NorthAmericanALMAScienceCenter Operations Plan
Comments from the NRAO Review Panel,
2006-04-14. (v3)
The review was held with local and teleconference participation, on April 11 2006. The charge to the panel and panel membership are given below, as is the list of documentation provided in advance of the meeting.
A detailed narrative written by the panel’s scribe follows, but a summary of some strong impressions is:
- Many of the tasks described as “Beyond the ARC” are really essential for the successful operation of the ALMA Observatory – arguably many of these topics should have been included as core functions, rather than additional services. This point should be emphasized, so that the “Beyond ARC” activities aren’t just regarded as additional fluff by funding agencies etc.. The ARC and Beyond ARC development and support functions should be tightly integrated. It would be helpful, and probably quite important, to indicate some priorities – which tasks really are essential to the observatory, and which are just “would be nice to have.”
- There was strong concern that astronomer participation in future development work may be insufficient. This applies particularly to software.
- An important aspect is training of the new generation of astronomer-instrumentalists, including software R&D, who will be important both for efficient running and future development of ALMA, but also to provide a pool of suitably qualified people for future projects. For example, it the various postdoc and fellowship schemes associated with ALMA should give equal emphasis to astronomer-instrumentalists, and not regard them as second-class awardees.
- Integration with the rest of NRAO. This theme came up in several guises. Are we one observatory, or is ALMA really separate? Some of the issues in this context are the fellowship/postdoc plans, software development – including especially CASA, and the apparent lack of an overall NRAO Facilities plan and transition plan – if there are to be ALMA personnel at the AOC, for example, has this been taken into account in future facilities plans? Will there be a common observatory-wide archive, and proposal tool?Will ALMA personnel be shared with other observatory functions? It may be that there are good answers to all these questions, but I don’t think it came across during the review.
- A thing to emphasize is that of the NAASC budget, most are targeted for Chilean operations and the US grants program. Discounting those, the CV part is very modest.
- The NAASC plans have to be taken in the context of refinement of the overall ALMA ops plan, lead by the JAO but in collaboration with other partners. As the ALMA ops plan evolves, so of course must the NAASC plan be refined to remain consistent.
More details appear in the record of the meeting from the official scribe, below. Overall the panel was favorably impressed, but attention to some of the points – often just a matter of getting the emphasis right – may be helpful.
DTE, Panel Chair.
Notes on the review recorded by the review panel’s scribe.
Here are my notes from today's review of the NAASC. I've
included all questions asked or points made without regard to
the level of their importance
Summary remarks from the executive session are at the end
of the text.
Mark
======
1. NAASC Organization (Hibbard)
a. GC. How was 7% Canadian contribution derived? As determined
in NSF-NRC MOU and NAPRA agreement.
b. MM. How does Science Development Division interact with
the NRAO DSAA? Do they have the same functionality? Probably.
c. CC. The large budget for JAO Ops in Table 9.1 is not
allocated entirely to the NAASC.
d. CC. Is advanced software development within the ARC
or is it contained in the Science Development Division
(which is in "beyond ARC")? In the Science Development
Division.
e. GC. Operations money will be filtered to JAO through
NRAO, which will segregate NSF funding for ALMA operations
as a separate SPO (scientific program order).
f. JU. Plan appears to be made in isolation from rest of
NRAO.
g. JU. Are technical and data management divisions located
in CV or are some in the AOC? Both CV and AOC. In some
cases, can take advantage of common maintenance efforts
(e.g. digital transmission system at AOC).
h. RP. Is the boundary between the core functions of the
ARC and "beyond ARC" well-established? Who decides the
boundary?
i. JH & CB. Request comment on advertising for astronomer
positions as tenure track vacancies. Logic is best people
will apply only if tenure is offered. Paradigm also
assumes most service work done by postdocs.
j. JU. Postdocs should be working towards/looking for next
job. Can't ask them to do lots of service work. Also,
postdoc longevity not long enough to learn and pass
on institutional knowledge. NRAO has had mixed results
on using postdocs for service work. They can be used
on a focused task.
k. CC. The idea of using postdocs for service work is based
on a European operational model (e.g. JIVE).
l. DC. Gemini hires Gemini fellows for 5 years. They
participate in observational support.
m. GC. Astronomer service work is listed as 0.5 FTE, but is
1 FTE included in the ALMA Ops budget? Yes.
------
2. NA ARC (Hibbard)
a. JU. The ARC Head manages interaction with other ARCs.
