The following are key elements of TOPS' strategy for engagement within the NASA community or TOPS' "inreach" strategy.
A community of practice is defined as a group of people who share a craft or a profession, in this case, those participating in or advocating for open-source science within and outside of NASA. To develop a community of practice in NASA, TOPS will build awareness and acceptance of the benefits of collaborative open-source science. Our team will:
- Create a vibrant digital community through GitHub
- Create an informative email list
- Provide updates using social media
- Share success stories and co-develop articles that share open science wins
- Develop 3 Space Apps Challenges centered around:
- Identifying a new method for explaining the results of a NASA research project through art, literature, music and/or some other artform to be mindful of making the scientific research explainable and accessible to those with different cultural, socioeconomic and ethnic backgrounds
- Creating a new metric (altmetrics), that monitor online reader behavior, social media interactions, applied, social, and or economic uses of open science research as a new method of evaluating research impact
- Developing an app where users can input short, text phrases and the query is artistically matched with and returns NASA imagery that matches the phrase or thought using machine learning/artificial intelligence
- Engage with NASA’s Minority University Research and Engagement Program (MUREP)
- Engage stakeholders through the ESIP Open Source Science Transformation Cluster
It is important to develop and maintain relationships once we’ve built them. TOPS Champions are empowered open science ambassadors that include scientists, staff, thought-leaders, community partners, academic institutions,NASA partners, and YOU! We can’t build a robust community without your help. If you want to be a TOPS Champion, contact us and join our email list!