An idea for a VO Applications Newsletter

[Ray.Norris at csiro.au]

Hi Mark

That's a brilliant idea. Have you thought about how to distribute it?
You really want it to reach a broad spectrum of astronomers as well as
"VO-friendly" astronomers. The IAU might be one such vehicle. Also, to
reach to that broad spectrum, don't assume too much knowledge. For
example, my guess is that many astronomers who haven't been exposed to
the VO won't even know what Aladin is! So you probably need one line to
introduce it. Otherwise, the sort of content you have there is perfect.

Cheers

Ray

Ray Norris
CSIRO Australia Telescope National Facility
PO Box 76, Epping, NSW 1710, Australia
Phone +61 2 9372 4416
http://www.atnf.csiro.au/people/RNorris/
 
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> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-apps at eso.org [mailto:owner-apps at eso.org] On 
> Behalf Of Mark Allen
> Sent: Friday, 16 May 2008 05:25
> To: apps at ivoa.net
> Subject: An idea for a VO Applications Newsletter
> 
> 
> Dear all,
> 
> A few of the astronomers associated with the Apps WG have
> been discussing the possibility of a newsletter about VO Applications
> that would communicate short news items about advances in VO tools
> to astronomers.
> 
> Many of the new capabilities that are announced on the Apps 
> mailing list,
> or shown at the Apps sessions at interop meetings would be immediately
> useful for astronomers. The idea is to make this news available to
> astronomers with a short and sweet newsletter, designed to be 
> attention
> catching, and quick to absorb. e.g. 'VO can be accessed by 
> powerful command
> line tools, here's one example', 'New great tool released, 
> here's the link'
> 'Large data sets can be stored in and accessed from VOSpace, 
> here's where...'.
> 
> We've put together a draft in order to explore the ideas of 
> what sort of
> content or format such a newsletter might involve. This is 
> attached as a
> pdf file (that includes http links), where the articles are a mix of
> real articles and ideas for sections. The articles are 
> intentionally short
> and not as detailed as say a project newsletter (e.g. NVO 
> newsletter) would
> be.
> 
> We've had some discussion on how such a newsletter might be managed -
> 2 or 3 issues per year, rotating editors assigned by chair of 
> Apps, editing
> contributed articles for astronomer audience, possible 
> different delivery
> formats (pdf, email, html..). Also in discussing the scope, 
> we were quite
> clear about not trying to make an overall IVOA newsletter, 
> and to target
> astronomers. As such it would be a 'VO Applications Newsletter' rather
> than a newsletter of the Applications WG if I can make that 
> distinction.
> 
> This is all at the 'ideas' stage, and with just a few days before the
> Trieste meeting I'd like hear any first impressions or input the Apps
> group might have on this. I plan to bring it up at the 
> Trieste meeting.
> Also there may be some discussion about IVOA newsletters as a 
> result of
> IVOA Assessment Committee report, so it would also need to be 
> considered
> with respect to that too.
> 
> best regards,
> Mark Allen
> 
> 
>