of outside software packages assessed by the
GCMD. The list provided to UWG members deserves
a place on the GCMD web pages. Tools such
as SourceForge should further increase staff
efficiency.
Along with heaping well-deserved kudos,
the UWG recommends that the GCMD attempt to
identify metrics for code maintenance costs.
We are unaware of examples that demonstrate
how a major rewrite of code has substantially
reduced code maintenance costs, and this project
could be a prime example. Estimating, for
the last year, the number of programmer days
per month devoted to various porting, installation
and maintenance tasks would give a baseline
against which to measure future activity in
these areas. We believe that such metrics
showing reduced costs could set useful example
within NASA.
Lastly, the UWG wishes to be included in
the ongoing discussions about the user interface
to the GCMD. It seemed that this was one of
the biggest unresolved issues associated with
MD8. We realize that interface design is a
very difficult arena in which to achieve consensus
because of the unquantifiable nature of UI
design and the wide variety of personal taste.
However, the issue is too important to be
decided without outside comment.
Recommendation:
UWG recommends that the GCMD continue its use
of portable, flexible, scalable and platform-neutral
technologies and that it develop or adopt metrics
for code maintenance costs so that GCMD successes
can serve as a useful examples for other NASA
systems.
One of the exciting new features of MD8
will be its ability to interoperate with other
software packages. The GCMD staff has built
multiple protocols for entering MD8 and specifying
both query parameters and output styles. Database
access is provided through Java-RMI methods
and standard HTTP- based queries, while output
can be structured through XML. Such access
will enable outside developers to build new
systems on top of GCMD.
The GCMD's experiment with portals has paid
off handsomely by creating collaborations
and by establishing the GCMD as an important
service to the community. We believe that
the new 'direct access' features of MD8 will
further enhance others' reliance upon the
GCMD. We expect that such direct access will
lead to a host of rich uses of GCMD but realize
that these may be largely outside of GCMD
control. The services provided by GCMD may
not be readily apparent. For this reason we
encourage GCMD to proactively create some
small logos, which might be added to another
system's interface advertising that the search
is "Powered by GCMD". By giving
credit where it is due and by making it easy
for other to give credit, the GCMD can help
create a standard where none currently exists.
In order to have the widest possible impact,
the UWG encourages the GCMD to make its APIs
(Application Programmer Interfaces) available
to immediate collaborators as soon as possible
for potential comments. We hope that comments
may point out new capabilities or other standards
that the GCMD would want to support. However,
efforts to accommodate others must be balanced
against the need to get the job done for GCMD.
Once stabilized, the APIs should be published
on the GCMD web pages so that outside developers
can find and use them.
The discussion of open APIs lead naturally
to the discussion of full open source for
the MD8 code. We realize that the code is
now quite mature and could conceivably be
used for non-GCMD purposes. The UWG recommends
that the GCMD open its source code to IDN
nodes or other close collaborators but only
so far as it is beneficial to the GCMD.
In summary, the UWG recommends
that the GCMD continue its development of
"direct access" features that incorporate
means for proper attribution, and that it
should share its APIs (Application Programmer
Interfaces) and software with collaborators.
The GCMD has established an excellent reputation
for quality metadata and a very good searching/retrieval
capability. This could only be achieved through
the continuing population and maintenance
of complete and detailed DIF's on an effective
and well-maintained system.
To provide this service, the GCMD development
team has kept up with the on-going requirements
of its data seekers, researched the latest
external software developments, and developed
solutions for suggestions of improvement from
the GCMD metadata suppliers. MD7 is nearing
the end of its lifecycle while MD8 is enduring
beta testing from off-site user groups.
The UWG was impressed with the efforts to
further develop custom tools and research
new software products. The latest accomplishment
- DIFbuilder . is user-friendly and intuitive.
Although there have been some reservations
in the metadata community to allow and promote
minimum fields, GCMD staff evaluated and addressed
the demand for easier to use, simpler tools
with reduced metadata fields to expedite valuable
details about new data sets. As a result,
its popularity has helped to quickly increase
GCMD population without sacrificing quality.
