ANASAC F2F DRAFT Agenda

ANASAC Standing Charges

1. To assist ASAC in presenting a North American view with respect to ASAC Charges (listed below).
2. To lead community outreach through leadership of workshops.
  • Plans for next NAASC-sponsored workshop
  • Plans for community workshops, tutorials, etc...
3.To provide a mechanism for widening ALMA's base within the community and
feedback to the NAASC on community perception of ALMA.

ASAC charges

1) ASAC should continue to assess the scientific outcomes and impact from Cycle 0. This should include some preliminary quantitative assessments, such as numbers of papers published and quantitative impact metrics, along with a
qualitative assessment. Coordinate with the JAO and the regional ARCs, who would collect the necessary information.

Presentations
  • Presentation of metrics for NA and comparison to other regions
  • Report on archive usage (archival publications, downloads, etc...)
  • Report on effectiveness of NRAO PR efforts, how it compares with other regions, and how PR efforts are coordinated with the other regions
  • Report on metrics NRAO are using to evaluate if the NRAO is successfully reaching the broader, non-expert community (e.g., publications, number of successful proposals, satisfaction with support from those who indicated they were novices)
  • Is the publication rate reasonable, and if not, what is the bottleneck in publishing the data? (ANASAC discussion)
2) Pursuant to standing Charge 2, ASAC should assess the status of Cycle 1 observations and progress made towards the Cycle 2 call for proposals. For Cycle 1, are the data meeting user expectations, modulo the best efforts approach to early science? Are the data being released to the PIs in a timely fashion? For Cycle 2 preparations, is the OT keeping up with the capabilities of the array likely to be listed in the call? Does the support from the ARCs continue to meet users' needs?

  • Report on cycle 1 progress
    • commissioning status (hardware, software, operational issues)
    • status of cycle 1 science observations
    • issues exposed by the power outages
  • Report on preparations for Cycle 2
  • Report on pipeline (status of the pipeline, how quickly data are delivered to the users, what is delivered by the pipeline)
  • NRAO plans to keep the community informed on ALMA progress (i.e., how to improve the transparency of what is happening with ALMA).

3) With Cycle 0 and Cycle 1 proposal evaluation cycles completed, it is now of high importance to have a clear policy in place regarding the definition of duplicate observations for Cycle 2. The ASAC should work with the JAO and other interested parties to define what constitutes a "duplicate" observation.
  • Describe current draft of duplication policy
  • ANASAC to discuss the duplication policy and provide suggestions


4) The regional project scientists and the JAO will provide ASAC with materials, such as summaries, status updates, and other information of the completed and ongoing Development studies. ASAC should assess the scientific merit of these studies (e.g. discuss the uniquess for ALMA, the advantages and drawbacks of each capability, etc.), which will serve as a basis for further dialogue of the ALMA Development Plan.
  • Status report of the on-going NA development studies
  • Plans to evaluate the development studies and distribute the results
  • Plans to coordinate NA ALMA development studies/projects with the other regions
  • Proposal to roll out the ALMA Phasing Project (APP) capability (presented by Shep Doelman)
  • ANASAC discusion: long-term (10+ years) priorities for ALMA development and APP plan



5) As of December 2012, data from Cycle 0 are entering the archive for community use. ASAC should comment on the utility of the archive and also the
usefulness of current user software, such as CASA. How easy is it to access and use data from the archive? Are there critical functionalities missing from CASA? ASAC should also comment on data management plans for large data sets.
  • Presentation on CASA development
    - current status of development and performance (e.g., speed, parallelism)
    - what is the priority for adding new functionality, especially in
    view of expected cycle 1 and cycle 2 capabilities
    -- Presentation on the archive
    - Description of the data products in the archive
    - Long-term development plan and goals for the archive
    - Describe plans to advertise the archive
    - ANASAC to discuss what more may be needed to make the archive a useful
    entry point for beginners and for data miners
    -- Describe plans to assist users in reducing/analyzing increasingly
    larger data sets


    6) Now that Early Science observations have been underway for well over a year,
    it is important to have a systematic assessment of the reproducibility of the
    array. The ASAC should comment on a plan from the JAO to test the
    reproducibility through repeated observations of well characterized targets
    with a range of relevant properties.

    -- Present preliminary plan to test data reproducibility
    -- ANASAC to discuss plan and provide suggestions


    7) ANASAC-led discussion isues
    a) Long-term deadline for ALMA proposals and timing with NSF AAG proposal
    deadline

    b) In view of the large cycles anticipated for cycles 2 and 3, how do we keep
    the science timely? Do we want to encourage larger proposals before "full"
    operations start, and if so, how? Should we encourage more DDT?



-- LyndeleVonSchill - 2013-08-20
Topic revision: r1 - 2013-08-20, LyndeleVonSchill
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