About Us

The Reuse Working Group (WG) is one of four working groups (the others being Metrics, Standards, and Technology Infusion) established in 2004 by the REASoN CAN to address some of the key issues facing NASA and the science community in developing its data systems. Participants include REASoN, ACCESS, and MEaSUREs projects winners, as well as volunteers from the Earth science community.

Software reuse can help the science community by reducing software development timescales, reducing costs, and contributing to the dissemination of knowledge and expertise. This Software Reuse Portal web site has been established by the Reuse WG to bring together a collection of resources that will facilitate reuse within the Earth science community. Over time, we will be researching a variety of resources in the Earth and space science reuse communities. Our long-term goal is to establish a knowledge sharing community for software reuse in Earth science and, possibly, to establish a "marketplace" for reusable software development artifacts.

Our objectives are to:

• Reduce software development costs and duplication of effort
• Increase software flexibility, reliability, and responsiveness
• Increase community participation

Current work includes:

• Designing a catalog/repository to serve as a Reuse Enablement System that provides reusable software assets to the Earth science community.
• Prototyping a solution for a Reuse Enablement System.
• Creating guidelines on topics related to reuse to educate the community on effective reuse practices.
• Drafting a set of Reuse Readiness Levels (RRLs) to help measure the maturity of software assets, in a reusability sense.
• General promotion of reuse via publications, presentations, and web site content.

Some of the organizations with representatives in the Reuse WG include:

• NASA Goddard Space Flight Center,
• Columbia University / NASA Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center (SEDAC),
• Goddard Earth Sciences (GES) Data and Information Services Center (DISC),
• National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC),
• Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL),
• Rutgers University,
• University of Maryland,
• University of Wisconsin Space Science and Engineering Center (SSEC), and
• Washington University in St. Louis.

Core team members (2010):

• Robert Downs, Center for International Earth Science Information Network (CIESIN), Columbia University (Co-chair)
• Ryan Gerard, Innovim / NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
• Larry Gilliam, Innovim / NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
• James Marshall, Innovim / NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
• Chris Mattmann, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (Chair)
• Neal Most, Innovim / NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
• Shahin Samadi, Innovim / NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
• Christine Whalen, Innovim / NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
• Robert Wolfe, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center