DIFbuildlet provides a visual checklist showing
the user which fields have/have not been completed,
an editable display window, optional personalized
template and handy field definitions. Continuing
development research is essential to ensure
that Operations staff and external metadata
contributors have effective authoring tools
that are user friendly. Research into the
evolving standards for query language should
also be sustained. Development costs can be
minimized, and International interoperability
(i.e. data sharing) can be more easily achieved,
by integrating standards.
GCMD staff indicated concern that some other
organizations were using web crawlers to retrieve
information from the GCMD and that because
the web crawlers return only specific entries,
acknowledgements of the information sources
were seldom reported. We think that incorporating
attribution for GCMD into the DIFs shared
may help address this concern (see Competition
section below). The GCMD should not look at
this as a threat but embrace it as a compliment
that the Earth sciences community recognizes
the excellence of GCMD metadata.
Staff have been monitoring the developing
ISO TC 211 CD 19115 (15046-15) metadata standard.
The purpose of ISO/TC211 is to provide a consistent
suite of geographic information schemata to
allow geographic information to be integrated
with information technology. The goal of this
work item is to produce a schema for geographic
information metadata. This past spring, the
standard was accepted in draft form.
System and software developers within the
international community are anticipating adoption
of this standard. With it will come the development
of tools to ease the migration to this standard.
Since there will be over 400 fields, efforts
are being made by some leading metadata collection
providers to identify pertinent fields or
create .Profiles. to ensure ISO compliance
and address the needs of their user communities.
With the GCMD.s established authority in this
type of service, this is an area where the
GCMD should focus effort and develop a profile
as trusted leaders of the earth sciences community
for discovering data.
Special mention was made by the UWG about
the very informative "Explored Products" spreadsheet
distributed to participants in the meeting.
GCMD staff were commended for their research
and documentation about the products outlined
in categories such as: Databases, Broken Links
Monitoring, Z39.50 Interoperability, Bug tracking,
Configuration Control, Project Management,
Graphics/Presentations, OO Development, XML,
Firewall Software, Regular expression packages,
Auto-installs, Site searching software, Portal
creation, Operating systems, Coding/Scripting
languages, Servlet engines, Proxy-related
software, Analysis packages, Crawling software,
Authoring tools, Metadata information systems,
Security and Text editors.
In conclusion, the UWG
recommends the following goals:
- Assign a high priority on acquiring complete
and accurate metadata entries to populate
the directory by providing effective inputting
tools
- Scrutinize evolving query language standards
to support software development decisions.
- Continue to pursue automated software
to monitor and validate linkages within
the directory on a frequent basis.
- Create an ISO TC211 19115 metadata profile
to augment the sharing of International
earth sciences data information.
The UWG continues to believe that collaboration
with other organizations is a necessary element
in the success of the GCMD mission. Portals
provide collaborators with focused views of
GCMD content that are customized for a particular
user group. As such, portals have the potential
to be of major benefit to outreach activities.
There are several types of portals, including
ones for specialized subjects, projects and
individual users. At this year.s April 2001
GCMD UWG meeting, Lola Olsen reported that
during the past year the GCMD had created
the possibility of two types of .keyword portals..
The science keyword portal has the advantage
of providing more precise search results.
The disadvantage is that .success. depends
upon a good selection of keywords. The .free
text portal. is less precise but easier for
creators to set up.
GCMD portals are windows into specific parts
of the GCMD directory. Operationally, portal-specific
definitions in the PORTAL.inf file generate
customized portal WWW pages. These scripts
can also scan the GCMD catalog and extract
DIFs, subject to specific search controls.
Portals are created by first defining and
creating the PORTAL.inf file. A .portal home
page. is created for each portal, so images/logos
are designed. Then the Python portal generation
scripts are run to generate portal content.
The GCMD staff has created an automated portal
creation process that should promote greater
access to the GCMD holdings. The UWG supports
GCMD future plans to create a web-based interface
to portal creation procedures.
GCMD efforts in this area seem to be paying
off. Demand is increasing to the point where
they now have waiting list of 8 organizations
seeking GCMD portals. Wisely, they are directing
their support toward organizations according
to the following priorities:
- high - those that provide DIF entries
and financial support
- intermediate - those that will provide
DIF entries only
- low - those with a poor track record
for providing DIF entries
Lola Olsen noted that all eight in the waiting
list are in the intermediate priority category.
Apparently the .low priority organizations.
generally have ill-defined goals and irrational
expectations for what portals can do for them.
