ICESat-2 Cookbook Governance

Governance for the NASA ICESat‑2 Mission Cookbook¶

1. Scope¶

The NASA ICESat-2 Cookbook aims to:

• Provide foundational tutorials and example workflows for ICESat-2 data products

• Improve accessibility of training materials

• Ensure high-quality, reproducible examples that can be run via Binder or cloud platforms

• Foster collaboration between mission scientists, tool developers, educators, and learners

2. Governance Structure¶

Steering Committee¶

The Steering Committee oversees the vision, content quality, and community processes. Suggested roles include:

• Chair / Lead Maintainer – provides overall coordination and direction

• Technical Lead – manages infrastructure (CI/CD, Binder, etc.)

• Content Lead – ensures tutorial clarity, structure, and mission alignment

• Community Liaison – coordinates community engagement and outreach

Membership includes NASA ICESat‑2 scientists, data tool developers, educators, and open science advocates.

Community Contributors¶

• Open to all contributors via GitHub pull requests

• All contributions are governed by this document, a Code of Conduct, and our Contributor Guide

• Review occurs via GitHub and requires sign-off from at least one Steering Committee member

3. Policies and Licensing¶

Licensing¶

• Code: Apache License 2.0

• Content: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 (CC BY 4.0)

Contributor Guide¶

• Contributions must follow the structure:

  • Foundations – Conceptual explanations and mission overviews

  • Example Workflows – Reproducible scientific applications using real data

• Use clear narrative, well-commented Python code, and accessible language

Code of Conduct¶

All participants agree to a Code of Conduct that promotes a respectful, inclusive, and harassment-free environment.

4. Review and Continuous Integration¶

Contribution Workflow¶

Pull Request → Peer Review by Leads → CI Tests & Binder Checks → Merge

Infrastructure¶

• Hosted on GitHub

• Built using Jupyter Book

• Continuous Integration with GitHub Actions:

  • Builds the book

  • Checks notebook execution

  • Verifies Binder launch

• Interactive Binder and/or JupyterHub (e.g., 2i2c) links provided

5. Content Structure¶

Foundations¶

Tutorials in this section explain core ICESat‑2 mission concepts and tools:

• Data products: ATL03, ATL06, ATL07, ATL24, etc.

• Photon filtering and quality assessment

• Access methods (e.g., NSIDC, Earthdata, SlideRule)

Example Workflows¶

Hands-on workflows for using ICESat‑2 data in real-world analyses:

• Land Ice Elevation: SlideRule + ATL06, cloud-based elevation profiles

• Sea Ice Heights: ATL07 ridge and lead mapping

• Bathymetry: Coastal bathymetry using ATL03/ATL24

• Cross-Mission Fusion: Examples with ICESat‑2, Landsat, Sentinel, SWOT

Each notebook should include:

• Clear objectives

• Required libraries/environment

• Code and narrative

• Output plots or maps

6. Community Engagement & Sustainability¶

• Periodic “Cookbook Hackweeks” or sprint events

• Integration with NASA Openscapes, Pangeo, and Earthdata tutorials

• Outreach via Discourse, GitHub Discussions, and webinars

• Quarterly content audits to ensure relevance and quality

7. Governance Summary Table¶