NAASC Organization Meeting - February 16, 2011

News

  • Scott - Two NAASC postdocs; have made one accepted offer to Kimberly Scott (UPenn) September 1 start date, outstanding offer to Alexander Karim.

  • Kartik: "Interferometry for the Masses," OT and SimData. Remy, Crystal and Todd - benchmarking script was very helpful. About 40 to overview; 8-10 for hands on session.

  • About 200 people signed up for 17 upcoming CDE events.

  • Lewis Ball expressed his pleasure in being a part of ALMA. The next few months are particularly critical in the start of PI-driven science; the contributions from the ARCs are absolutely critical. JAO will be trying to articulate clearly their goals. Regarding the AAS meeting and Spectroscopy meeting in Victoria: Thought that it was fantastic. Excellent, effective preparation and presentation.

  • May 23-24 promotion at AAS confirmed

Status of IT3

  • Technical Assessment was last week. This week mock panel meetings in Chile.

  • Thinking about having an internal NAASC session next for those in project - especially those (Al, Ed, Stuartt, Crystal, Todd, Harvey) (backups John, James, Kartik, Scott) for Early Science - week of July 18th. Telecon on 2/22. Designate a subset of projects that everyone will review and provide an assessment.

  • Next phase: projects will be approved or declined. Project Tracking after Phase 2.

  • Lewis Ball: End-to-end operations observing tests - will occur at least monthly, starting the last week of February. Once the archive is available, archive will be included.

  • How fine grained a tag do we ask people to attach to a publication (which scheduling block the data comes from? Position needs to be decided soon. Science verification data may lead to new science, so publication position would be important to have in place - at the call for proposals.

Preparing for Call for Proposals (March 31st)

  • CfP (Jim Braatz) - wrote what may be first parts of the call. Was intended to be a Guide for people who wanted to propose - but may become part of the Call. Written to be similar to CfPs from other observatories.

  • John: Tension between questions from the community (wanting details) and the ability to have "easy" documentation is a delicate balance - be patient. Don't be discouraged if detail is not available; ask people to submit help desk tickets.

  • If something comes up as you're learning, be sure to pass this on so that it is included in the HelpDesk/Knowledge Base. FAQ needs to be a part of the Knowledge Base.

  • Kartik: 55 question quiz. These are the questions that may come up in the community and will need to be addressed.

Working Groups

  • ALMA site - bad weather every night; start of polarization campaign. The schedule is switched around. This period of consistently bad weather is unusual. Eight antennas; one has been brought down for maintenance. One of the NA antennas has been fully accepted with no conditions. First time this has happened.

  • NRC
    • Gerald: Tutorial set up for early May (HIA) and another in Calgary (? date). Tutorial on April 18 19 in Toronto and June 3 in London, Ontario.

    • Reformatted Primer to have standard cover - need to get it approved for adoption.

  • User Support Group

    • ALMA Newsletter - petition to write an article about NA ARC, summary of past and future outreach events.

    • Staffing for CDEs is posted. Only change might be Florida; others are settled. Boston AAS list will be distributed soon.

  • SV

    • Mike Hatz - SV Data Distribution - using peer-to-peer distribution. Putting together a set of slides that can be used to explain to Network Admins what is needed at institution to make use of peer-to-peer distribution.

  • Tiger Team - meeting on Thursday, Feb 17.

    • Group down in Chile trying to do a polarization campaign, but are stymied by weather.

  • John - Ed returning to CHO (has been in Socorro). Al is in Chile and will stay on for ASAC Meeting.

-- CarolLonsdale - 2011-02-16
Topic revision: r2 - 2011-02-16, LyndeleVonSchill
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