Minutes of ADASS POC Lunch Meeting

15 November 2000

12:30 - 2:00 pm, Atrium Lobby Lounge

Attendees

POC: Rudi Albrecht, Daniel Durand, Rick Harnden, Gareth Hunt, George Jacoby, Jan Noordam, Dick Shaw, Betty Stobie, Doug Tody, Patrick Wallace

LOC: Severin Gaudet (2001 LOC); Michelle Henson, Frank Primini, Su Tuttle (2000 LOC)

Summary

The following is a summary of the discussion of items listed in the meeting agenda.

1. Report of ADASS X LOC

The conference was running very smoothly, and the POC gratefully acknowledged the outstanding efforts of the LOC in hosting ADASS X. The unofficial total attendance reached 293. The new "Job Posting" board, and the walk-up network connections (for personal laptops) appeared to be very popular.

2. Budget

Budget for ADASS X; Status of Carry-over Funds

This conference was by a large margin the most expensive ADASS meeting. The total cost of nearly $104,000 exceeded revenues by roughly $13,000 (precise amount TBD), which is being covered by ADASS carry-over funds. This will leave a balance in the carry-over fund of roughly $10,000, which is only about 10-15% of a typical ADASS budget. This shortfall was largely predicted in the initial ADASS X budget (in 1999) and, in retrospect, had there been agreement to raise the registration fee by $50, there would have been no shortfall. It will be important in future years to keep fees more in line with actual costs: this year the registration fees provided only about 55% of the revenue, whereas a fraction near 75% would involve far less financial risk.

Future Funding Strategy

A discussion of possible funding sources followed, from which it was agreed that increases in ADASS registration fees (over this year's fee of $190 US) of the order of 25% were acceptable if needed to balance the budget for future conferences. A registration fee near $250 US (exclusive of fees for demos, the banquet, and tutorials) would be more or less consistent with other astronomical conferences, and is lower than typical fees for professional software conferences by a factor of two or more.

Gareth Hunt investigated the possibility of a multi-year support from NSF. While his contact acknowledged this possibility, it would require a formal review. Evidently the $5000 in annual support for ADASS can be approved at NSF discretion, in response to a very informal request. Thus, there apprears to be no advantage to submitting a request to NSF for multi-year funding, and it could complicate the process for all involved. Glenn Miller investigated the possibility of multi-year funding from NASA, and the reaction was positive. Evidently, NASA believes it costs them nearly as much to process as to grant a proposal for the funding request near $5000(!). We should pursue multi-year funding from NASA.

The POC was reminded that no US Government agency funds, nor funds from most of our institutions, can be provided in direct support of the ADASS conference when it is held outside of the US (i.e., next year and in 2003). Such funding has amounted to ~25% of the conference budget when it is held in the US, and its absence adversely impacts the conference when it is held elsewhere. Evidently, the prospects for comparable funding from Canadian sources next year are not good. Dick, Doug, & Daniel discussed a strategy of using institutuional contributions to the ADASS carry-over funds to produce the ADASS `01 proceedings. The idea is that the annual contributions from our respective organizations would be used to pay ASP (a US-based company) directly to produce the proceedings for attendees. Doug is checking into the financial allowability of such an approach and, if it is legitimate, that would provide roughly $14,000 US in support of next year's meeting, which would make the budget much easier to balance. Dick Crutcher is investigating the possibility of NCSA providing a direct donation to CADC/U. Victoria in support of the conference.

3. Publication of the Proceedings

Report from ADASS X Editors

The editor team for ADASS X (Harnden, Payne & Primini) report that the proceedings submission deadlines, submission instructions, and author resources are all ready and available from the ADASS X Website. A 1-2 page summary will be published in the PASP "Conference Highlights" section, to be written by Bob Hanisch and George Jacoby. This is good advertising for ADASS in the community.

Selection of Proceedings 2001 Editor Team

The editor team for ADASS `01 should be selected in the next few months so that they may prepare instructions, files, and procedures for the for the next meetings' submissions, and so that the experience of the current editor team can be transferred to them smoothly. It would be prudent to name at least 3 editors, owing to the quantity of work to be performed; ideally at least one of them would be an experienced ASP proceedings editor.

