USG Agenda for Oct. 18, 2010

  • Attendees:
    • CHV - Amy, Scott, Carol, Aaron, Tony, Jim, Rachel
    • NRC - James, Gerald, Brenda
    • SOC - Adam
    • Phone - Kartik
  • News and new discussion items
    • Preliminary report from the SciOps RR
      • Carol reported on the OpsRR. Basically, everything went well and general congrats to everyone. The basis of the presentations was a Feb 1st date for the CfP. The committee felt this was a bit optimistic, but perhaps not by much.
      • The major concerns from the OpsRR committee were:
        • 1) Archive
        • 2) Policies and procedures are not fully developed in some areas
        • 3) There are a "lot of yellow flags" - moderate issues that together pose a risk to readiness for ES
      • A more complete discussion on this topic will take place at the Wed meeting.
    • Plan for managing broadcasts of news, topical items, events, etc.
      • Second main topic that John has brought up was how we (the NAASC) get info to the community and who was responsible for what items.
      • Currently:
        • Al - reports on News from ALMA through eNews
        • Aaron - maintains and reports news on the Science web
        • Kartik - announces the training sessions to the appropriate parties.
        • John - reports on the calendars/schedules and updates from the ARCs and JAO
      • We need a coordinator between NAASC and EPO & Science Communication, and clarity on who is responsible for what.
        • Action item to Tony and Aaron to develop a summary of communication needs and responsible people.
  • Task Lead Reports
    • NRC
      • Reported on updates from the Victoria Meeting. Members of the NRC were invited to U of Toronto to hold an ALMA workshop.
    • Tutorials (Kartik)
      • AAS splinter session suggestion
        • The request for a room is due on Dec 1st at a cost of about $1000. The plan would be to set up on the Wed of the AAS after the last talk but before the dinner. This would include a live demo of the ALMA - OT and SIMDATA. The question was whether this will be useful to have in addition to the training sessions at the booth? B. Matthews gave a very enthusiastic endorsement and Kartik would like suggestions/votes either way from the rest of the USG. Also, after some searching, it was decided that the AAS reception was at the hotel but this still needs to be confirmed.
      • Staffing for Train The Trainers
        • Straw plan for Train the Trainer agenda is online.
          • New topics were added based on the OpsRR. These include ES capabilities, Splatalogue and technical assessment.
          • Action item to all staff to look at the wiki and send Kartik any emails with problems/comments/suggestions including availability for the session so he can finalize the program.
          • There are also 6 people visiting and it is assumed that we will use the auditorium for office space for these visitors during this time.
    • Documentation (Jim)
      • Sample presentations page here
      • John has requested a presentation page. First question is who is the audience...Jim's suggestions were:
        • archive for NAASC staff, e.g. in case we want to use slides from old talks.
        • potential users of ALMA who want to review a talk they just heard.
        • someone who has missed a talk and wants to see what they missed - this is a small minority however.
      • So, Jim has made a new wiki that is linked off the USG agenda with most recent presentations towards the top. If the audience for some of these presentations is the community we will need to put them on a web page, using caution not to distribute outdated talks.
      • Jim would also like to develop a proposer guide (ie. consolidate many documents that will include things like type of OS needed to run software, etc...) that a potential proposer needs to use ALMA. There was some discussion about material already present in the OT quick start and the intent of the OT guides.
    • Science Web (Aaron)
      • All the holes that were in the webpage are now plugged.
      • Two big issues remaining:
        • 1) Make sure all the numbers in the PRIMER agree with the numbers on the webpage
        • 2) NRC personnel pages -
          • Action item to Aaron will make a "groups" link at the top of the page an NRC-hosted page.
          • Action item to NRC to populate it.
          • Action item to Aaron and Jim to review the high level NAASC user guide and develop a more detailed draft for posting.
    • Helpdesk (Tony)
      • A strawman is in place on how to handle Level 2 and 3 tickets. There will also be need for the entire NAASC to help with triage and level 1 tickets especially in the first couple years after ES before we get the Data analysts. There is also a strong request to staff the Helpdesk 24/7 a day or two before the proposal deadlines. Tony will distribute the strawman plan to the USG for comment at a later meeting.
    • NAASC presence at science meetings (Adam)
      • The poster that Adam and James put together is linked off the main USG page and the meeting agenda page.
        • Action item to all staff to send comments to both James and Adam.
    • Visitor program (Scott)
      • The current visitor program page off the NAASC page is for long term visitors (>6months) and TIm Bastian is still the contact person. Should Scott be the contact person for those coming to the NAASC? - yes.
      • There should be a policy set up for short term visitors, those that come for a week or so and they will be assigned a "friend" of the project most likely aligned with their science goal. After the visit, they should be able to leave with the full data reduced from their project.
      • Scott does not anticipate having visitors to set up their SBs. I According to the guidance plan, we should be able to support 2 teams of 2 per week...this may be reduced to 1 team of 2 per week depending on funding.
      • Scott is working on an implementation plan for these short term visitors and will distribute to the USG for comment.
      • Finally, there is a difference between NRAO and NAASC visitors offices. Ted Miller is the contact person for those offices.
  • AOB
    • Scott is the mentor for the NAASC postdocs and had a meeting with them yesterday.

-- AnthonyRemijan - 2010-10-19
Topic revision: r1 - 2010-10-19, AnthonyRemijan
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