Tuesday May 17 Agenda: 09.00 – 09.15 Welcome & charges – Phil Jewell 09.15 – 09.45 NAASC Status - Phil Jewell, Tony Remijan 09.45 – 10.15 Science Overview & Publications - Al Wootten 10.15 – 10.30 Pipeline – A. Remijan 10.30 - 10.45 Archive - Mark Lacy (remote) 10.45 – 11.00 Break 11.00 – 12:00 Cycle 1, Cycle 2, Cycle 3 and Cycle 4,5 Prep - Remijan 12.00 – 13.00 Lunch. 13.00 - 13.25 DSO/EOC Update - Remijan 13.25 - 13.45 Cycle 4 planning - Remijan 13.45 – 14.00 Community Outreach - Stierwalt (remote) 14:00 - 14:15 Community Feedback - Reman 14.15 – 15.00 Current North American Plan for Development - Wootten, Bill Randolph 15.00 – 15.15 Break 15.15 – 16:00 Discussion - Oberg, Osten, Jewell, Remijan, Wootten, et al. 18.00 - Dinner, at Twisted Chile, on the Plaza USERS' COMMITTEE AGENDA ITEMS 18 May 10:00-10:30 ALMA Operations & Construction Phil Jewell + whatever the committee asks for Committee Charges Please address the following charges at the meeting • ANASAC Charge #1: Scientific outcomes and impact from Cycles 0, 1, 2 and 3. Is North America doing well--what are the challenges? • ANASAC Charge #2: Assess the status of Cycle 1, 2 & 3 observations and progress made towards Cycle 4. For Cycle 3, are the data meeting user expectations, modulo the best efforts approach to early science? Are the data being released to the PIs in a timely fashion? * ANASAC Charge #3: The fourth Call for ALMA Development Studies/NA is under way. Please comment on the process, which was accompanied by specific suggestions ('ALMA2030') developed by ASAC and by reports from previous Studies. • ANASAC Standing Charges 1) To assist ASAC in presenting a North American view with respect to ASAC Charges (should they exist) ASAC Charge: The prototype for the ALMA Band 1 receiver is near completion. In order to endorse the Band 1 cartridge for full production, the ALMA Board would like to hear (again) the ASAC’s opinion on the Band 1 science case. The specific question the Board would like the ASAC to answer is: Does the updated science case support a decision to proceed to production of Band 1 receivers? N.B. This was discussed at the ASAC telecon on 2) To lead community outreach through leadership of workshops. -- Plans for next NAASC-sponsored workshop -- Plans for community workshops, tutorials, etc...Will present programs for Development Workshop, ALMA5years and for the just-concluded NAASC Workshop on Galaxy Chemistry. 3) To provide a mechanism for widening ALMA's base within the community and feedback to the NAASC on community perception of ALMA. ANASAC Standing Charge: Evaluation of Proposal Process: Cycle 4 ---------------- From last year's Report: Charge 1 (assess science outcomes from Cycles 0, 1 and 2): The NAASC should monitor the number of archival publications closely, and if growth in the number of publications is not seen in the near future, it should assess why that is the case RESPONSE: Agreed – we are monitoring archive publication statistics. Charge 2: (Assess Cycle 1&2 outcomes and progress toward Cycle 3. Are data meeting PI needs? Delivered with timeliness?) Concern: slow data release, different personal equation in manual data reduction RESPONSE: ALMA agrees with the importance of the imaging pipeline and continues to focus on its initial production release at the start of Cycle 3, as planned. In the meantime, the NAASC is hiring a net 3 additional data analysts, plus 2 visiting data scientists to accelerate data processing. (Todd Hunter will provide an update at the ANASAC telecon on 9 Jul 2015.) The JAO has now released a plan for managing “stale data.” The plan proposed is that the raw ASDMs will be made available to PIs only upon request, outside of ALMA archive, with no ARC support, and with no implications for the proprietary clock. Charge 3: (3rd Call for ALMA Development Studies) Comments: We believe that the clear time separation between “studies” and “projects” calls (brought about this time by programmatic considerations) benefit the process. The ANASAC also reiterates the importance of widely advertising these proposal opportunities beyond the NRAO newsletter to reach to the wider community. Regarding execution of the Development Projects, the ANASAC recommends that NRAO work closely with PIs of approved projects to ensure smooth integration with ALMA where appropriate. Our response: We note and appreciate the ANASAC’s recommendations on the Development Study and Project process. We will integrate the ANASAC into the selection process. We will also continue to work to advertise development opportunities and proposal calls widely. ALMA is presently re-writing the Development Principles and Implementation planning documents, which will address the process by which PIs should integrate their projects with the JAO. Standing Charge #2: community outreach through leadership of workshops Comments: M. Lacy's talk on archives mentioned allowing the NAASC cluster to be used by astronomers outside the NAASC for computing, analogous to what is done in Socorro for JVLA datasets. The ANASAC applauds this and recommends that multiple means are used to communicate this broadly to the community: via NRAO eNews, as well as targeted notices to current and future ALMA observers. The ANASAC would like to hear at the next facetoface meeting about how this resource is being used by the community. RESPONSE: RESPONSE – The request for an update on providing NAASC computing resources to the community is noted. Standing Charge No. 3: Widening ALMA’s community base Comments: We encourage the training and preparation to widen the user base, and would like to hear the Cycle 3 proposal selection statistics in this respect. Selfidentifications as to previous experience might be useful in this regard Worrisome trend in user survey responses about the helpdesk; we hope the Cycle 3 results show improvement. Standing Charge No 4: Evaluate Cycle 3 proposal process: Comment: The ANASAC would like to hear about further efforts to maintain and increase the observing efficiency at levels that imply a high completion fraction for Cycle 3 and onward. RESPONSE: RESPONSE: An enhancement of the Science Portal to request self-identification of background and experience level has been requested. A preliminary report of the Cycle 3 User Survey has recently appeared. The helpdesk section reports the following: “Overall, the average rating of the HD usability has improved with respect to previous cycles. In particular the number of users who rated the helpdesk usability above-average was 82%, compared to 62%, 66% and 70% in Cycles 2, 1 and 0, respectively. The above-average ratings are similar for EU and NA (~85%)….” AOB: The ANASAC would like to hear updates on the effort to understand Vertex antenna apparent astigmatism at subsequent telecons/meetings. RESPONSE: The project to install the thermistors into two Vertex antennas is expected to begin the week of July 13th. The associated holography campaign expected to begin the first week of August. Further updates will be provided as the project proceeds.