Good morning, ESIP,

First off, thank you to those of you who joined us either virtually or in-person at the ESIP Winter Meeting two weeks ago! What a fantastic week of activities we shared in together. We are working hard to preserve meeting presentations in the ESIP Figshare Repository and will soon upload session recordings to the ESIP YouTube Channel.

Whether you weren't able to attend the ESIP Winter Meeting in person or you're looking to see what happened in other breakout sessions, we invite you to mark your calendars for the 2020 ESIP Winter Meeting Highlights Webinar to be held on 2/5 at 3 pm ET. More details will be shared soon.

We would also like to give a warm welcome to ESIP's 6 new partner organizations approved by the ESIP Board in January. These groups represent 3 different countries and 3 different continents:

• Crowd2Map (Tanzania)
• Engineering Research Development Center at US Army Corps of Engineers
• Environmental Data & Governance Initiative (EDGI)
• Manaaki Whenua - Landcare Research (New Zealand)
• Metadata Game Changers
• Montana Technological University

While the ESIP Summer Meeting in Burlington, VT (July 14th-17th) may seem far off in the distance, please be sure to mark your calendars and start thinking up potential breakout topics! ESIP staff and volunteers are already putting together an exciting plenary speaker lineup to complement your community-contributed breakout ideas. If you have questions about potential ideas or collaborators, don't hesitate to reply to this note.

Finally, we are looking for additional volunteers to answer data-related questions and/or to demo tools/resources at the Data Help Desk to be held at the Ocean Sciences Meeting next month. Please see below for more details and to sign up.

Best, 
Megan

--
Megan Carter Orlando
ESIP Community Director 

ESIP News
ESIP 2019 Annual Report Released
The 2019 ESIP Annual Report was just released and is now accessible in the ESIP Figshare Repository. The report was generated by ESIP staff and leadership and outlines ESIP activities for fiscal year 2019 (October 1st, 2018 through September 30th, 2019). We recommend that the community take a look at the report and cite it as appropriate, using the following citation:

Earth Science Information Partners (2020): Earth Science Information Partners (ESIP) Annual Report 2019. ESIP. Online Resource. https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.11499387.

Data FAIR at 2020 Ocean Sciences Meeting
EarthCube, ESIP, and AGU along with their partners will be hosting a Data FAIR at the 2020 Ocean Sciences Meeting in San Diego, CA (2/16-2/21). The program, which was just held at the AGU Fall Meeting, provides researchers with opportunities to engage with informatics experts familiar with their scientific domain and learn skills and techniques that will help further their research and make their data and software open and FAIR. The Data FAIR will include Town Halls, Workshops, and the Data Help Desk staffed with experts from the Earth and space science informatics community and demos at Exhibit Hall Booth #322.

We are looking for volunteers to sign-up for shifts at the Data Help Desk. You can sign up to participate in one or both of the following ways: 1) Data Reference Desk (where volunteers answer data questions) and 2) Tool and Platform Demos (where volunteers demo tools/services/platforms, etc).
If you are interested, please indicate your availability as soon as possible (by 1/22): https://forms.gle/DU6YUP1S8qN5gbcf8.

More News
NSF EarthCube Solicitation & NSF Webinar (1/27)
A new NSF EarthCube solicitation for proposals has just been released. Stated deadlines and target dates are listed as March 12, 2020. Learn more about the solicitation here. Projects being accepted for consideration include:

• Science-Enabling Data Capabilities
• Pilots
• Research Coordination Networks (RCNs)
• Supplements - for science adoption or data resource adoption - to integrate NSF-funded work with EarthCube.

Don't miss the webinar on Monday, Jan. 27, 2020 at 1:00 pm EST, where NSF GEO and CISE directorates will share information and host a Q&A on the solicitation:
Join: https://nsf2.webex.com/nsf2/j.php?MTID=mc5730bda0fb585305f33ab298781fa5d
Meeting number: 902 917 734
Meeting password: EarthCube2020!
Audio connection:  +1-510-210-8882 USA Toll
Access code: 902 917 734

For help connecting to WebEx, contact Cisco Technical Assistance Center (TAC) for help at Toll-free: 1-877-669-1782 or Toll: 1-408-906-1181 or International Toll: ++1-916-636-9015.

Group on Earth Observations (GEO) and Google Earth Engine Announce Call to Action for Projects to Monitor the Pulse of our Planet
Shared data means everything to Earth observation researchers. If we hope to solve global problems such as climate change, open data is at the heart of finding answers. Sharing is at the heart of GEO’s latest call to action. In partnership with Google, GEO will select 25 project proposals to receive licenses for Google Earth Engine, to be used to tackle significant societal challenges and improve understanding of our planet.

Google is providing these licenses, valued at US$3 million, to broaden the use of Earth observation data. In keeping with GEO's goal of promoting openly shared data, we require that the chosen projects offer the results of their work to the open science community, including code, algorithms, datasets and results. See more details and apply by March 15, 2020 here.

Share Your Feedback on Competencies of Data Specialists
Please consider taking this survey, which is part of an effort to capture community feedback on potential competencies for data advisors (e.g. data curators - individuals that provide guidance to researchers in the selection, management, sharing, and preservation of their research data), and data service providers (e.g. data librarians - individuals that provide training, infrastructure support, preservation services, and other services to researchers related to their data management needs). The information provided by your response will be integrated into a "Data Advisor" and "Data Services Provider" Career Compass for the American Geosciences Institute, and as input into the process of developing learning assessment capabilities for a future version of ESIP's Data Management Training Clearinghouse.

2020 Gateway Focus Week Applications are Now Open!
The Science Gateways Community Institute offers two Focus Weeks per year. The 2020 sessions are: 

• June 1-5, Columbia University, New York, NY (apply by March 27)
• Nov. 30-Dec. 4, San Diego Supercomputer Center, La Jolla, CA (apply by Sept. 25)

Gateway Focus Week is a five-day intensive workshop that has been carefully designed to benefit teams who want to ensure the sustainability of their gateway projects. Teams engage in hands-on activities that help them articulate the value of their work to key stakeholders. Participating teams produce a strong development, operations, and sustainability plan with a corresponding pitch deck that includes actionable goals. By working closely across teams, participants have the opportunity to learn from each other’s experiences and challenges. Teams also learn how to access consultations, engagement opportunities, and other resources from the SGCI. Apply now!