Planning: Sonification Network for the Geosciences

The practice of representing data as sound, sonification, has been increasing exponentially since the mid 2010s. Although a large portion of these projects focus on astronomical data, sonification in the context of geosciences has the potential to enhance our understanding of complex datasets such as seismic signals, weather patterns, and ocean currents.

Whether the motivation for the project is research, outreach, accessibility, education, or art, each must solve a similar set of problems related to how the sonification will be produced and accessed. In addition to researchers fluent in the data to be sonified, addressing these challenges requires input from experts in areas such as neural acoustics, psychology, music, design, and evaluation.

Additionally, if the promise of sonification to increase accessibility for blind and low- vision (BLV) persons is to be realized, professionals representing this community need to be part of the design process, not just the recipients of the products.

The Sonification Network for the Geosciences (Geo SonNet) planning project seeks to develop a plan to accelerate the development of high quality, perceivable, interpretable, and accessible data sonifications in the geosciences, including earth, atmosphere, oceans and cryosphere. The planning process will focus on identifying concrete actions that will 1) lead to the creation of stable and interdisciplinary networks of sonification researchers, domain experts, and BLV professionals; (2) provide a foundation of reference literature, web resources, and knowledge-sharing platforms in which standards for sonification can be developed and innovations can occur; and (3) expand the knowledge of data sonification techniques and development practices among geoscience researchers from which future proposals can be launched.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.