The Copernicus User Support team at ECMWF, which supports users of the EU-funded Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) and Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS), has launched the C3S Forum, which is primarily intended for users of the C3S Climate Data Store (CDS). The C3S Forum (http://copernicus-support.ecmwf.int/forum) adds to the existing Copernicus User Support ecosystem (Knowledge Base, Helpdesk) by providing a platform on which users can share their knowledge and experience with others.
CDS users form a rapidly growing new community from a diverse range of backgrounds. We anticipate that, by engaging with them early, we will help them to support each other by sharing their questions, knowledge and solutions. The forum is open for anyone to view, but users need to be registered with the ECMWF website in order to create new topics (or ‘threads’), or to comment on existing threads within the forum.
Initially, four dedicated channels have been created:
- C3S Announcements – for system maintenance sessions, new dataset releases, etc.
- CDS General – for questions on datasets, performance, etc.
- CDS API – for conversations concerning the API; syntax, queues, etc.
- CDS Toolbox – for discussions about tools, workflows and applications
Registered users can post questions, comment on existing threads (including using images and markup in their contributions), and ‘like’ particular content. Any thread can also be ‘watched’ so that the user is informed when new content is added, and a user can search across the entire forum.
As the forum uses the Confluence platform, many users will already be registered with us, and content they provide can be easily linked to Jira issues, the Copernicus Knowledge Base, etc. There are rules and policies in place informing users what content can be added, and the forum is monitored by Copernicus User Support and CDS staff to ensure that questions do not go unanswered and that conversations reach an effective conclusion.
We hope that users will find this a valuable addition to the support we provide, and one which can be used in the future to engage with other groups of ECMWF and Copernicus users. We also hope that the C3S Forum will lead to a wider use of similar forums at ECMWF/Copernicus. As well as the existing OpenIFS forum (https://confluence.ecmwf.int/display/OIFSUF/OpenIFS+User+Forums) and the C3S Forum, a new forum has recently been set up for ECMWF’s operational acquisition and pre-processing system for observations and other input data, SAPP (https://confluence.ecmwf.int/display/SAPP/User+Forums).
The Copernicus User Support team is always interested to hear from our users on how we can improve further. If you have any ideas or suggestions, you can reach us at copernicus-support@ecmwf.int.
