Assessment of the NASA Applied Sciences Program (2007) / Chapter Skim
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4 Beyond Federal Partnerships: Engagement with the Broader Community of Users
4 Beyond Federal Partnerships: Engagement with the Broader Community of Users
Pages 77-94
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From page 77... ...
Examples of members of the broader community are academia and academic research institutions; state and local governments; tribal nations; and the private sector, including manufacturing, processing, and service entities; nongovernmental nonprofit organizations; and international organizations. These communities have many diverse interests.
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From page 78... ...
NASA works with the partners through ASP to validate and incorporate Earth science data into tools to enhance established relationships that the partner agencies have with other organizations, which mostly by serendipity, include some members of the broader community. The engagement process has many facets, among which are internal NASA operations that can affect implementation of ASP activities.
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From page 79... ...
Academic institutions have been able to partner with local constituents in certain of the Applications of National Priority, such as agricultural efficiency, ecological forecasting related to fire dynamics, water quality monitoring, and carbon management; several institutions located near NASA centers appear to have garnered a disproportionate amount of attention and resources. The international committees in which NASA is involved have a similar government and institutional framework with no direct evidence of any strong links with the broader community.
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From page 80... ...
. ASP's focus on federal agency partners is also reflected in usage statistics for the various websites and gateways serving as programmatic reference sites.
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From page 81... ...
.edu 2,400 4.3 4,630 4.9 2309 10.2 Educational NonProfit .org 1,718 3.0 564 0.6 365 1.6 Organizations USA Military .mil 450 0.8 486 0.5 135 0.6 Germany .de 174 0.3 China .cn 96 0.2 United States .us 203 0.4 Italy .it 521 0.5 Canada .ca 141 0.1 Australia .au 31 0.1 Unknown 87 0.1 197 0.9 Other 1,506 1.6 a Statistics from January through August of 2006 b Statistics from September through December of 2004 SOURCE: http://aiwg.gsfc.nasa.gov/stats/. Usage data from NASA's Earth Science Gateway shows a similar bias towards government-based domains of users during FY06 (Table 4.3)
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From page 82... ...
These requirements are shared by a large number of entities in the broader community, including those with national security, emergency management, resource management, enforcement, and research responsibilities, and include tribal, state, and local urban planners (Jensen and Cowen, 1999) , terrestrial resource managers and researchers focused on land processes (NSGIC, 2006)
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From page 83... ...
The issue of missing operational support, and whose responsibility it is to provide such support, arose frequently in the briefings the committee received from users and potential users of NASA products.
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From page 84... ...
Among the reasons given by ASP for not having more direct involvement with the broader community is the view shared by some government entities such as the Office of Management and Budget that NASA is a research agency and applications development is not a primary part of the NASA mission. These same entities point out that many federal agencies have science application responsibilities and that engaging NASA in the applications and implementation business would be duplicating such responsibilities.
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From page 85... ...
These partnerships define the transfer of NASA remotely sensed information to the targeted commodity groups. The Yellowstone Ecological Research Center, another nonprofit organization, has been funded to develop remotely sensed data products to assist in regional conservation efforts, river management, and land use management in the Great Yellowstone region.
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From page 86... ...
NASA indicates that data emerging from this program element serve not only the federal government but also a large community of other users, such as commodity trading companies, farmers, relief agencies, and anyone with an interest in global crop production. However, searches for supporting evidence of the engagement process with such members of the broader community as farmers, trading companies, relief agencies, and the many private sector organizations providing products and services to the agricultural community do not
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From page 87... ...
1) : By working with Federal agency partners, NASA improves essential public services like tracking hurricanes, assessing crop health and productivity, evaluating forest fire risks, en suring aviation safety, improving energy forecasts, and de termining the potential for the climate-driven spread of in fectious disease.
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From page 88... ...
What is missing is direct evidence from organizations like the state and regional agencies, and the private organizations supporting them, about the benefits they derive from NASA products. There are no formal or quantitative procedures, standards, or methods for measuring federal agency use of NASA data, much less their use by members of the broader community.
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From page 89... ...
The most meaningful measure of performance in the name of benefiting society comes from the beneficiaries of the services and products provided. INVOLVEMENT OF THE BROADER COMMUNITY IN APPLICATIONS OF NATIONAL PRIORITY The Applied Sciences Program defined 12 Applications of National Priority to focus the partnerships implemented primarily with federal
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From page 90... ...
The Agricultural Efficiency Program element is one of the strongest application programs, with Air Quality, Disaster Management, Public Health, and Water Management having considerable potential. These elements are also active at the international level.
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From page 91... ...
Another example of strong interest by the broader community is in Water Management. This is one of the most important issues facing local governments in the western states and in Florida, among others, but the committee again found little evidence of ASP seeking involvement in regional water management or hydrological planning programs.
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From page 92... ...
Nonfederal entities also need assistance to develop fully benchmarked and developed DSS, while others, especially the competitive private sector, may only want the raw data for applying their own algorithms and models to develop innovative new product lines, a possible major contributor to the process by which NASA products can benefit greater segments of society through applications. Involving a broader community and deployment of NASA products among nonfederal users could also contribute to better integration of the nation's capabilities, capacity, and infrastructure.
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From page 93... ...
Besides the greater direct involvement of the private sector, all ASP partners will need to document and highlight plans of engaging nonfederal organizations in the implementation of NASA products to the benefit of all.
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From page 94... ...
6. Inefficient transition from research to operations of NASA products impairs the consideration of the applications community to commit to use of science products because of a lack of assurance of product continuity.
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