The Success of Earthdata Forum and Its Role in Open Science

The Earthdata Forum is an actively maintained and operational user forum for all participating National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Earth Observing System Data and Information System (EOSDIS) Distributed Active Archive Centers (DAACs), the Global Change Master Directory (GCMD), and the Commercial Smallsat Data Acquisition Program (CSDA).

The Earthdata Forum was launched in February 2020 with five participating DAACs. It now encompasses all of NASA’s DAACs, GCMD and CSDA.

The Forum is a collaborative platform for users to explore ways to engage with NASA Earth science data, tools, and services. Moderators and SMEs not only react to user questions but also take a proactive approach by posting announcements regarding new product releases, news, data recipes and Frequently Asked Questions, showing their commitment to supporting and valuing the scientific community.

Each DAAC and participating organization serves the broader earth science community differently, offering a diverse range of tools and services. Through collaborative efforts, these resources are made discoverable to the general public, empowering users with a wealth of information.

Today, the Earthdata Forum has over 8000 users, with the vast majority of users coming from within the United States, accounting for ~46% of users.

The Earthdata Forum supports the science community, providing transparent, public visibility into the Forum to advance learning by all and enable Open Science. While the open sharing of data, tools, and resources has been NASA policy for many years, the Forum has placed special emphasis on instilling open science values and ethics in a wider community of data users and broadening the use of these data.

Keywords: Earthdata Forum, Open Science, Accessibility, Reproducibility, Efficiency, Innovation, Diversity, Inclusion, NASA.