Thursday, 9 am MT, 11 am ET, 17 January 2019

Logistics

CV-331/SO-152/GB-137, 331 Hub 192.33.117.12##6519 Audio 434-817-6286

Agenda

  • 19B
    • CfP Issues (Dana, Rick)
    • PST Review Items (Rick, Dana)
  • Double Jeopardy (Karen, Lewis)
  • User Account/Gender (Anand)
  • Shutdown (Lewis, Dana)
  • AOB

Minutes

Attending: DanaBalser, AnandCrossley, LewisBall, LorantSjouwerman, BarryClark, AmyMioduszewski, RickLively, HeidiMedlin, MarkClaussen, BryanButler, ToneyMinter, KarenONeil

  • 19B
    • CfP Issues. Thus far there have been two PST helpdesk tickets and one submitted proposal.
      • VLBA Resource Ticket. MarkClaussen is working on this somewhat involved ticket with the data analysts and will respond to the ticket today.
      • GOST Ticket. RickLively reported that they had to redeploy GOST with an updated certificate. LorantSjouwerman did respond to the ticket with a workaround. This was a more general issue with Java at NRAO which effected all of our tools and should now be resolved for GOST.
    • PST Review Items. RickLively plans to release the filter ticket next week and will work on several of the other tickets.
  • Double Jeopardy. KarenONeil summarized feedback from one planetary astronomer who had an accepted NASA proposal, accepted DSN observing time, but was rejected by our TAC for GBT time. This is a more general problem that has been discussed in the past. There is a mechanism within NSF for the GBO where users can apply for GBT time (sponsored) in their NSF grants. But this does not work for NASA. ToneyMinter noted that these cases are particularly hard on the planetary science community since they are not well represented in the SRPs; they do not represent a large fraction of the proposals in the SSP SRP. We discussed some possible options: (1) form an MOU with JPL. This would not help other types of double jeopardy and may also be too blunt an instrument unless we receive many of these proposals. (2) Deal with these at the Directors' Review. This would be fine if there were only a few such cases but if there are more then we are sidestepping the review process. No specific actions resulted from our discussion but we will mull this over more in the next few months.
  • User Account/Gender. AnandCrossley summarized an issue that arose involving the PST account system. Currently you can optionally select only Male or Female. LyndeleVonSchill suggested we modify this to allow the users to optionally select Male, Female, Self Identify (including a textbox). There will also be text added to note why we are asking for this information. AnandCrossley submitted a JIRA ticket; LewisBall will modify the text.
  • Shutdown. LewisBall summarized the current status. We plan to shutdown normal operations on 20 February 2019 if we receive no further funds. We plan to receive proposals by 1 February regardless. We will communicate with our users by (1) adding text to the PST landing page (dashboard); (2) text on our main and science web pages; and (3) send an eNews article (28 January). There was some discussion on what to do for furloughed astronomers who may not be able to access data and submit a proposal. KarenONeil noted that the GBO planned to have text informing users to contact us if they were being effected by the shutdown. Most agreed that we should not allow late proposals for a sub-set of people. There are also issues with the reviewers. MarkClaussen reported that at least 2 of the 57 reviewers were from NASA. BryanButler noted that it is difficult to know who is furloughed at any given institution. DanaBalser suggested we send an email to our users about our status sooner than planned (28 January) and an email to the SRP/TAC members. We also discussed how the shutdown will influence software tools. The PST should not be necessary for proposals at least since the telescopes would be closed. It is also used for the review process but this is run by NRAO. There has been discussion within the observatory about other tools (e.g., Archive, cluster nodes, etc.). Actions: LewisBall will think about sending emails to the user community (earlier than 28 January) and an email to the SRP/TAC members. DanaBalser will send text to RickLively for the PST Dashboard.

-- DanaBalser - 2019-01-15
Topic revision: r2 - 2019-01-17, DanaBalser
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