The committee's prepublication report, Open Source Software Policy Options for NASA Earth and Space Sciences, was released on September 25, 2018. 

Statement of Task

The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine will establish an ad hoc committee to investigate and recommend best practices for NASA as it considers whether to establish an open code and open models policy, complementary to its current open data policy. In carrying out the study the committee will:

• Review and describe examples of code / modeling policies developed by research teams and communities in the NASA-supported disciplines of Earth Science and Applications from Space, the Space Sciences, and other research communities, as appropriate;
• Develop a set of lessons learned from these established approaches-- paying particular attention to issues such as, but not limited to, proprietary, export control, code/model maintenance, and documentation considerations;
• Define and describe options for policies on open codes and open models for research supported by NASA Science Mission Directorate (SMD) and assess the pros and cons of these options from the perspective of the research community and the interests of NASA; and
• Recommend a set of best practices for NASA to consider should SMD decide to adopt an open code / open model policy for research supported by the agency. The committee may also choose to present alternate sets of best practices rather than just one recommended set.

More information on this project may be viewed on our current projects website.
 

Committee Meetings

November 14-16, 2017
Washington, DC
View Agenda I View Presentations

January 17-19, 2018
Washington, DC (NAS)
View Agenda I View Presentations

February 26-28, 2018
Irvine,  CA
View Agenda I View Presentations
 

Community Input

White Paper Request
Submissions for Community White Papers closed on January 31, 2018. All responses are made available to the committee. The submitted white papers are posted and available for public viewing below.

 
View this linked pdf with the full text description and instructions for white papers.

 
View the Submitted White papers(pdf format)

_{View the (electronic) Submitted White Papers (temporarily not available)}

Questions about the project or white paper submissions may be directed to the project staff at: [email protected]
  

Committee Membership

View Bios
 

Chelle L. Gentemann - (Co-Chair)
Earth and Space Research

Mark A. Parsons - (Co-Chair) 
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute  

Lorena A. Barba
The George Washington University

Kelle Cruz
City University of New York Hunter College  

Brenda J. Dietrich
Cornell University

Christopher L. Fryer
Los Alamos National Laboratory

Joe Giacalone
University of Arizona

Sara J. Graves
The University of Alabama in Huntsville

Joseph Harrington
University of Central Florida

Elva J. Jones
Winston-Salem State University

Maria M. Kuznetsova
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

Clifford A. Lynch
Coalition for Networked Information

Melissa A. McGrath
SETI Institute
 

Aaron Ridley
University of Michigan  

Staff

Abigail Sheffer
Program Officer

Nathan Boll
Associate Program Officer

Anesia WIlks
Program Coordinator
 

Presentations

Below is an archive list of names and a link to the slides presented at the committee meeting during open session. We have only included the slides for which the presenter has given consent to post.

Presenter names and slides are listed in the order of the agenda.Presentations which have been made available for posting will be added after the panel meeting is complete.

November 14-16, 2017
Gale Allen
Arfon Smith
Lea Shanley
Spiro Antiochos
David Imel
Ed Kearns

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* No slides indicate that the presenter did not utilize slides during their presentation.

* Permission pending indicates that the presenter has not given us consent to publish the slides they presented at the meeting.

*Written materials submitted to a study committee by external sources are listed in the project's public access file and can be made available to the public upon request via the Academies Public Access Records Office.