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Data Democratization: Challenges and OpportunitiesDemocratizing Earth data is one of the challenges many organizations around the world face in order to maximize the use of their Earth data for research, applications, education, and societal benefits. For example, at the NASA Goddard Earth Sciences (GES) Data and Information Services Center (DISC), over 1600 global and regional datasets in several NASA Earth science focus areas, including atmospheric composition, water and energy cycles, and climate variability, are archived and distributed to the public. Giovanni, the Geospatial Interactive Online Visualization and Analysis Infrastructure, was developed by GES DISC to facilitate data access and exploration, especially for novice users of Earth science. With Giovanni, users can analyze and visualize over 2000 Earth science variables (e.g., precipitation, aerosol, surface wind) without downloading data, software, the expert understanding of data formats and structures, and coding skills, lowering the barrier to data analysis/comparison by preprocessing and accessing to the data. Results of data analysis and visualization can be accessed in several popular formats (e.g., NetCDF, CSV). As a result of Giovanni's efforts, more than 3000 referral papers have been published in various fields. In spite of this, Giovanni is still difficult to use for some users. For instance, if one searches for "precipitation," it will return over 150 related variables. The question is, which one to use? Furthermore, variables from different data providers (e.g., satellites and models) are named differently with different units, further confusing users, especially those outside the communities.

Data democratization is complex and multifaceted. Challenges include service and data discovery, user experiences, visualization, data quality, trustworthiness, and more. In this presentation, we will examine Giovanni as an example of challenges and opportunities in developing data democratization services.
Document ID
20240016399
Acquisition Source
Goddard Space Flight Center
Document Type
Presentation
Authors
Zhong Liu
(George Mason University Fairfax, Virginia, United States)
Binita KC
(Adnet Systems (United States) Bethesda, Maryland, United States)
James Acker
(Adnet Systems (United States) Bethesda, Maryland, United States)
Keith Bryant
(Adnet Systems (United States) Bethesda, Maryland, United States)
Mahabaleshwa Hegde
(Goddard Space Flight Center Greenbelt, United States)
Date Acquired
December 20, 2024
Subject Category
Earth Resources and Remote Sensing
Documentation and Information Science
Meeting Information
Meeting: 105th American Meteorological Society Annual Meeting
Location: New Orleans, LA
Country: US
Start Date: January 12, 2025
End Date: January 16, 2025
Sponsors: American Meteorological Society
Funding Number(s)
CONTRACT_GRANT: 80NSSC24M0194
Distribution Limits
Public
Copyright
Use by or on behalf of the US Gov. Permitted.
Technical Review
Professional Review
Keywords
data democratization
data discovery
data visualization
data access
data quality
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