Документ взят из кэша поисковой машины. Адрес оригинального документа : http://www.atnf.csiro.au/management/atuc/2005jun/docs/3.5_ATUC_NFreport_June05.doc Дата изменения: Wed Jun 8 09:34:03 2005 Дата индексирования: Sun Jun 27 16:19:17 2010 Кодировка:

ATNF ATUC MEMORANDUM

To: ATUC
From: Jessica Chapman
Date: 6 June 2005
Subject National Facility Report

1. TAC information

TAC statistics

As requested by ATUC, TAC statistics are provided on the ATNF website at
the address

http://www.atnf.csiro.au/observers/tacstats.

Detailed statistics are also provided in the ATNF annual reports. The ATNF
annual report for 2004 is now available on the web. Hard copies will be
distributed around mid-June.

In 2004 111 papers with ATNF data were published in refereed journals, 76
papers with ATNF data were published in conference proceedings and 79 other
papers were published by ATNF staff,

TAC members

For the 2005 July meeting, John Dickey joins the TAC as the incoming
Chairman and replaces Lister Staveley-Smith. The other TAC members will be
Wilfred Walsh, Anne Green, Simon Johnston, Paul Francis and Ravi
Subrahmanyan.

Observers web pages

A new web page at

http://www.atnf.csiro.au/observers/tools_all.html

provides a summary of links to observers archives, web-based tools and
other information. This includes a link to a new page with information on
the SCHED program at

http://www.narrabri.atnf.csiro.au/observing/sched/.

TAC deadlines

Following ATUC comments, to shorten the time interval between proposal
submissions and notification of TAC outcomes, the deadlines for telescope
applications have been moved by two weeks, from June 1 and Dec 1, to June
15 and Dec 15 respectively. The semester dates are unchanged.

The notification of TAC outcomes is now sent by email to the contact person
on each proposal. Following the release of OPAL (see below) all TAC
outcomes will be emailed to all proposers with given email addresses.


2. OPAL

OPAL (Online Proposal Applications and Links) is a new web-based
application that will replace the current system for telescope proposal
submissions. OPAL will provide a set of web-based tools to help astronomers
prepare and submit their telescope proposals and will also provide
additional facilities for administrators, TAC members and telescope
schedulers. It is intended that OPAL will be fully in use in time for the
application deadline on 15 December 2005.

OPAL is currently being developed and has so far met the project
milestones. An initial user-specification document was released in March
2005. This was extensively reviewed and many helpful comments were provided
by ATUC members and other telescope users. A revised specifications
document which incorporates this input, was released in May. This is
available at

http://www.atnf.csiro.au/computing/web/opal/opal-requirements.pdf

We plan to complete the software coding for OPAL in July and will then
spend several weeks, in consultation with expert and non-expert users,
testing OPAL for robustness and for user acceptance. The deadline for a
public release of OPAL is 06 September.

3. ATNF outreach and education

Teachers Workshops

Two successful workshops for teachers were held recently by ATNF.
Astrophysics for Physics Teachers was a one-day workshop for teachers of
HSC Physics held at Marsfield on Saturday 5 March. Twenty-one teachers
participated and heard talks on cosmology and stellar evolution from ATNF
and AAO staff. The annual Astronomy from the Ground Up! workshop was held
at Parkes over 13 -15 May in glorious sunny weather and was attended by 24
teachers. Two staff members from the Visitors Centre also attended.

ATNF in conjunction with the Western Australian Office of Science and
Innovation, Scitech in Perth (an organisation that promotes science
education in WA) and the Science Teachers' Association of WA offered a
scholarship to fund a WA teacher to the Parkes workshop. The quality of the
applicants was very high andtwo teachers were given scholarships. Both gave
interesting talks to the other teachers about ways to teach astronomy in
the classroom.

We are pursuing plans to hold a teachers workshop in Geraldton in October
or November 2005. This will be held in collaboration with Scitech and local
teachers. We are also exploring a grant proposal to support the teaching of
astronomy in schools located in the SKA region.

Feedback on the outreach and education website continues to be very
positive. New content for the year-11 syllabus, The Cosmic Engine, has
recently been released.

Narrabri Visitors Centre Redevelopment

Plans for the redevelopment of the Visitors Centre at Narrabri are
progressing well. The detailed design work for the new exterior exhibits
has now been completed by Convergence Design, in consultation with ATNF
staff. Construction work is expected to begin in June and the on-site
installation to be completed by early September.