What's the role of the NAASC Head? The ARC Head is more
of an operations manager. The NAASC Head interacts with
the science community.
b. PJ. Concerned about timely phasing of personnel in the
Proposal Function.
c. JU. On Proposal Function, data analysts are needed sooner
than in 2012 & 2013.
d. RP. In the area of User Science Support, users occasionally
make cockpit errors. Does the ARC provide quick user feedback?
Yes.
e. JU. In Archive Operations, what is a technician? A systems
administrator.
f. MM. How does Archive Operations interact with the Observatory's
e2e effort? Don't really know.
g. NR. Perhaps Archive Operations could be incorporated in an
NRAO-wide data center.
h. JU. Astronomers are needed to drive development undertaken
by engineers and programmers, but are not identified.
------
3. Technical Division (Webber)
a. DC. Is Canadian receiver band maintained in Canada or CV?
JW prefers CV, but can be either place. Effort required
is 1.5 FTE of 12 FTE identified.
b. JU. Is contingency included in manpower and cost estimates?
No.
c. PJ. Is $0.5M of R&D effort built in baseline plan? Yes.
------
4. Data Management (Shepherd)
a. CC. What part of operations archive doesn't go to science
archive? Monitor and engineering data.
b. DE. Monitor data should go with science data. It's a small
fraction of the overall data volume.
c. NR. What's the timescale to deliver data to the archive?
The time required for land shipment of tape or disk.
d. CC. On data management functions for North America, what
are the Europeans delivering on maintaining and improving
software (concerns for divergence or duplicate effort)?
e. JU. What does the simulator do? Simulates noise and image.
Will be a significant piece of code.
f. CC. Simulator should be in proposal tool.
g. RP. Who enforces coordination of software maintenance?
Supposedly the JAO.
h. BG. Concerned that software maintenance/development
will drift apart (between NRAO and ESO) once operations
commence. Each ARC will want to work on interesting
problems and leave the more mundane projects for the
other ARCs.
i. CC. "beyond ARC" funding is not guaranteed.
j. JU. Do NASA or ESA missions have dual archives and what
is the experience with them? The CADC mirrors data from
HST and JCMT.
k. RP. Identifies an issue that the JAO has the responsibility
for maintaining the core software, but it doesn't have the
first call on the funding (the ARCs do). This makes it
difficult for code maintenance.
l. DE. Notes some pressure to move software maintenance effort
to Chilean operations.
m. CC. Will a user's login be the same in the US and Europe?
Yes.
n. DC. How are ALMA archive data accessed through the virtual
observatory? Archive can be accessed by VO once data are
no longer proprietary.
o. DC. Concerned that data standards between NRAO and ESO will
diverge with time.
p. JU. Is the same monitor and control software used for the
3 different antennas? Yes, but interfaces to this software
will be different. Each interface will be maintained by
the appropriate ARC.
q. CC. On MR&D under contracts, what happens if the JAO says
these aren't the contracts it wants for our ARC, but it
expects our ARC to perform some other kind of contract?
Won't happen because JAO action must be approved by the
JAO board, which is occupied by ARC-representing executives.
r. CC. The data archive might go to Canada. Is that a problem?
s. DC. The worldwide Gemini archive is at the CADC in Canada.
Model seems to work well.
t. CC. What about the possibility of contracting advanced
software development to universities? Could be done,
but ALMA would like to keep effort internal to NRAO to
retain current experienced staff.
u. NR. No mechanism has been described for code production
control or version control. More FTEs are needed to
coordinate this effort.
