NASA Recognizes Data Center Excellence
By Nettie La Belle-Hamer
NASA’s Earth Sciences Data and Information System Project manages the Earth Observing System Data and Information System (EOSDIS) through contracts with data centers located at Goddard, JPL, Langley, Marshall, The Department of Energy, USGS, Columbia University, University of Alaska Fairbanks Geophysical Institute, and the University of Colorado. EOSDIS systems manage over 4 petabytes of data and were collectively accessed by over 200,000 distinct users last year. The data centers distributed more than 37 million earth science data products during 2004.
In 2004 and 2005, NASA contracted with an independent agency to assess the quality of its EOSDIS data centers. The American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) survey results validate what we have known for a long time, that the EOSDIS data centers provide excellent customer support. Despite dwindling budgets, reduced staff, a steady increase of customers, and a steady increase in products distributed, they continue to find more ways to provide excellent service as evidenced by ACSI results and the many complimentary messages from our user community.
The data centers serve a diverse customer community, ranging from educators (K-12) to researchers, spanning the breadth of all earth science disciplines. The data centers provide unparalleled customer support including, but not limited to, generating special products for users, providing expert assistance in helping users to quickly and easily locate and order data, helping users understand and use the data, and creating new tools to address users’ constantly changing needs. ASF personnel maintain close ties to the user community by proactively offering hands-on training such as the SAR course described in this issue, and participating in targeted earth science conferences.
To recognize the efforts and the resulting excellence of the data centers, NASA presented the Group Achievement Award to the EOSDIS Data Centers Customer Support Team. The ASF data center staff received their award from Jeanne Behnke and Medora Macie on August 29, 2006, during their visit to the facility.
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