Geoscientists often spend significant research time identifying,; downloading, and refining geospatial data before they can use it for; analysis. Exploring interdisciplinary data is even more challenging; because it may be difficult to evaluate data quality outside of one’s; expertise. QGreenland, a newly funded EarthCube project, is designed to; remove these barriers for interdisciplinary Greenland-focused research; and analysis via an open data, open platform Greenland GIS tool.; QGreenland will combine interdisciplinary data (e.g., glaciology, human; health, geopolitics, hydrology, biology, etc.) curated by an; international Editorial Board into a unified, all-in-one GIS environment; for offline and online use. The package is designed for the open source; GIS platform QGIS. QGreenland will include multiple levels of data use:; 1) a fully downloadable base package ready for offline use, 2); additional disciplinary and/or high-resolution data extension packages; for select download, and 3) online-access-only data to facilitate; especially large datasets or updating time series. Software development; has begun and we look forward to discussing techniques to create the; best open access, reproducible methods for package creation and future; sustainability. We also now have a beta version available for; experimentation and feedback from interested users and the Editorial; Board. The version 1 public release is slated for fall 2020, with two; subsequent annual updates. As an interdisciplinary data package,; QGreenland is designed to aid collaboration and discovery across fields.; Along with discussing QGreenland development, we will also provide an; example use case to demonstrate the potential utility of QGreenland for; researchers, educators, planners, and communities.
