Thursday, 9 am MT, 11 am ET, 31 October 2019

Logistics

Rooms: CV-331/SO-152/GB-137
Video: video.nrao.edu##226519
Audio: 434-817-6468 Ext. 226519#

Agenda

  • 20A
    • TAC Meeting (Dana)
    • Directors' Review
      • Logistics (Dana)
      • GBT Info (Toney)
      • VLA Info (Amy, Barry)
      • VLBA/HSA/GMVA Info (Mark C.)
  • 20B
    • CfP (Dana)
    • PST CfP Items (Rick, Lorant)
  • AOB

Minutes

Attending: DanaBalser, ToneyMinter, RickLively, BarryClark, HeidiMedlin, AmyMioduszewski, MarkClaussen, DaleFrail

  • 20A
    • TAC Meeting. DanaBalser summarized the following TAC postmortem issues:
      1. GBT Large/High Frequency Proposals: The TAC discussed the merits of going to an annual call for proposals for Large proposals and how best to mitigate the large proposal pressure for high frequency projects. These two issues are related since the high frequency Large proposals are hard to execute. BarryClark noted that for the VLA we do not often have a Large proposal that needs to be executed over the same configuration more than once. CHILES and VLASS are exceptions. So there is no need to make any changes. The GBT has a fair number of Large proposals submitted and they are often executed over two years. Therefore it is more common to have several active Large proposals that would overlap with those proposed in a given semester. The VLBA is similar to the GBT in that proposals can extend for a few years but there are fewer of them. DanaBalser will ask DaleFrail make a decision for the VLA/VLBA. We need a decision before the 20B call for proposals.
      2. Thesis Plan: The TAC recommended that we clarify that the thesis checkbox is optional, that we include a sample thesis plan, and that we consider a textbox to include student involvement. There was some concern about the last item, partly based on past experience, that people would game the system; that is, always say students would be involved. It was also not clear if a "student" bump would be given to the proposal. We agreed that a PhD thesis is different.
      3. SRP Chair Conflicts: The TAC suggested that the SRP chair should instruct any chair pro tem to provide sufficient comments to the TAC to help with any TAC discusssion. Moreover, we should provide the TAC chair with a list of hard SRP chair conflicts before the TAC meeting. Overall we felt that this was reasonble.
    • Directors' Review
      • Logistics. DanaBalser summarized the logistics. The plan is to send material to the Director by Monday evening at the lastest. He will send a draft report to DaleFrail on Monday.
      • GBT Info. ToneyMinter reported that he should have the GBT material ready by later today or tomorrow.
      • VLA Info. AmyMioduszewski reported that she should have the VLA material ready by later today or tomorrow.
      • VLBA/HSA/GMVA Info. MarkClaussen reported that he will try to have the VLBA material ready by late tomorrow.
  • 20B
    • CfP. We agreed to set the 20B CfP release on 2 January 2020. DavisMurphy will generate the 20B CfP templates sometime in the next week or so. The plan is to have the VLA/VLBA CfP text finalized by COB on 16 December 2019. We should add to the 20B CfP that X-proposals may start in 20B but will take up no more than 50% of the open sky time.
    • PST CfP Items. RickLivley reported that we should be roughly on schedule. We discussed two items:
      1. Large Proposals: In the 20A CfP we noted that Large proposals submitted in 20B onward would be restricted to under 1000 hours and 2 years. We agreed to change this policy and relax these constraints. That is, Large proposals submitted in 20B can be over 1000 hours and 2 years. RickLively will check if there is a ticket about this issue since we had plans to modify the PST to apply these constraints.
      2. VLA Any Configuration: It was noted that we do not have information on the number of semesters except for VLA Any configuration proposals. Here the user needs to enter in the number of semesters. There is already a JIRA ticket for this to change the text. RickLively said the code will also check that the entered value is a number. We agreed that there should be no upper limit on this number.

-- DanaBalser - 2019-10-30
Topic revision: r2 - 2019-10-31, DanaBalser
This site is powered by FoswikiCopyright © by the contributing authors. All material on this collaboration platform is the property of the contributing authors.
Ideas, requests, problems regarding NRAO Public Wiki? Send feedback