About Us

The Reuse Working group 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.

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 has been established by the Reuse Working Group 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 our 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.

Participating organizations include REASoN CAN and ACCESS winners as well as volunteers from the Earth science community, including:

• NASA Goddard Space Flight Center,
• NASA Langley Research Center,
• Columbia University SEDAC,
• Goddard Earth Sciences Data and Information Services Center,
• National Snow and Ice Data Center,
• Rutgers University,
• University of Wisconsin, and
• Washington University in St. Louis.

Core team members (2008):

• Robert Wolfe, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (chair)
• Al Fleig, PITA / NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (co-chair)
• Vic Delnore, NASA Langley Research Center
• Robert Downs, Center for International Earth Science Information Network (CIESIN), Columbia University
• Neil Gerard, Innovim / NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
• Ryan Gerard, Innovim / NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
• James Marshall, Innovim / NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
• Shahin Samadi, Innovim / NASA Goddard Space Flight Center