Overview of Unidata
Unidata is a diverse community of over 250 institutions vested in the common goal of sharing data, and tools to access and visualize that data. For more than 25 years Unidata has been providing data, tools, and support to enhance earth-system education and research. In an era of increasing data complexity, accessibility, and multidisciplinary integration, Unidata provides a rich set of services and tools.Unidata, funded primarily by the National Science Foundation, is one of eight programs in the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR) Office of Programs (UOP). UOP units create, conduct, and coordinate projects that strengthen education and research in the atmospheric, oceanic and earth sciences.
The Unidata Program Center, as the leader of a broad community:
- Explores new technologies
- Evaluates and implements technological standards and tools
- Advocates for the community
- Provides leadership in solving community problems in new and creative ways
- Negotiates for new and valuable data sources
- Facilitates data discovery and use of digital libraries
- Enables student-centered learning in the Earth system sciences by promoting use of data and tools in education
- Values open standards, interoperability, and open-source approaches
- Develops innovative solutions and new capabilities to solve community needs
- Stays abreast of computing trends as they pertain to advancing research and education
Under our current plans, we are:
- Broadening the scope and range of communities served
- Facilitating multidisciplinary synthesis and societal impact studies through GIS integration
- Improving delivery of real-time data
- Developing visualization and analysis software
- Enhancing community collaboration
Data
The Unidata Program helps researchers and educators acquire and use earth-related data. Most of the data are provided in "real time" or "near-real time" — that is, the data are sent to participants almost as soon as the observations are made. Unidata is a data facilitator, not a data archive center. We provide a mechanism whereby educators and researchers, by participating in our Internet Data Distribution (IDD)
system, may subscribe to streams of current data that interest them.
Software
Unidata develops, maintains, and supports a variety of software packages. Most of these packages are developed at the Unidata Program Center (UPC), while a few others originated externally, but are modified, maintained, and supported at the UPC. Software provided by Unidata is available at no charge, but there are conditions on accessing or obtaining support
for some packages.
Learn more about Unidata's software packages
Projects
The Unidata Program Center continuously looks for new ways to make its data and tools available to a broader, more diverse audience. At times this is accomplished by embarking on new projects which will help extend Unidata systems into new arenas.
Support
Providing world-class support
to its community is at the heart of the Unidata Program. Maintaining the highest possible level of service in the face of significant increases in data options, volumes and tools, as well as in the number and diversity of the community, is a challenge that the Unidata Program Center embraces. Unidata provides direct support via email for its software packages to institutions offering college-level courses for credit, and to non-profit institutions with education or research missions.
Learn more about Unidata support
Community
Unidata is a diverse community
of education and research institutions vested in the common goal of sharing data, tools to access the data, and software to analyze and visualize the data. We also place strong emphasis on community-based governance. Unidata's governing committees
facilitate consensus building for future directions for the program and establish standards of involvement for the community.