The UEC is eager to engage with you. This is the third quarterly message from the UEC Chair.
Plans for the New Year
Happy 2018! Members of the UEC began planning for what we wanted to accomplish in the new year last September, when we had two half-day virtual meetings. During this time—and in the October and November regular UEC meetings—we hammered out our plan of how we can best interact with the ARM Facility and its users over the coming year. Below are a few of our priorities.
Spreading the Word
Over the next 12 months, members of the UEC will be talking about ARM—and interacting with you—at numerous meetings in both the U.S. and internationally.
In particular, we are targeting the 2018 Joint ARM User Facility/Atmospheric System Research (ASR) PI Meeting, which will take place March 19 to 23 in Tysons, Virginia. On Tuesday of the meeting (March 20), the UEC will host a networking lunch for those new to ARM/ASR. You can identify UEC members by the ribbons on our badges, so please don’t hesitate to introduce yourself.
Following up on a request from ARM’s Triennial Review, we will also be focused on reaching out to scientists and organizations outside the ASR community.
At all the meetings we attend, UEC members will be asking a lot of questions. We would love to hear what you and other attendees consider the significant outstanding science questions and what measurements are thought to be needed to shed light on those questions.
Updates from Translators
Translators are liaisons between the scientific community and ARM infrastructure staff members. They develop value-added products, or VAPs, from the direct output of ARM instruments. Another priority for the UEC is to work with the translators as they develop and implement their three-year plan to make sure the broader ARM user community not only knows about these powerful resources, but that the user perspective is reflected in which VAPs are developed.
In particular, we suggested that the translators were trying to do too much. We advised them to focus on providing additional support to data quality, uncertainty assessment, a timeline for producing core VAPs from ARM Mobile Facility campaigns, and supporting key aspects of the ARM Decadal Vision.
Updates of Data Discovery
The UEC will be giving feedback on the continual development of ARM’s Data Discovery. We will work with the ARM Data Center staff members to develop an implementation plan for various changes and iterations. If you have feedback on searching for, downloading, and working with ARM data, please let us know.
Development of ARM Tutorials
Members of the UEC would like to see video tutorials on the use of Data Discovery and the arm.gov website. We will work with ARM Communications and other staff to prioritize and test the tutorials. Our priority is to come up with a set of videos that would be most useful for both new and existing users. We consider this an opportunity to reach a wider range of users and help reduce barriers to downloading and using ARM data.
Elections
Finally, ARM will open up nominations for UEC membership next fall. Members are selected according to popular vote by the users based on science areas, and there is a young investigator member who is either currently pursuing a PhD or is an early career scientist within five years of obtaining a PhD. For this two-year election cycle, half of the current members will cycle off.
Nominations are the first in a two-part process to select new committee members. Following the nomination phase, an election will be held during the latter half of October. Terms for elected members will begin January 1, 2019.
The UEC is the official voice of the user community in its interactions with ARM management. As always, we want to represent you. You can reach me here and learn more about other members of the UEC here. I look forward to hearing from—and meeting—you in the coming year.
Larry Berg