Collaborative Research: Conference: Geospatial Cyberinfrastructure Workshop: Building High-Performance, Ethical, and Secured Geospatial Software

Geospatial software plays an essential role in acquiring, transforming, and using geospatial information and knowledge, thus facilitating the understanding of coupled human-natural systems. High-performance Geographic Information Systems (GIS) software are often produced using advanced Geospatial Cyberinfrastructure platforms. However, the measurement of quality is still in the gray area. For example, user satisfaction, usability testing, and human-centered computing are the major factors contributing to the acceptance and popularity of high-performance geospatial software tools. As the complexity of many systems continues to grow, ensuring security, safety, and reliability becomes imperative. This workshop provides a valuable platform to scientists and engineers from industry and academia and different communities, including Geoscience, computer science, and software engineering, to present the challenges faced in research and workforce development. The workshop consists of keynote presentations, a training session, paper sessions, and panel discussions to discuss the best and most efficient techniques for developing secure, safe, and reliable geospatial software systems. The workshop will prioritize minority students when selecting the participants for the workshop. Minority and socially disadvantaged students and educators will be recruited to the workshop through the travel award program. The workshop material will be disseminated to diverse research communities through collaboration networks. The proposed workshop will enhance practices and processes for developing ethical and secured geospatial software within computer science, engineering, and Geoscience research domains. Through the workshop, the proposed work aims to strengthen the software research workforce development by providing lectures, training, and presentation at the conference and sharing results with diverse research communities through collaboration networks. The workshop covers topics such as Geoethics, high-performance software development, geospatial software usability testing, and software dependability. The project team has partnered with national and regional professional societies and public and private institutions to translate Cyberinfrastructure enabled geospatial software development practices into diverse organizational contexts to promote cyberinfrastructure education among Geoscience, Engineering, and Computer Science research communities. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.