This page describes the Fiscal Year 2020 Community for Data Integration (CDI) Request for Proposals (RFP). Please watch this page for updates throughout the proposals process.

If you have any questions, get in touch with us at cdi@usgs.gov.

2020 Awarded Projects

The funded projects were announced at the March 11 CDI Monthly Meeting.

Congratulations to the following project teams!

Lead PI	Title
Barnhart, Theodore	Building a framework to compute continuous grids of basin characteristics for the conterminous United States
Cravens, Amanda	So you want to build a decision support tool? Assessing successes, pitfalls, and lessons learned for tool design and development
Erickson, Richard	Using Jupyter Notebooks to tell data stories and create reproducible workflows
Fox, Aaron	USGS Cloud Environment Cookbook
Hitt, Nathaniel	Enabling AI for citizen science in fish ecology
Hunter, Margaret	Implementing FAIR practices: Storing and displaying eDNA data in the USGS Nonindigenous Aquatic Species database
Kolb, Katharine	Developing a "fire-aware" stream gage network by integrating USGS enterprise databases
Medenblik, Andrea	Waterbody Rapid Assessment Tool (WaterRAT): 3-dimensional Visualization of High-Resolution Spatial Data
Peacock, Jared	Development of a Flexible Multi-Channel Spatiotemporal Geophysical HDF5 Data Format Supporting FAIR
Petkewich, Matthew	Real-time Coastal Salinity Index for monitoring coastal drought and ecological response to changing salinity values
Reed, Sasha	GrassCast: A multi-agency tool using remote sensing, modeling, and on-the-ground science to forecast grassland productivity in the Southwest
Sohl, Terry	Moving towards EarthMAP: Establishing linkages among USGS land use, water use, runoff, and recharge models
Williamson, Tanja	Using machine learning to map topographic-soil & densely-patterned sub-surface agricultural drainage (tile drains) from satellite imagery

Phase 2: Full Proposal Invitations

Project PIs were notified by email of their status on November 26, 2019.

This year, due the high relevance and community support for all statements of interest, all 24 teams were invited to submit full proposals.

Full proposals are due on January 30, 2020, and instructions are included in the CDI RFP Guidance Document.

Additional information can be found on a Q&A page for full proposal submitters.

Community Voting Results

Commenting and Voting on Statements of Interest (Phase 1)

Commenting on the FY20 Statements of Interest began midday on October 15, 2018. CDI members will receive an email notification. You can join the CDI and participate in commenting and voting if you join by the end of the day on October 24. Voting will be open from October 25 to November 8.

A recording of the October 23 Lightning Presentation Session can also be found at the link below.

Estimated Schedule

Date
September 11, 2019	RFP Announcement
September 18, 2019, 1pm ET	RFP Information Session
October 11, 2019, 5pm ET	Statements of Interest (SOI) Due
October 15, 2019	Comment Period Begins
October 23, 2019, 3pm ET	SOI Lightning Presentation Session
October 25, 2019	SOI Voting Opens
November 8, 2019	SOI Voting Period Closes
Early December 2019	Invite Full Proposal Submissions
January 30, 2020	Full Proposals Due
March 2020	Awarded Projects Announced
September 30, 2020	Awarded Funds must be spent

Guidance Document

RFP Information Session

This year's Request for Proposals Information Session was held on Wednesday, September 18, 2019 at 1:00pm ET.

Recording (mp4) | Webinar Chat File (txt)

Collaboration Forum

If you have an idea but need some collaborators, you can start looking for CDI collaborators or comments, using the CDI RFP Collaboration Forum: https://my.usgs.gov/confluence/x/xh3bJQ

Why do we have the Community for Data Integration Request for Proposals?

The purpose of the CDI RFP is to build USGS capabilities in data integration and management.

The CDI RFP increases communication across boundaries and creates opportunities to work with people outside of your normal program.

The proposals process involves .... commenting and voting from your peers | new collaborations | communicating without disciplinary jargon | community-building.

How does the proposals process work?

The CDI RFP is a community-driven, two-phase process.

Phase 1: Community commenting and voting on short statements of interest
Phase 2: Full proposals evaluated by a formal review panel and the CDI sponsors

Timeline: The entire process is completed within one fiscal year.
Funding: Maximum $50,000 request for salary, travel, and other expenses. Projects must specify in-kind funds of at least 30% of the request to demonstrate commitment to effort.

What kind of projects are successful?

Not all ideas are in scope for this short-term opportunity. However, discussion with experienced CDI members can help you to frame your idea in a way that fits the evaluation criteria.

Some key concepts to keep in mind:

Building: It's not just about building apps, but building knowledge and networks. Success includes sharing important lessons with the wider community.
Integrating: A recent USGS priority is advancing our Integrated Predictive Science Capacity - this involves the creation and connection of modular, reusable tools and processes across different disciplines.
Collaborating: The CDI looks for interdisciplinary collaborations and generally does not support projects that could be funded by a single USGS program.
Communicating: Communicate about your idea - before, during, and after the project. Communicate to non-specialists so that they see the value of your idea. For better or for worse, if you have an idea, you need to convince others that it is valuable.
Opening possibilities: Whether funded or not, ideas in the proposals process may be picked up by CDI Collaboration Areas for further discussion and work. Don't hold back on sharing your ideas, because you don't know what connections may be initiated.

Some examples of previous CDI projects

Data Management Website: Met the need for a resource that allows people to share practices in data management and meet policy.

Workshops on Deep Neural Networks: Building the knowledge base of USGS in new, widely applicable analysis techniques.

Legacy Data Projects to Preserve and Release Historical USGS Data: Helping the effort to inventory, prioritize, and rescue existing legacy data.

Exploring the USGS Science Data Life Cycle in the Cloud: Testing the implementation of new technologies within the USGS ecosystem.

DRIP - Dam Removal Information Portal: Demonstrating how research data from varied resources can be standardized, accessible, and easily updated.

See all previous projects at the CDI ScienceBase site.

Statement of Interest Submission

Statements of Interest (SOIs) were due October 11, 2019 by 5pm ET. We will be using Google Forms to submit the SOIs this year. Upon submission of the Google Form, you will receive an email receipt with a link that will allow you to edit your submission up until the deadline. Please check your SOI file before you upload it because you will not be able to delete it. You may submit the Google form before uploading a file if you are not ready and return to the form using your confirmation email to upload your final file. If you need to update a file you uploaded, simply upload the 2nd file and contact cdi@usgs.gov to double check that we use the correct file. Please make sure to use the templates on the CDI FY20 RFP Forms page.

Full Proposal Submission

Full proposals are due on January 30, 2020.

Lead PIs and those who used the submission system in Phase 1 will be emailed information about the submission system in early January, after we can set up a new system Microsoft.