------
5. Beyond ARC (Brogan)
a. CB. NSF probably won't fund the "beyond ARC" effort.
"Value added" does not mean the effort is not needed.
b. MM. Does the NAASC Head report to the Director or Deputy
Director of NRAO? To the Director's Office for now.
c. GC. Need to clarify if the users' grant program is a function
of the NAASC or NSF. NRAO will need additional resources
if it manages this $10M program.
d. RP. Does NSF accept the grant program? It acknowledges the
need, but hasn't officially endorsed it.
e. BG: Leave the grants program in the budget. NSF will excise
the program on its own.
f. JU. Chandra and HST staff are eligible to receive Chandra
and HST grant moneys. Will NRAO staff have access to NRAO-
ALMA grant money? No, not under the AUI-NSF cooperative
agreement.
g. RP. In Advanced User Support, the core program provides
only "help at a distance" through a helpdesk. But from
VLA commissioning experience, we know that personal
interaction is crucial. Result from current plan might
be novices can't use ALMA early on.
h. JU. It's not clear that software development for data
post processing is included in "beyond ARC". It's
definitely not in the core program.
i. JW. Don't call it "beyond ARC". Call it something like
"full ARC".
j. DC. If post processing is needed, why isn't it included
in the basic agreement? How is Europe going to get the
functionality, particularly since its "beyond ARC"
(satellite ARCs) is so fragmented?
k. DE & AW. Post processing not included in the JAO board
"approved critical list". NRAO and ESO didn't want to
include post processing because each considered it an
interesting intellectual activity that the organizations
wanted to pursue on their own. Also, the European funding
mechanism is driving many of the decisions on the post
processing.
l. NR. Why not combine ALMA workshops with the synthesis
imaging workshop? Need a separate workshop to build an
ALMA user community, which currently does not exist.
m. PJ. Do we have enough people to run workshops and support
professional development? Yes.
n. CB. Not enough astronomers at NRAO to mentor all the ALMA
postdocs.
o. MM. Is ALMA fellowship different from a Jy fellowship?
Basically the same. Not a 2-tiered system (3-tiered if
one accounts for EVLA postdocs).
p. CC. Why are Chilean affairs not a core program? NRAO can't
do without this. It's the cost of doing business in Chile.
q. JU. Nothing in the budget for overhead? Yes, it's in
DAC (direct allocated cost). See discussion under WBS.
------
6. EPO (Hibbard for Adams)
Fantastic presentation.
------
7. WBS (Hibbard)
a. JU. When will the NRAO CCR rate stabilize so that ALMA will
know what its overhead costs will be?
b. GC. CCR is not the same as ALMA DAC. CCR only applies to
outside contracts.
c. JU. ALMA isn't paying overhead of Jy postdocs now, but will
ALMA pay for them in 2011? The point is what we call the
postdocs will have an impact on the funding source (e.g.
EVLA, ALMA, NRAO).
d. PJ & GC. A business manager needs to be added to the manpower
estimate. The manager is needed to manage the $40M ops budget.
e. PJ & GC. The phasing of EPO into ALMA needs to be accelerated.
------
Executive Session
1. MM. Not clear how NAASC integrates into NRAO operations.
Evidence for this in Science Development Division (DSAA?)
reporting line for NAASC Head (part of NRAO operations
or separate report to NRAO Director?), ALMA archive
operations (e2e?), and ALMA postdoc program (Jy postdoc?).
2. PJ. Can't mix ALMA and NRAO operations budgets. ALMA budget
must be "walled-off" in a separate SPO so that remainder
of NRAO is adequately funded.
3. DC & NR. Lack of astronomer involvement in software
maintenance.
4. RP. Overall plan appears to be too structured and rigid.
Can it change or evolve to meet current or future needs?
5. RP. Need people to come to telescope or friends of the
telescope to discover and exploit new observing and data
analysis methods. This will help develop future experts.
6. JU. Complete lack of facilities plan. Needs to include
transition of people from project to operations and
their geographic location.
