Stone Soup: The Atlas of Organizations

Data science is of increasing importance to scientists as well as the greater community. A multitude of efforts are improving data access, interoperability, stewardship, and management across a variety of groups. These groups include those with a data science/informatics focus, (such as DataONE, the Research Data Alliance (RDA), the Federation of Earth Science Information Partners (ESIP)), as well as government agencies (e.g., NASA, NOAA, USGS), funders (e.g., NSF, DOE) and academic researchers. Every group or organization (hereafter called communities) has their own specific focus and strengths, but they are often attempting to tackle similar or overlapping issues. This has led to (often unknown) duplication of effort, overextension of resources, and imperfect collaboration.To address these unclear connections between these numerous groups, some communities have begun efforts to “map the landscape” of their group. This helps the coordination within a particular community, but has not completely solved the wider issue of coordination between these communities.

We propose an “Atlas of Organizations” – a collection of these mapping the landscape efforts to better highlight the interconnectedness of various labors. This atlas is intended to make those communities more agile and able to address the needs or issues that each community is best suited to solve. The atlas would also be a resource for anyone looking for communities to join or with which to collaborate. Communities themselves will benefit by being able to apply their limited resources towards efforts where they excel while building relationships with others to leverage their excellence.