Last year we were in danger of having no proceedings produced whatever. After the premature "retirement" of the then lead editor, Nadine Manset took on the heavy responsibility of producing both the hardcopy and electronic proceedings. This task was all the greater because the ADASS `99 proceedings contained 25% more contributions than average: over 150 papers. Nadine's willingness to put aside her other responsibilities and carry this project through was greatly appreciated by the POC and former ADASS proceedings editors. From this experience it is clear that certain steps should be taken to ensure a successful production of future ADASS proceedings, including the following action items.

Review of ADASS Paper Presentation Policy

A review of the ADASS paper presentation policy, and its implementation for ADASS X, was deferred to a subsequent e-mail discussion.

Contribution on ADASS to Heck's Forthcoming Book

A possible contribution on the ADASS conference series to A. Heck's forthcoming book: Organizations and Strategies in Astronomy (c.f. the first volume) was deferred to a subsequent e-mail discussion.

4. Future ADASS Venues

Competing Meetings in 2001

The following meetings will be held in 2001 with topics or themes that have overlap a great deal with topics that have traditionally been featured at ADASS:

Evidently the NVO workshops that Bob Hanisch was concerned about (recall prior postings to the POC distribution) are either centered around science topics, or are PR/Outreach related, to be featured at the summer AAS. It was suggested that the SPIE/ADA meeting would be oriented primarily toward algorithms, and have little emphasis on implementation. Still, the overlap with likely ADASS topics (such as NVO) is considerable, and may draw somewhat from the ADASS audience. This may be a problem, in that attendance at ADASS typically drops by ~30% when it is held outside the US. It is true that ADASS has in the last few years emphasized the last two letters of the acronym, somewhat at the expense of the first three. This has the effect of orienting the program more to software developers rather than to astronomers, which is not altogether a good thing. Suggestions for key topics for the next year that would help reverse this trend would be most welcome.

It was agreed that little could be done to influence the other conferences in this area, though Doug offered to keep looking for opportunities to "guide" the emphasis of the SPIE meeting (of which he is an organizer) so that it does not threaten the success of ADASS. To help ensure that ADASS `01 is a success it will be important to organize the program earlier this year than has been typical, and to advertise earlier and more widely. For this we can make good use of the adass.org Web site. We can also announce ADASS `01 sooner than usual, even without a complete speaker list. Note that three of the places we need to advertise are the AAS (Newsletter), the CADC at http://cadcwww.dao.nrc.ca/meetings/meetings.html, and on Steve Drake's list at http://guinan.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/heasarc/meetings.html#SAW

Victoria 2001

The next ADASS conference will be hosted by CADC/U. Victoria from 30 Sep. - 3 Oct. 2001. The ADASS LOC at the moment consists of Daniel Durand and Severin Gaudet, and they report that they are significantly under-staffed. They also have some unanticipated financial difficulties to work through, some of which were the result of new rules and restrictions placed on them by their governing organization. The solution to the finances awaits a final budget, which will draw upon the experience of prior ADASS meetings. (Additional help may come in the form of support from the ADASS carry-over funds if this expense can be paid directly. See section 2 above.) Recall that no NASA/NSF funds can be used to support the meeting directly, nor can CADC transfer any surplus into the ADASS carry-over funds. The staffing problem can be ameliorated by accelerating the adass.org Web site development plan, so that it can support paper submissions, registration, and various "boiler-plate" items.

The discussion of key topics and speakers for ADASS `01 was deferred to a subsequent e-mail report and an informal POC lunch at the AAS in San Diego on 10 January 2001.

Baltimore 2002, and Beyond

The ADASS will be hosted by STScI in Baltimore in 2002. A contract has been signed with the Marriott Waterfront hotel (a new hotel in the east bay, opening 1 Feb. 2001) for the venue. The dates will be 13 - 16 Oct. In 2003 ADASS will be hosted by CDS in Strasbourg, France. IPAC is working on a proposal to Caltech to host ADASS in 2004. Tom Handley is the contact person, and he needs budget figures from recent ADASS conferences to support his proposal.

5. POC Membership

George Jacoby will step down from the POC following this meeting. Suggestions were offered to add a LOC member from ADASS `02 to the POC e-mail distribution, and a new POC members from Strasbourg (ADASS `03), Japan, and Australia.

6. The adass.org Web site

The report of adass.org Web Site Working Group was deferred to a subsequent e-mail report.