Archive Requirements Working Group

1. Archive Requirements Working Group “A NOAA clearinghouse for requirement planning in support of the science objectives related to archive, access, and reprocessing.” August L. Shumbera National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service (NOAA/NESDIS) March 10, 2005

2. Archive Requirements Working Group • Background • Purpose • Terms of Reference • Relationship between the ARWG and the other responsible parties within CLASS

3. Background • NOAA is focused on developing an integrated global environmental observation and data management system • As one of the first steps toward this goal, NOAA established the NOAA Observing System Council (NOSC) in May 2003 NOSC is: • the principal advisory body to the NOAA Executive Council for earth observation and data management activities • the principal coordinating body for NOAA to the White House Committee on Environment and Natural Resources Subcommittee on Earth Observations in developing a comprehensive, coordinated and sustained Earth observation system.

4. Background (Cont.) • The NOAA Data Stewardship Committee (originally the NESDIS Data Archive Board) was established under NOSC to: • provide clear guidance for managing NOAA data stewardship • provide the NOSC with the information it needs to integrate data stewardship with the NOAA Observing Systems Architecture and into the NOAA data management enterprise • CLASS - The Comprehensive Large Array-data Stewardship System (CLASS) is an electronic library of NOAA environmental data • NOAA's premiere on-line facility for the distribution of NOAA and US Department of Defense (DoD) Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite (POES) data, NOAA's Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES) and derived data. In-situ data to be addressed in time.

5. Purpose • The ARWG was established under the Data Archive Board (a NESDIS Line Office structure now defunct) to ensure that science requirements and other user applications are clearly defined with respect to NOAA’s archive, access, and reprocessing stewardship activities

6. Terms of Reference • To ensure that CLASS and other stewardship activities are responsive to the goals of the NOAA strategic plan • To provide for effective use of stewardship activities by ensuring that mechanisms are in place to engage the user community in decisions concerning what data and products are to be included in or excluded from the NOAA National Data Center archives • To periodically review the contents of the NOAA National Data Center archives for disposition in conjunction with NARA guidelines and data center record retention and disposition schedules

7. Terms of Reference (Cont.) • To provide requirements and prioritization for preserving and maintaining the basic storage of and access to critical large array-data, other NOAA National Data Center critical data sets and derived products and their documentation, including verifying their quality and compliance with federal standards • To establish requirements for the information technology aspects for implementation of scientific data stewardship • To provide a long-term vision to incorporate other NOAA data holdings into a system of archive, access, and scientific data stewardship

8. Relationship between the ARWG and the other responsible parties within CLASS