STAKEHOLDER ALIGNMENT FOR CHANGING GEOSPATIAL INFORMATION CAPABILITIES IS

STAKEHOLDER ALIGNMENT FOR CHANGING GEOSPATIAL INFORMATION CAPABILITIES IS THERE ALIGNMENT FOR CHANGE? ARE SCIENTISTS WHO USE GEOSPATIAL DATA UNUSUAL? Stakeholder Alignment Collaborative: Karen Baker, UIUC; Nick Berente, University ; of Georgia; Dorothy Carter, University of Georgia; Joel Cutcher-Gershenfeld, UIUC; Leslie De. Church, Georgia Tech University; Courtney Flint, Utah State University; Gabriel Gershenfeld, Cleveland Indians; Brandon Grant, UIUC, Michael Haberman, UIUC; John L. King, University of Michigan; Eric Knight, University of Sydney; Barbara Lawrence, UCLA; Spenser Lewis, General Dynamics; Pablo Lopez, UIUC; Matt Mayernik, NCAR/UCAR; Charles Mcelroy, Case Western Reserve University; Barbara Mittleman, Nodality, Inc. ; Mark Nolan, UIUC; Sunjin Pak, UIUC; Dechying Ruengvisesh. UIUC ; Namchul Shin, Pace University; Cheryl Thompson, UIUC; Susan Winter, University of Maryland; Ilya Zaslavsky, UCSD. Support from the National Science Foundation is deeply appreciated: NSF-VOSS EAGER 0956472, “Stakeholder Alignment in Socio-Technical Systems, ” NSF OCI RAPID 1229928, “Stakeholder Alignment for Earth. Cube, ” NSF GEO-Sci. SIP-STS-OCI-INSPIRE 1249607, “Enabling Transformation in the Social Sciences, Geosciences, and CI, ” NSF OCI 12 -56163, “Envisioning Success: A Workshop for Next Generation Earth. Cube Scholars and Scientists, ” NSF I-CORPS 1313562 “Stakeholder Alignment for Public-Private Partnerships, ”

Earth. Cube’s mission: Enable geoscientists to address the challenges of understanding and predicting a complex and evolving Earth system by fostering a community-governed effort to develop a common CI to collect, access, analyze, share and visualize all forms of data and resources, using advanced technological and computational capabilities. Earth. Cube’s long-term vision: A community-driven, dynamic CI that supports standards for interoperability, infuses advanced technologies to improve and facilitate interdisciplinary research, and helps educate scientists in the emerging practices of digital scholarship, data and software stewardship, and open science Stakeholder Alignment Research Project Goal: Document and explain the evolution and transformation of the institutions of the geosciences (social and technical) to better enable scientific break-throughs.

THREE ROUNDS OF EARTHCUBE DATA COLLECTION: 2012: EC website; NSF data centers (n=865) 2013/2014: Before 21 end user workshops (n=681) 2015/2016: Plus professional associations (n=421; data collection continuing) Scale: 0=strongly disagree. . 1=strongly agree Additional, related data collection with i-Samples RCN; National Data Service; XSEDE and others. Caution: These are preliminary findings on selected variables

EARTHCUBE RESPONDENTS WHO USE GEOSPATIAL DATA 79. 2% 66. 6% 65. 5% 64. 0% 63. 6% 61. 1% 53. 7% 48. 4% 40. 0% 39. 4% Hydrology (n=24) Antarctic and Arctic Sciences (n=6) Climate Science (n=29) Geology (n=50) Other Geoscience (n=22) Paleogeosciences (n=18) Atmospheric Sciences (n=45) Geophysics (n=54) Geochemistry (n=33) Space Physics and Planetary Science (n=15) Oceanography (n=33) 72. 7% Cyberinfrastructure experts (including data management, software engineering, computer science, and others) (n=44) 61. 1% Interdisciplinary domains (including biology, eco. System science, critical zone science, physical geography, natural hazards, social science, and others) (n=18) 52. 6% Other (n=29) Note: Data from 2015 respondents only; repondents may also use physical samples, and other data types (digital still and video images, models, data from sensors and satellites, survey data).

STAKEHOLDER ALIGNMENT MODEL Comment: The Earth. Cube mission and vision require change at individual, group, organizational, and institutional levels. Alignment of stakeholders on each of the five dimensions enables transformative change. Data presented on highlighted sub-dimensions. Telegraphing the results: Four of the five dimension need attention.

STRATEGY: HIGH URGENCY Comment: A large gap between ease & importance for sharing data, models, and software. The gap is present for sharing within fields and disciplines as well as across fields and disciplines.

STRUCTURE: LOW INCENTIVES Comment: Tenure and promotion do not support sharing data, models and software.

PROCESS: LEADERSHIP NOT WIDESPREAD Comment: Lack of aligned, clear leadership for sharing data, models and software.

TECHNOLOGY: MODERATE RESULTS ON STANDARDS. Comment: Geospatial users submit NSF DMPs, commit to make data public, and follow through at a greater rate than geoscientists who do not use geospatial data. Overall performance is good, but not great.

CULTURE: COOPERATION NOT VALUED/ASSUMED Comment: Limited cooperation among geoscientists and among cyberinfrastructure experts. Even less between Geo and Cyber

If the Earth. Cube initiative could deliver one thing, your “must have, ” what would it be. . . Selected illustrative responses: • Open access to data • Data publication • Well-organized, easily searchable data • Metadata standards • Time series data visualizations • Data organized by geographic region • Access to models • Extreme events (disasters) • Standardization of data at the point of collection by commercial instrument/sensor manufacturers • Easy comprehensive access to CMIP 6 -- as in “Give me all the evapotranspiration variables for all the models for X, Y, Z experiments. ”

“must have” wordles with and without “data, datasets, and databases” (n=421)

SUMMARY OF FINDINGS • Strategy: There is a perceived gap between ease and importance (sense of urgency) • Structure: There are misalignments in the tenure and promotion process (incentives) • Process: Clear and aligned leadership is not widely perceived (leadership) • Technology: Standards for data management plans are observed to a slightly greater degree by those using geospatial data (standards) • Culture: Cooperation in sharing data, models, and software among geoscientists, among cyberinfrastructure experts, and between the two communities is low (values/assumptions)

CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS • Alignment is essential: Increased alignment of stakeholders (fields/disciplines, funders, publishers, associations, etc. ) along all five dimensions (strategy, structure, process, technology, and culture) is essential for transformative change. • Considerable work needed: There is some sense of urgency (gap between ease and importance) but there are many other dimensions along which there are system/institutional barriers. • Geospatial data users and nonusers similar: Geoscientists who use geospatial data are generally similar in their views on sharing data, models, and software compared to geoscientists who do not use geospatial data. • Additional analysis needed: Focusing on different data types (physical samples, for example), distinctions by field/discipline, “must have” from Earth. Cube, and other research questions. 2012 and 2013/2014 data DOI: 10. 1594/IEDA/100535 (Title: Earth. Cube Stakeholder Survey Data; Lead Author: Cutcher-Gershenfeld, Joel; Date Avalable: 2015 -04 -15; URL: http: //dx. doi. org/10. 1594/IEDA/100535