Data Management Committee Report to the GCOOS BOD February 25, 2009 Orlando, Florida Vembu Subramanian, Chair GCOOS DMAC & DMAC Committee

Current Members Babin, Brenda – LUMCON - Academic Bosch, Julie - NCDDC, NOAA - Federal Burnett, Bill - NDBC,NOAA - Federal Davis, James - TAMU, Corpus-Christi - Academic Raye, Robert – Shell - Private Anderson, Steve - Horizon Marine - Private Hu, Lei - Dauphin Island Sea lab - Academic Howard, Matthew – TAMU - Academic Ratcliff, Jay – USACE - Federal Koziano, James – SAIC - Private Subramanian, Vembu – USF - Acdemic Colee, Jennifer – USACE - Federal

Terms of Reference The DMAC Committee will oversee development of the data management and communications component of GCOOS and ensure its alignment with the IOOS DMAC Plan. The DMAC will make recommendations to the Board on research or pilot projects that are needed to sustain and enhance the coastal ocean observing system and associated data use.

Terms of Reference The DMAC also is responsible for recommending to the Board annual updates to the business plan for data management and communications activities. The DMAC Committee will be appointed by the GCOOS Board of Directors and the chair will be elected by the members of the Committee.

3 rd DMAC Meeting February 23-24, 2009 Objectives 1) Provide input on capabilities and direction of the data portal 2) Create a GCOOS DMAC Action Plan for 2009 Total 22 participants (11/12 committee members, 5/7 Potential member recruits, 3/3 neighbor RA, 1 GCOOS E&O rep., 1 (NERRS rep., 1 – GCOOS Data Portal Developer) SECOORA and CaRA DMAC members attended

IOOS Collaborators

Action Item # 1 Recommend new DMAC members for BOD approval Members Recommended Helen Conover, University of Alabama - Academic Kathleen Okeife, FWC, FWRI - State Virgil Zetterlind, EarthNC - Private Eric Stabbaneu, ENPS – Federal Alex Rybak – SCCF – Non-Profit Shawn Smith – FSU – Academic Mark Woodrey – Grand Bay NEERS – Academic Elizebeth Valenti – Worldwinds Inc. - Private

Action Item # 2 Cross-Committee Nominations (Recommendation) Bill Burnett – Observing Systems Committee Lei Hu – Education & Outreach Council Jay Ratcliff – Products and Services Committee Virgil Zetterlind (pending approval) – Stakeholders Council Recommending appointments from other committees to the DMAC committee Simoniella, Chris has agreed to serve on DMAC as an Education and Outreach Council Representative Nominated Brenda Leroux Babin as chair-elect

Action Item #3 Identify Scope of data sets to be entrained into GCOOS. Inventory of Data Assets in the GCOOS Region – Matthew Howard Identifying what type of data sets we want to manage and entrain into GCOOS (real-time, non-real-time, fisheries, etc.) Define GCOOS Data Management (What is a platform, sensor, real-time, QA/QC etc.)

Action Item #4 Recommendations for data portal website metrics (Data and Data Products related as well as Dollar value based) – Matthew Howard and Nonong

Action Item #5 Recommendation to consider a “certification” process for data management within GCOOS – NDBC is working on Capability Mature Model Integration (CMMI) and Bill Burnett and James Koziano will provide documents related to the same.

What is CMMI? Capability Maturity Model ® Integration (CMMI) is a process improvement approach that provides organizations with the essential elements of effective processes. It can be used to guide process improvement across a project, a division, or an entire organization. CMMI helps integrate traditionally separate organizational functions, set process improvement goals and priorities, provide guidance for quality processes, and provide a point of reference for appraising current processes.

Action Item #6 Explore methods for archive and redundancy –Long term storage was discussed as being important. –NODC was suggested as an archival center –Provenance of a data was considered. –RA’s collaborate and explore strategies for handling this activity –Archival and redundancy to be considered separately. –Catastrophic redundancy important in emergencies.

Action Item #7 DMAC will review the proposal for the data portal and prepare a report to the board. Suggestions were made that the data portal provide more access to actual data and products. One suggestion that will be stressed is providing data in ESRI format.

Action Item #8 Entrainment of new data providers – We have identified a few new data providers other than the data nodes within the GCOOS region Suggestions were made by potential data providers as to streamlining the participation process via Guidance documents.

Other Issues Discussed Links between GOMA and DMAC activities (and other monitoring efforts) Where does model data fit into the picture of data management? Identifying and packaging data needs for specific user defined applications (ie. Hypoxia) – could promote collaboration with other RAs.

Potential Areas of RA Collaboration User-Defined Applications Areas (e.g., Water Quality) Shared DB Schema and Data Dictionaries Links to Existing Data Streams Evaluate GCOOS Data Portal Archival and Mirroring Shared Virtualization Costs Development of QA/QC Protocols Development of DM-Oriented Metrics HF Radar Data Synthesis

Management of Model Outputs Proposals for DM Operations Share Lessons Learned with DMAC Personnel Shared Communication Tools and Documentation Shared Training and Workshop Hosting