NASA has a wealth of data that helps those who study, manage, and protect coastal areas in the United States and around the world. To help these users access NASA data for their work, the agency recently announced a partnership with Virginia Tech to conduct workshops and research to understand their data needs and identify barriers to using NASA data. We funded a proposal from Old Dominion University.
The four-day workshop in September 2023 will be called “UNBOUND for Coastal Issues” (UNBOUND CI) and will be part of NASA’s “Understanding the Needs to Expand External Use of NASA Data” (UNBOUND) project. Funded by. UNBOUND is intended to help groups that currently do not use or make limited use of NASA Earth science data to begin or increase their use of these data. A report on workshop activities and key recommendations is now available.
“NASA was pleased to support this workshop and gained valuable insights from it,” said Dr. Gerardo Guara, NASA UNBOUND project leader. “This workshop, more than any other UNBOUND workshop, will provide NASA with more comprehensive GIS-enabled data to support decision-making on broadly impacting issues such as sea level rise and coastal resilience. emphasized the need.”
UNBOUND CI included 28 participants from research, academia, government, community organizations, and other groups addressing coastal zone management, flood risk management, sea level rise, and land subsidence issues. During the workshop, participants heard presentations from field experts and representatives from the NASA Earth Science Data System (ESDS) program, participated in breakout room activities, and completed homework and research.
“It was clear that the participants were quite enthusiastic about the wealth of data that NASA provides,” said Dr. Wendy Stout, a Virginia Tech researcher and principal investigator of UNBOUND CI. “For example, the breakout groups I led generated innovative ideas about how to incorporate data into our professions as new resources were introduced. Despite their enthusiasm to work on it, users sometimes faced frustration in navigating through different datasets, finding data, and deciding where to start searching for data. I experienced some difficulties.”
Stout and the UNBOUND CI team analyzed the work and comments from workshop participants and synthesized them into five key recommendations.
- Develop a centralized landing page for NASA resources: A centralized landing page provides an intuitive entry point for users and serves as a broad repository for NASA resources and functionality.
- Invest in artificial intelligence to improve user experience: Add natural language processing chatbots to help users navigate your website.
- Improved data accessibility: Participants expressed a desire for greater integration with data programs they are already familiar with, such as ArcGIS Living Atlas of the World.
- Strengthen regional and occupational relevance: Tailor NASA applications to the specific demands of users with different regional and occupational requirements, such as incorporating themes from NASA’s DEVELOP projects as filtering possibilities for NASA applications.
- Incorporate training pedagogy into workshops: speaking series, workshops, or modular programs that incorporate pedagogical components to enable independent learners to reproduce models to peers, students, colleagues, or other audiences. Develop.
ESDS will obtain these recommendations and other details from the report and use that information to tailor our geoscience data websites, products, training, and presentations to coastal region work and applications. strategize your next steps. Reports from previous UNBOUND workshops are available on the Earthdata UNBOUND landing page.