7. JU. Need for CASA identified in NAASC, but NAASC doesn't
appear to take ownership of CASA.
8. JU & NR. An overall NRAO operations plan is needed.
Currently, NRAO telescopes are developing their operations
plans in isolation. Need to share a common operations model.
9. CC. Make clear that most of $40M budget goes to Chile
for ALMA ops. Only $3M of this goes to the NAASC.
10. CC. Define which functions are really critical and what
are truly "value added". ALMA won't work without the
critical functions.
11. RP, JU, & PJ. Proposed grants program is generous. Suspect
that NSF will resist a "mission-oriented" grants program
like those at NASA. Leave grant program in proposal.
People will gravitate to instrument with the money.
12. RP. Hiring only tenure track astronomers is a bad idea.
Must have support astronomers.
13. JU. Absence of Adrian Russell leads to the concern that
the connection between the ALMA Project and ALMA Ops is
not strong enough.
Agenda, Panel Membership, Charge to the panel:
AGENDA AND CHARGES
NRAO Internal Review of the NorthAmericanALMAScienceCenter (NAASC)
Draft Operations Plan
Tuesday, 11 April 2006
CV230/SOC280/TUCN525/GB137/Chile
Preliminary Agenda
(All times Eastern Daylight)
(S# gives relevant sections of NAASC Staffing Document).
10:30-10:45 (15min) Scope and Charges - Jewell
10:45-11:15 (30min) Background and Assumptions;
NAASC Organization (S3 & S4) - Hibbard
11:15-11:45 (30min) North American ARC (S5) - Hibbard
11:45-12:15 (30min) Technical Division (S6.2) - Webber
12:15-13:15 (60min) Lunch Talk (Rm. CV-311):
Box lunches for TUNA lunch talk by Todd Hunter (CfA/SAO):
"NGC6334: A cluster of massive
protostars resolved by the SMA"
13:15-14:00 (45min) Data Management Division (S6.1) - Shepherd
14:00-14:30 (30min) Beyond ARC Science (S7.1 & S7.2) - Brogan
14:30-15:00 (30min) EPO (S7.3) - Adams
15:00-15:15 (15min) Break
15:15-16:00 (45min) WBS/Budget (S8 & S9) - Hibbard
16:00-16:30 (30min) Discussion
16:30-17:00 (30min) Review panel, private session
17:00-17:15 (15min) Recommendations from the panel
17:15 Adjourn
Charge:
This is an internal review of the draft NAASC Operations Plan.
We request comments on
- Overall scope
- Priority of activities included, and identification of
any missing scope
- The operations model, including ramp-up profile
- Cost estimates for all activities
The comments are needed to sharpen the plan prior to an initial
presentation to the NSF on 24 April. We ask that each of the panel
members read the draft plan prior to the review and that they be
prepared to make comments during the review. We do not require a
lengthy, formal report from the panel, but we request that the chair
designate a scribe to record comments during the review, and that he
provide a brief summary of the panel's impressions of the draft plan
by by 14 April, if possible.
Panel members include:
TUC: Emerson (chair)
CV: Jewell
Clark
D'Angio
GB: Prestage (unable to attend)
Radziwill
SOC: Ulvestad
McKinnon (official scribe)
Perley
Carilli
HIA: Crabtree
Panel members may join the forum by video-conferencing, as available.
The following rooms have been reserved: CV230/SOC280/TUCN525/GB137/Chile
Additional attendees:
A. Wootten
J. Di Francesco
======
DOCUMENTS:
To Review:
"North American ALMA Operations and the North American ALMA Science
Center (NAASC) Staffing Plan", v0.4 dated 4/3/2006
wget
or
wget
(although I've been told that some printers have a problem with the
.doc version).
Supporting documents:
wget
wget
wget
wget
wget
wget
For those of you who don't want to read the entire AOP (94 pages), I
have summarized the most relevant sections at
although you need to be
registered to the NRAO wiki to see that.