[Esip-openscience] A possible cluster focus idea

[Brian Bonnlander]

Hi there,

I felt compelled to share an idea after the session "Building a Thriving 
Open Science Community".

This idea comes from what I have observed in how the top 2-3 computer 
programming languages chosen by Computer Science departments has changed 
over the past 30 years.    Much like a person's "native" speaking 
language can impact who that person interacts with for the rest of their 
life, the first Computer Language a person learns can have a similar 
impact.   Many students only learn one language, although the most 
motivated students learn more than one.   Yet what is taught in the 
classroom often translates into what is used in industry, and can impact 
the future direction of tools used in the workplace.

Across thousands of computer science departments, a new dominant 
computer language has emerged about every ten years.   Typically, each 
department standardizes their required courses to one primary language, 
and then teaches other languages as electives.   Over this span of 30 
years, no computer language emerged as a dominant giant, but the 
popularity of a language slowly rises and falls within the landscape of 
all languages.   A department's choice of their primary teaching 
language can have a big impact on a student's employment opportunities 
and future.    Department heads know this fact, and there is real 
pressure in following programming language trends in order to attract 
new computer science majors who are thinking about their earnings 
potential after graduation.   Likewise, students are sensitive to what 
skills that future employers are interested in, so their choice of 
school or major can be based on what skillset departments are teaching.

The idea is to simply to survey undergraduate-level institutions 
teaching data analysis in the geosciences, asking for a short list of 
which languages/platforms/tools they are using in the classroom, and 
sharing the survey results back to departments and future students.   
There would be no need for a prescriptive agenda.  It might become 
useful only after the survey is repeated, as a way of showing trends.    
But by conducting such a survey and sharing the results back, 
departments will have some idea of where they are in the GeoScience 
landscape, and students will have some understanding of how broad their 
toolset education would be needed.

The goal is not to push the community toward a single toolset, but to 
give departments and students information about where the trends are 
goinig.  It would provide some positive pressure to push toward a 
smaller set of tools than what we see today.

Thanks, and feel free to respond!

--Brian