ALMA OT Test StephanWitz spoke with AlanBridger who suggested we use the production version of the ALMA OT for testing up to the point of submitting a proposal. We can use the Socorro ALMA OT developer to understand the phase 2 properties.
Proposal->Projects for VLBA. AmyMioduszewski and LorantSjouwerman do not see any issues. MarkClaussen needs to think about this some more but does not see anything wrong in principle.
Proposal->Projects for GBT. ToneyMinter and RyanLynch do not see any issues. Some examples were discussed. (1) Proposal which contains an open-sky and Sponsored component. This should be okay since they will have different projects. (2) HSA/GMVA proposals. It was noted that HSA is like GMVA in that it is one telescope that consists of multiple antennas or stations. When ALMA is included as a station this requires an separate proposal (unlike the other observatories). JeffKern suggested we discuss this with ALMA folks who will be in CV on 6-7 August. (3) A joint AUI proposal (GBT/VLBA) where the TAC only allocates VLBA time. This happens and the new structure should handle this okay since each telescope will have a different project.
Proposal-> Projects for Metrics. AnandCrossley did not see any issues. He emphasized that we need to be able to map from the old system to the new system; that is, there are metrics that are a function of time.
Proposal->Projects for SRDPs. JeffKern did not see any issues but this discussion morphed into a discussion of Science Goals (see below).
Science Goal. There was much discussion about the structure of Proposals->Projects->Science Goals (SGs). There was some consensus along the following. There should be one Proposal with a single scientific objective. If approved, to implement the Proposal one or more Projects would be created, but each Project would only correspond to one telescope. Here, the HSA and GMVA are both considered to be a single telescope. Each Project would contain one or more SGs. The SG would contain telescope specific products in support of the overall objective. The concept of Projects was a bit fuzzy; that is, we did not really converge on what they included. Projects are not specified in the Proposal, but implemented by the observatory after the proposal is approved. It was also not entirely clear how the concept of a Proposal with Attributes (a la BarryClark) fit into this scheme; that is, DDT versus Joint proposal. We agreed that the term "Science Goal" is confusing. MarkClaussen suggested that we need to carefully define the terminology otherwise we cannot communicate our thoughts very clearly. JeffKern and LorantSjouwerman will work together and compose a block diagram of the structure with a suggested terminology. During the discussion there were several examples:
GBT+VLA Image: This would be a single Proposal and two Projects, each with a single SG (one for the GBT and one for the VLA). It is not a requirement of SRDP to automatically process such a data set; that is, the user is expected to know about these two data sets and combine them offline.
VLA multi-configuration Image: This would be a single Proposal, Project, and SG.
GBT NanoGrav: This would be a single Proposal with two Projects (open-sky and Sponsored). There would be one SG for each Project. Each SG would consists of multiple pulsars.
AOB
VLBA Sponsored Time:MarkClaussen noted that the VLBA also has Sponsored time (some have proposals other do not). From a metrics point of view it would be useful to have some way to point to these proposals. ToneyMinter noted that In some cases the Sponsor does not want any information to be displayed (e.g., currently these are labeled as Space Research for the GBT). But we should be able to have some common label for these situations.
Terminology:StephanWitz emphasized that we really need to nail down the terminology soon.
Action Items:
JeffKern and LorantSjouwerman will create a block diagram of the structure with a proposed terminology and a few examples.