NSF GeoData Workshop June 17-19, 2014 Boulder, CO Sara J. Graves, Ph.D.

Social, Political and Financial Issues of Connecting GeoData In and Between

Governmental Agencies

NSF GeoData WorkshopJune 17-19, 2014

Boulder, CO

Sara J. Graves, Ph.D.Director, Information Technology and

Systems CenterBoard of Trustees University Professor

Professor of Computer Science University of Alabama in Huntsville

[email protected]

http://www.itsc.uah.edu

Social Issues of Connecting GeoData In and Between Government Agencies

• Advice/Directive from Congress and Advisory groups

• Impacts of ‘cultures’ of agencies on collaboration, funding mechanisms, etc.

• Encourage collaboration with other agencies and groups

• Interpretation of mission of agency

• Discovery, access and use of data by researchers/ decision makers/ policy makers/public

• Convincing Congress to fund new as well as continuing programs

• People aspects offer more challenges than the technical aspects

• ‘No interest in/support of data’ – but then present research results from analyzing data

• Entire ‘Data Community’ responsible for impact and sustainability

• US agencies are leaders in international data and science but we cannot take that valuable asset for granted

• Interest in geodata by wide segment of population – exploit wisely

• International aspects

Financial Issues of Connecting GeoData In and Between Government Agencies

• Funding mechanisms – grants, contracts, etc (open to new mechanisms)

• Funding timetables – constraints/flexibility

• Funds for HW/SW/networks/clouds as well as labor

• Funds for sustainability of data infrastructure

• Large investments by specific agencies – leverage in and between

• RFPs for innovative ideas but also for enhancements/transition to next phase/operations

• Convince Congress to fund new as well as continuing programs

• In and between agencies funding for collaborations and supplementary funding

• Funding uncertainty

• Budgeting implication for broad community of interest in geodata

Political Issues of Connecting GeoData In and Between Government Agencies

• Advice/Directive from Congress and Advisory groups

• Policies of agencies - impacts on collaboration, funding, etc

• Interpretation of mission of agency

• Policies with regard to discovery, access and use of data

• Policy and budgeting implications of providing/consuming data for researchers/ decision makers/ policy makers/public

• Convince Congress to fund new as well as continuing programs

• Internal and External pressures on many topics such as timeliness and openess

• Understand and respect boundaries

• Restrictions on data access and use – ITAR, SBU (sensitive but unclassified)

• Interoperability issues – cultural and legal

• Political environments exist not only in legislative bodies

Science• Larger teams, more disciplines, more countries

Data• Size, complexity, rates all increasing rapidly • Need for interoperability (systems and policies)

Systems • More cores, more architectures (GPUs), more memory hierarchy • Changing balances (latency vs bandwidth) • Changing limits (power, funds) • System architecture and business models changing (clouds) • Network capacity growing; increase networks -> increased security

Software • Multiphysics algorithms, frameworks • Programing models and abstractions for science, data, and hardware • V&V, reproducibility, fault tolerance

People • Education and training • Career paths • Credit and attribution • Daniel Katz - NSF

Infrastructure Challenges

THANKS!!

SciDataCon2014, 2-5 Nov 2014

New Delhi, 2-5 November 2014, co-organised by CODATA and ICSU-WDS (World Data System).

Data Sharing and Integration for Global Sustainability Considering data challenges for international science. Data to underpin robust science to inform decision-making around

sustainability. Big Data and data integration.

Address challenges for Future Earth and other international science programmes. Announcement: http://www.scidatacon2014.org

Themes, invitation to contribute to discussion and call for papers . Save the date and join the discussions! See you in New Delhi!

http://www.scidatacon2014.org