CI CoE: CI Compass: An NSF Cyberinfrastructure (CI) Center of Excellence for Navigating the Major Facilities Data Lifecycle

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Innovative and robust Cyberinfrastructure (CI) is critical to the science missions of the NSF Major Facilities (MFs), which are at the forefront of science and engineering innovations, enabling pathbreaking discoveries across a broad spectrum of scientific areas. The MFs serve scientists, researchers and the public at large by capturing, curating, and serving data from a variety of scientific instruments (from telescopes to sensors). The amount of data collected and disseminated by the MFs is continuously growing in complexity and size and new software solutions are being developed at an increasing pace. MFs do not always have all the expertise, human resources, or budget to take advantage of the new capabilities or to solve every technological issue themselves. The proposed NSF Cyberinfrastructure Center of Excellence, CI Compass, brings together experts from multiple disciplines, with a common passion for scientific CI, into a problem-solving team that curates the best of what the community knows; shares expertise and experiences; connects communities in response to emerging challenges; and builds on and innovates within the emerging technology landscape. By supporting MFs to enhance and evolve the underlying CI, the proposed CI Compass will amplify the largest of NSF’s science investments, and have a transformative, broad societal impact on a multitude of MF science and engineering areas and the community of scientists, engineers, and educators MFs serve. CI Compass will also impact the broader NSF CI ecosystem through dissemination of CI Compass outcomes, which can be adapted and adopted by other large-scale CI projects and thus empower them to more efficiently serve their user communities.The goal of the proposed CI Compass is to enhance the CI underlying the MF data lifecycle (DLC) that represents the transformation of raw data captured by state-of-the-art scientific MF instruments into interoperable and integration-ready data products that can be visualized, disseminated, and converted into insights and knowledge. CI Compass will engage with MFs and contribute knowledge and expertise to the MF DLC CI by offering a collection of services that includes evaluating CI plans, helping design new architectures and solutions, developing proofs of concept, and assessing applicability and performance of existing CI solutions. CI Compass will also enable knowledge-sharing across MFs and the CI community, by brokering connections between MF CI professionals, facilitating topical working groups, and organizing community meetings. CI Compass will also disseminate the best practices and lessons learned via online channels, publications, and community events.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.