Rubin Observatory Users Committee
Report from 2022A meeting (14 April 2022)
We congratulate the Rubin Community Engagement Team for their ongoing, constructive efforts to encourage and enable the larger community to connect with and use the Rubin science products.
Findings:
- Communication
a. Current communication efforts have been quite good. Soliciting feedback with surveys seems to be working well. This is notable, given that many people are committing only a fraction of their time to Rubin-related activities, so capturing their attention could be challenging.
b. The Users Committee would be happy to be introduced at PCW 2022, either in person or virtually. Preferably this would be done early on at the meeting. Then the UC members who are attending in person can be available to receive comments and feedback through the rest of the week.
- Rubin Science Platform
a. It is fantastic to see the RSP working and being so actively and capably supported at the developer and user levels.
b. The UC was asked to comment regarding how the data for inactive users might be handled, specifically if a delayed startup time would be acceptable for users who have not accessed their data for some period of time. This idea, cold storage with a slower restore for inactive users, sounds reasonable. The threshold period of inactivity is not obvious, but six months is a reasonable place to start.
c. The UC raised the following question: What is the long-term storage plan for user files and DB products beyond the end of the LSST survey? This was triggered by discussion about cloud, but we realized it really applies to both Cloud and SLAC on-prem resources. Related to that, what is the mechanism to download your current set of files, code, and DB locally?
- Data Previews
a. 70% usage for DP0.1 is excellent. Despite the number of inactive data preview delegates, the committee is not concerned about perceived unfairness. Future Data Previews will naturally take care of any people who have not yet been included.
b. The demos have been a very nice start. That they are tested daily is highly professional. For future demos consider developing a means for users to submit demo ideas, with a list that is visible and up-votable. This will help with prioritization and also spark ideas for the types of demos that one might want to see. A list of demo ideas might be particularly useful for people who may not really even know how to describe what they need to learn.