3 April 2003 MJI, JRL, STH, PSB, DWE
Agenda
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1) Welcome to PSB
2) Actions from previous minutes
3) Report on Data Centre meeting on 21st March - our roadmap
4) Report on AGOC meeting on 28th March
5) Regularity of meetings and external reporting
6) Naming of Group
7) Redesign of wfcam Web Page - more VDFS visiblity, password protected ?
8) Updating spreadsheets, gantt charts etc...
9) AOB
Minutes
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1) Welcome to PSB
A meeting with JE, PSB and others is needed to decide what Pete needs to do
(ESO deliverables). <<<<
2) Actions from previous minutes
All the actions from the previous meeting (030325) had been carried out.
(do you want me to list them here?)
3) Report on Data Centre meeting on 21st March - our roadmap
Jim said that the main point about the meeting was that it was a "bonding
session". An introduction was given by each group to inform the others of what
they were up to. The ALMA talk was interesting - they will have a much larger
data rate than us.
There was good feedback from Jim's talks where he described CASU's
involvement in WFCAM, VISTA, AstroGrid and GAIA.
Many of talks were positioning the groups for future involvement in various
projects.
Mike said that our funding was a 4 year rolling grant with a 2 year
rollover. By then we will have bundled AstroGrid and GAIA into our group. When
the manpower gets to 15 we will then get a full-time manager.
4) Report on AGOC meeting on 28th March
The Astronomy Grid Oversight Committee will be who we have to go through to
make bids (for e-science money?) in the future. At this meeing were Tony Lynn,
John Davies, Nic Walton and Graham Cameron.
The reason for the meeting was that a poor impression was given at a
previous one (12 February) where it seemed that WFAU weren't able to write
software and that CASU were refusing to work since we hadn't got our grant
renewal. It lookde like there was both a lack of progress and a lack of
management.
For this meeting the bottom line was that if there was no management plan
there would be no Ł1.4M. Tony Lynn was impressed with the documentation shown.
Things went OK at the meeting. They wanted deliverables and risk analyses and
they got them.
There was a slight problem with the Gantt chart in that it can't be
exported into any other format. This needs to be sorted out. <<<<
Mike mentioned a possible problem with our equipmnent grant in that in the
preliminary announcement only the first Ľ of the first year has been
allocated. This may be linked to waiting for this outcome of this meeting.
5) Regularity of meetings and external reporting
A quarterly review cycle seems to be OK. JE reports to the VISTA Executive
Board monthly. WFAU have a weekly meeting with minutes on the web. JE bases
his report on these. JE wants us to have weekly meetings. It was felt that
fortnightly would be more reasonable especially considering that members of the
group had other responsibilities as well.
It was felt that the group should be allowed to see the draft of JE's
monthly report before it was submitted so that corrections and comments
could be made. <<<<
In order to facilitate the organizing of these meetings the group was
encouraged to fill in their .away files more reliably and regularly (and in
advance!). <<<<
6) Naming of Group
We still haven't homed in on a new name for the group. Simon should edit
out the silly/rude responses from our previous email discussions and forward
it to the group, Nic Walton, Richard McMahon and Margaret Harding. There was
even a mention of a bottle of wine as an inducement. The timescale on this
should be by the next meeting. <<<<
There was a bit of a discussion as to why VDFS was such a bad name -
unmemorable and that it didn't represent the task.
7) Redesign of wfcam Web Page - more VDFS visiblity, password protected ?
Mike wanted the web pages redesigned. <<<<
He didn't like the side bar and wanted it moved to the top and only for
the front page.
It was suggested that the diary be moved to a seperate page so that the
front page is kept short.
There should be one set of minutes of these meetings which should be web
accessible.
The wfcam internal directory should be moved to hang off public_html so
that it can be accessed from the web. However, it must be password protected.
It was suggested that the password protection for the main pages be removed.
(additional thought from DWE: if we want to stop search engines searching
these pages then keeping the password may be an idea).
It was agreed that the web pages would now be *.shtml so that they could
be passed through the server preprocessor so that files can be included.
Files with names *.html should remain in order to redirect people.
8) Updating spreadsheets, gantt charts etc...
There was a general discussion about the work package documents etc.
We should all look at these documents and confirm that they are OK. <<<<
The risks assessment was explained a bit more. The biggest worries in
this document were reprocessing and data transfer. The document contains the
contingency actions.
The transfer of data was further discussed: IDE discs - would we keep
them as back up or do they get returned to Hawaii? What backup would we have?
ESO requires a copy of the data sent to us. How would this be done? Some of
this will be sorted out in mid-April.
9) AOB
It was noted that the internal subdirectory had had it's protection changed.
This should be changed back. <<<<
Actions
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PSB Arrange meeting with JE etc. to work on ESO deliverables etc.
DWE Restore internal directory protections
STH Make sure that the Gantt chart can be made into a Postscript file
All Fill in .away files reliably and in advance of absence
MJI Make sure CASU gets to see draft of Jim Emerson's monthly report to
VISTA Executive Board
STH Distribute a sanitized email with suggestions for our new group name
along with a call for more suggestions
DWE Redesign the web pages
Move side bar to top
Move diary to seperate page
Move internal to hang off public_html and make it password protected.
Remove the password protection off the main structure
Rename *.html to *.shtml and redirect
All Look at latest project documents and confirm that they are OK