The recent focus has been on creating portals
for the Distributed Ocean Data System (DODS)
and GLOBEC. The problem with DODS is that,
while it provides access to many ocean data
sets, there is no internally-required metadata
standard, thus making the construction of
DIFs time consuming. Nevertheless the payoff
for GCMD is potentially huge because DODS
is becoming more widely accepted as an important
source of ocean data. The GLOBEC group, which
has a metadata-based data and information
system, seems to be particularly interested
in developing a true two-way partnership with
GCMD. This collaboration could be used to
encourage other projects to affiliate with
GCMD via the portal building process.
But as noted by the UWG last year, portals
also risk diminishing GCMD's visibility. It
is important that in developing portals, the
role of GCMD continue to be appropriately
acknowledged. The demonstrable successes of
portals need to be communicated to NASA management,
and the GCMD needs to find ways to tie this
important functionality into NASA strategies
and interagency plans
Recommendation: The
UWG encourages the GCMD to continue developing
portals and pursuing collaborations that "pay
off". The importance of collaborations
and GCMD success in this area must be communicated
to NASA management.
Opinions regarding system expansion to include
a directory for scientific tools, analytical
resources and services (STARS) continue to
be mixed within the User Working Group. On
one hand, STARS fit well into the GCMD mission
of providing information to the global change
community. The same community that seeks access
to data is also likely to want access to tools
and services that will allow them to manipulate
and analyze that data. The rapid rate of growth
in STARS, in the forms of stand-alone analytical
software, WWW tools and services, will eventually
require directory services for the global
change community to use. This growing need
was especially evident during the presentation
at the UWG meeting by Steve Kempler on the
relationship between GCMD and the Goddard
Data, Information and Services Center (a superset
of the Goddard DAAC). This is a task GCMD
is well positioned to accomplish and much
of the software in MD8 is easily adaptable
to deal with SERFs as well.
On the other hand, providing a STARS directory
entails costs. Thus far, funding to directly
support the STARS directory has been relatively
modest, potentially draining resources away
from GCMD.s primary mission. Indeed, were
it not for the system and software development
already being done in support of the GCMD,
it would have been impossible to achieve the
existing level of STARS directory development
with the resources available for that task.
The costs are not entirely financial, as developing
a STARS directory of equal stature with GCMD
will also involve commitments of creative
and intellectual resources by GCMD leadership
and staff. If lack of resources leads to poorly
updated or managed SERF's, a STARS directory
could damage the reputation for quality that
GCMD has worked so hard to obtain in the area
of data sets.
Based on these positions, it is the consensus
of the UWG that a STARS directory is a potentially
valuable service that should be pursued, but
not at the cost of reductions in quality elsewhere.
The UWG discussed strategies for expanding
the STARS directory and also identified issues
that will need to be addressed to achieve
a first-class directory.
Recommendation: The development
of a scientific tools, analytical resources
and services directory should be pursued,
but not at the cost of reductions in quality
elsewhere. Additional funding should be sought
to support the full development of a scientific
tools, analytical resources and services directory
Maintain a separation, from the user perspective,
between GCMD and the Scientific Tools, Analytical
Resources and Services directory. We recommend
that the STARS directory have its own WWW
address so that it has an identity that is
separate from GCMD from the user perspective.
The rationale for this strategy is that while
GCMD is a mature database, with time-tested
standards for directory entries, keywords
and collaborations, the STARS directory is
much less mature. Although some of the lessons
from dealing with data may be applicable directly
to STARS, there are other lessons that will
need to be learned through trial and error.
For example, DIF entries in the GCMD, and
methods for searching for them are fairly
well understood (as a result of earlier GCMD
efforts), but users may want different ways
of viewing STARS. For example, rather than
listings of resources, such as are appropriate
for DIFs, users may want comparative matrices
detailing the similarities and differences
of different software packages (similar to
those found in PC-Magazine reviews). Similarly,
there is not much practical information available
on the search strategies scientists will find
most useful in searching STARS.
Also evident are differences in the level
of database population. The GCMD has grown
to nearly 9,000 DIF entries, while the prototype
STARS system has less than 500 SERF entries.
We would not want to see a prospective user
search the STARS database and have that experience
color their perceptions of the GCMD database.
