[Esip-sustainabledm] ESIP session proposal draft for ROI working session

[Anne Wilson]

HI all,

Below is an abstract draft for a working session on the ROI topic at the
ESIP summer meeting.  Please let me know if you have any feedback.   I
intend to submit it tomorrow.

Thank you!

Anne
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A Framework to Evaluate the Return on Investment (ROI) of a Data
Repository: Working Session

This working session will continue the efforts initiated at the Tempe
Workshop in November, 2015 and continued at the ESIP 2016 Winter Meeting.
 For background information, please see below.  All are invited.

This effort seeks to develop a framework to evaluate the return on
investment (ROI) of a data repository, providing help in determining the
value of data and services around them to stakeholders of varying
perspectives.  

Our agenda for this working session is to:

1) BRIEFLY recap the summaries of our discussions of the references
provided on this page:
http://wiki.esipfed.org/index.php/Return_on_Investment_ROI_References.
This is only a recap as we expect to more thoroughly discuss these
references via telecons leading up to this session.   We request that
participants in the session either participate in those telecons or peruse
the references beforehand in order to arrive up to speed at the session.

The summaries are very short reviews of the references with respect to
these issues and questions:
·   How is value (to stakeholders) defined / discussed?
·   What are the definitions / explanations / categories of repository
stakeholders?
·   How were similarities among data repositories defined / discussed?
·   How were differences among data repositories defined / discussed?
·   What, if any, were the metrics used to measure the value(s) returned
to  repository stakeholders?
·   What do the references say about the reason(s) for caring about this
topic?

b) Discuss potential funding possibilities for a planning grant to develop
this idea and scope some work.   We will lay groundwork for this part of
the discussion beforehand by investigating possible funding opportunities
and their requirements and goals, also via our telecons.

c) Target one of these possibilities and develop an outline for a proposal
that takes into account their requirements, schedule, project scope, etc.


Background

In November 2015 a number of representatives from various data
repositories, data service providers, and others participated in a two and
one half day workshop in Tempe, AZ, sponsored and funded by NSF, to
discuss collaborative strategies for sustained environmental data
management.  As an introduction, see the following quote from a briefing
document participants received before the workshop:

“Many environmental data repositories were initiated to fulfill specific
needs or objectives, i.e.  archiving and disseminating data from a
project, network of research sites, institution, funding source, to
accompany paper publications, or more recently, as data papers. This
initiative was funded with the goal of exploring how we might develop this
network of repositories in a way that will produce new collaboration and
curation strategies that also cater to the currently underserved single
investigators and move environmental data from ‘available’ to ‘usable’, in
order to accelerate scientific inquiry.

With this goal in mind we are bringing together data curators from a range
of environmental research fields, data aggregators, tool developers,
computer scientists and environmental scientists (both data providers and
users) for an informed dialog which draws on our collective experience
managing data and repositories.”

Several of the topics that surfaced during the workshop garnered enough
interest from participants to request that discussions continue under the
auspices of a new ESIP cluster  Those topics have coalesced to be:

	⁃	Defining a Return on Investment (ROI) of Data Repositories for Society
	⁃	Conducting a Landscape Analysis and Gaps for Environmental Data
Repositories and Describing a Common Technical Vision

The ESIP cluster, Sustainable Data Management, was recently formed.  The
wiki page is 
http://wiki.esipfed.org/index.php/Sustainable_Data_Management.

The ROI working group exists under this cluster.  Notes from the ROI
session at the ESIP Winter Meeting and other information are available at
http://wiki.esipfed.org/index.php/Return_on_Investment_Subgroup_%28ESIP_Win
ter_Meeting_Jan_2016%29.