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Brennan, Jennifer

Publications and source records attributed to Brennan, Jennifer.

3 records
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS2019

Improving Earth Science Data Literacy

The improvement of scientific literacy across the public can take on a myriad of forms and activities. The vast archives of NASA’s Earth science data, as one example, reflect the agency’s ongoing commitment to producing the highest quality data, services and tools intended for enabling the public to understand the complexity of Earth systems. The focus of this presentation is to explore and reveal the specific strategies the NASA Earth Science Data and Information System (ESDIS) Project uses to support our very large and diverse user communities access to and understanding of these science data and services. The diversity of our subject matter, spanning the whole Earth science domain, is mirrored by our user communities which are equally as broad in their needs and abilities. ESDIS and the supporting Communication Team leverages an array of internet-based tools and communication strategies to both understand actual user needs and develop optimum pathways for improving our users’ knowledge and understanding of the data. We will focus our limited time on a few of the high-impact activities including Webinars, or video-based, on-line, interactive discussions and presentations that since their introduction in 2013 have become a staple for user-instructor interaction via the internet. Here we discuss the types of content we produce and many lessons learned on how best to use this medium for improving user literacy on the subject at hand. In addition, we include discussion of our approach to using various social media platforms and tools to bolster the awareness of our users for data and services that are likely of interest. The ESDIS project remains active in various social media campaigns where our particular blend of science, data and tools engages new users curious of how to get their science or application started using NASA-available data. We anticipate that these examples may prove to be novel in their application to improving science literacy and skill development among the public.

Lindsay, Francis↗
NASA NTRS2017

Exposing the Strategies that Can Reduce the Obstacles: Improving the Science User Experience

It is now well established that pursuing generic solutions to what seem are common problems in Earth science data access and use can often lead to disappointing results for both system developers and the intended users. This presentation focuses on real-world experience of managing a large and complex data system, NASAs Earth Science Data and Information Science System (EOSDIS), whose mission is to serve both broad user communities and those in smaller niche applications of Earth science data and services. In the talk, we focus on our experiences with known data user obstacles characterizing EOSDIS approaches, including various technological techniques, for engaging and bolstering, where possible, user experiences with EOSDIS. For improving how existing and prospective users discover and access NASA data from EOSDIS we introduce our cross-archive tool: Earthdata Search. This new search and order tool further empowers users to quickly access data sets using clever and intuitive features. The Worldview data visualization tool is also discussed highlighting how many users are now performing extensive data exploration without necessarily downloading data. Also, we explore our EOSDIS data discovery and access webinars, data recipes and short tutorials, targeted technical and data publications, user profiles and social media as additional tools and methods used for improving our outreach and communications to a diverse user community. These efforts have paid substantial dividends for our user communities by allowing us to target discipline specific community needs. The desired take-away from this presentation will be an improved understanding of how EOSDIS has approached, and in several instances achieved, removing or lowering the barriers to data access and use. As we look ahead to more complex Earth science missions, EOSDIS will continue to focus on our user communities, both broad and specialized, so that our overall data system can continue to serve the needs of science and applications users.

communications↗
NASA NTRS2016

NASA EOSDIS: Enabling Science by Improving User Knowledge

Lessons learned and impacts of applying these newer methods are explained and include several examples from our current efforts such as the interactive, on-line webinars focusing on data discovery and access including tool usage, informal and informative data chats with data experts across our EOSDIS community, data user profile interviews with scientists actively using EOSDIS data in their research, and improved conference and meeting interactions via EOSDIS data interactively used during hyper-wall talks and Worldview application. The suite of internet-based, interactive capabilities and technologies has allowed our project to expand our user community by making the data and applications from numerous Earth science missions more engaging, approachable and meaningful.

EOSDIS↗