EARTHCUBE: A COMMUNITY-DRIVEN ORGANIZATION FOR GEOSCIENCE CYBERINFRASTRUCTURE

The National Science Foundation’s (NSF) EarthCube program is a community-driven approach to building cyberinfrastructure for managing, sharing, and exploring geoscience data and information to advance scientific discovery.

The EarthCube Test Enterprise Governance project is a two-year effort to engage diverse geo- and cyber-science communities in applying a responsive approach to the development of an appropriate governing system for EarthCube. Drawing in part on a series of two-dozen End-User Workshops, an Assembly of seven stakeholder groups representing the broad EarthCube community developed a draft Governance Framework and accompanying Charter finalized at the June 2014 EarthCube All Hands Meeting. This framework will be tested for one year, beginning October 2014. If successful, this framework could potentially act as a model for future NSF investments in geoscience cyberinfrastructure.

This framework is community-driven. Community-elected members of the Leadership Council will be responsible for managing EarthCube’s strategic direction and refining its scope. Three Standing Committees will also be established: 1) to oversee the development of technology and architecture, 2) to coordinate among new and existing data facilities, and 3) to represent the academic geosciences community in driving development of EarthCube cyberinfrastructure. An Engagement Team and a Liaison Team will support communication initiatives and partnerships with external organizations and initiatives, and a central Office will act as a logistical support function to the governance framework as a whole. Finally, ad hoc Working Groups and Special Interest Groups will take on other issues related to EarthCube goals.

The 1-year phase will test the effectiveness of the proposed framework and allow for elements to be changed to better meet community needs. The committees and teams are being populated, in order to finalize leadership and decision-making processes to move community-selected priorities forward, including identifying science drivers, coordinating emerging technical elements, and coming to convergence on system architecture. A January mid-year review will assemble these groups to analyze the effectiveness of the framework to-date and make adjustments as necessary.