Building the Geoinformatics System: A Workshop on Planning and Coordinating Environmental Cyberinfrastructure Activities in the Earth Sciences

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PIs propose to convene a workshop to bring together one or two representatives of each of the self-defined subdisciplines of the earth sciences community and representatives of other scientific disciplines including ocean sciences, biodiversity, and atmospheric sciences, who are organizing to pursue development of the environmental cyberinfrastructure (ECI). The primary goal of the workshop is to establish the framework for a sustained effort to coordinate and facilitate community-wide collaboration in planning a geoinformatics system. Through the workshop, participants will identify the systemic and organizational issues necessary to start design of the system envisioned in the report of the "National Science Foundation Blue-Ribbon Advisory Panel on Cyberinfrastructure" and in the workshop recently completed at NCAR in Boulder, Colorado.The Boulder workshop demonstrated pervasive agreement on the basic attributes of the ECI and the need to coordinate the diverse array of activities already underway in the environmental sciences, engineering, and information technology arenas. The proposed workshop will examine the needs of all areas of the earth sciences as well as how the ultimate earth sciences ECI system will interact with similar efforts in other disciplines. By establishing a list of primary end-user needs as well as major issues facing each subdiscipline, we hope to prepare an effective plan for a coordinated ECI system. The workshop will produce by August 2003, a framework document that (i) outlines a structure for the geoinformatics system, (ii) identifies a process to achieve community-based participation, and (iii) recommends a strategy for further organizational activities.