As UWG member Jonathan Callahan put it .Right
now we have a 10-year old (GCMD) and a two-year
old (STARS). We want them to be able to play
ball together, but first the two-year old
needs to mature.
Note that this strategy focuses on the separation
from the user perspective and not from the
system perspective. Thus, both DIFs and SERFs
might be created using the same editors and
stored in the same databases, but the user
should perceive them as coming from different
places. The development of software tools
and systems that are applicable to both DIFs
and SERFs is highly desirable and should be
continued.
Adopt a highly iterative
process for the development of the Scientific
Tools, Analytical Resources and Services directory.
There is a lot we need to learn in order to
be successful. Trial and error works best
when there are plenty of "trys". This may
involve alternative ways of viewing and searching
the SERF records and alternative controlled
vocabularies and associated hierarchies. Usage
statistics can then help to identify what
has been most successful. As the directory
matures, it will become more stable, but it
needs a rich and diverse .childhood. first.
Learn from others.
Keep in touch with services developments elsewhere.
ISO standards are being developed for software
services. Similarly, CEONET and many other
agencies such as USGS and USDA are experimenting
with developing and cataloging their own internal
services. These efforts may provide some guidance
on workable search and display solutions.
Start close to home
in initial population efforts. Before
trying to encompass the entire universe of
STARS, focus on those STARS that have direct
links to the NASA earth science community.
The ESIP Federation is a logical place to
start on population efforts, although if others
from outside the federation are interested
in participating, they should by no means
be discouraged. This will mean that the STARS
directory will start off as a relatively comprehensive
ESIP-related directory, as opposed to starting
off as a sparse collection of general SERF
entries.
Seek additional funding
to pursue development of the Scientific Tools,
Analytical Resources and Services directory.
This is a valuable service, but someone
needs to help pay for it!
There are several issues that will need
to be addressed in order for the Scientific
Tools, Analytical Resources and Services directory
to be successful.
Clear criteria need
to be established for the inclusion of SERF
entries into the database. This is
especially important since many of the services
listed in the directory may be offered by
private sources on a for-profit basis. Exclusion
of an inappropriate entry could have financial
and legal repercussions if the standards are
not clear. In an extreme example, a web site
selling pornographic streaming videos might
submit a SERF entry identifying itself as
service for "Earth Scientists". Without clear
criteria and a process for review and appeal,
the STARS database could easily become cluttered
with inappropriate material or embroiled in
legal tangles.
The directory needs
to maintain current, accurate information.
The reliance on service providers to
contribute SERFs has the advantage of reducing
costs for populating the database. However,
it also imposes additional challenges with
respect to quality assurance and quality control.
Developing service online resources frequently
change WWW addresses, more so than data resources.
Similarly, external SERF providers typically
will be providing only one or a few SERF entries,
leaving little opportunity for developing
the sort of expertise that GCMD domain coordinators
have. The GCMD needs to develop policies and
procedures for detecting and rectifying out-of-date
material.
The UWG discussed issues regarding competition
from other, recently implemented systems that
purport to subsume the GCMD.s directory functions.
It was the unanimous sense of the UWG that
the continuing outstanding performance of
the GCMD assures it a preeminent position,
regardless of the actions of competitors.
The holdings of the GCMD are unmatched in
terms of quantity, but more importantly, the
GCMD has developed systems and recruited staff
that assure the long-term quality of the directory
data. Such achievements are not easily duplicated
by others. Therefore, our recommendation is
that the GCMD should continue its efforts
to "outrun" the competition by fulfilling
its role as the "Mother of All Global Change
Sites" Science 280:171).
Relative to some competitors, who may be
lax with respect to attribution of GCMD and
others efforts, the UWG believes that GCMD
needs to .take the high ground. regarding
proper credit for database contributors. Taking
the high moral ground has two components,
internal and external. Internally, the GCMD
needs to continue and extend its extraordinary
efforts to make sure that DIF contributors
are properly acknowledged within the GCMD.
Externally, the GCMD needs to work to extend
the principles of proper acknowledgement and
attribution to larger community efforts, by
participating in development of data sharing
policies for SWIL and other groups of which
it is a member. At a practical level, the
GCMD may wish to use existing or expanded
DIF fields to provide explicit acknowledgement
of the DIF creator and the organization with
which they are affiliated, thus providing
a .watermark.. If there are concerns that
those DIF fields might be stripped away by
unscrupulous competitors who would present
GCMD content as their own, GCMD could adapt
the methods of map makers and producers of
classified documents, who introduce minor,
but recognizable errors in their maps and
documents, thus allowing definitive identification
of the original source even when explicit
identification information has been stripped
away.
The UWG believes that many potential "competitors"
are also potentially important "collaborators"
whose missions are complementary with GCMD
and its goal of providing services to the
global change research community. GCMD should
continue its efforts to convert competitors
to collaborators through general policies
of openness and negotiation.
Recommendation: The
UWG recommends that GCMD .take the high road.
in dealing with competition by focusing on
continuing excellence in pursuit of the GCMD
mission, promoting open access to data and
by fostering policies that promote appropriate
attribution and acknowledgement in the Global
Change database. community.
Unlike some past UWG meetings where issues
regarding population of the GCMD was a major
issue, there were only relatively minor discussions
of population at this meeting. To a large
degree, this is because long-standing population
efforts seem to be paying off. The statistics
on number of DIFs added seem to indicate that
GCMD has reached a "critical mass" and that
both acquiring new DIFs and updating old ones
are proceeding well.
We recommend that
the GCMD continue its ongoing population and
updating efforts and that it continue its
work on identifying underrepresented topic
areas to help focus its efforts. For
example, the UWG identified providing improved
access to data resources related to disasters,
such as work with the Pacific Disaster Center
or access to declassified military data (e.g.,
DTED, SRTM) as one possible focus area.
Recently NASA has adopted policies regarding
charging for data reproduction. The UWG briefly
discussed how these policies might impact
the GCMD, and our conclusion was that since
the marginal costs of providing directory
data on the WWW are virtually zero, the GCMD
should continue its policy of "free" access
to the data. The scaleable software architecture
of the GCMD has done an excellent job eliminating
"bottlenecks" that would require rationing,
so there is no need to charge for scarce services.
Although the UWG does not support charging
for access, we did discuss options where charging
might be possible. We rejected the notion
of charging for searching and accessing the
GCMD as counterproductive to the overall mission
of the GCMD as a portal for Global Change
data, both because of the potentially negative
impacts on the user base and because such
revenue was unlikely to justify the development
of the needed accounting systems.
One area where charging might be possible
was to allow banner advertisements for Global
Change-related services, but this was not
recommended by the UWG!
Recommendation:
The cost of distribution of data via the WWW
is so low that GCMD should not attempt to charge
for metadata.
The educational resource being developed
by the GCMD is accessed through the GCMD Learning
Center and includes a number of resources
such as FAQ pages on global change issues,
a page of science fair topics and resources,
and a bibliography of relevant references.
There was some question as to how "education"
fits into the GCMD mission. While there was
not extensive discussion of this issue, there
is an important role for education in GCMD
- the GCMD is meant to ".assist the scientific
community in the discovery of and linkage
to Earth science data". In its broadest interpretation,
educational resources could greatly assist
the scientific community including aiding
students studying science to better understand
the application and meaning of various data
sets. In addition, an educational module could
be included as a "SERF" in future GCMD activities.
The Digital Library for Earth System Support
(DLESE) is being funded by NSF to provide
high quality materials for instruction at
all levels, access to Earth data sets and
imagery, and tools and distribution systems
and can be supported by the GCMD.
GCMD staff also attended the National Science
Teachers Association (NSTA) annual meeting
where they demonstrated the search tool, the
GCMD Learning Center, and Earth science links.
They received much positive feedback from
the many people who visited their exhibit.
Recommendation:
The GCMD should address the role of education
in its mission and in achieving its goals.
Dr. Benno Blumenthal,
Oceanographer
Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia
University
Dr. Wendell Brown,
Oceanographer
University of Massachussetts-Dartmouth
Ms. Andrea Buffam
Canadian Centre for Remote Sensing
Dr. Jonathan Callahan,
Chemist
NOAA/PMEL/University of Washington
Dr. Elissa Levine
(Project Scientist), Soil Scientist Biospheric
Sciences Branch,
NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center
Dr. Bernard Minster,
Geophysicist
University of California-San Diego
Dr. John Porter,
Ecologist
University of Virginia
The following UWG Reports are also available:
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