A semester-long course on the VO: materials available

[Petr Skoda]

Hi Mark (and Markus)

it is a good idea to make a ADQL syntax more logical. Thanks for letting 
me know. ------------------ Anyway while talking about ADQL, TAP and 
education, we have just finished 14 day workshop about observational 
techniques in Ondrejov - co-organized with Tautenburg observatory and 
Potsdam university - stellar astronomy group. The students were observing 
with our 2m telescope in Ondrejov, another 1.52m we have at La Silla and 
some smaller photometric here as well.

The students are wery skilled in processing data, analysis etc.... They 
are using TOPCAT in a skilled manner for doing cross-matches with gaia etc 
.... They used the ADQL (reading GAVO tutorial) with TAP button to query 
Gaia dr3 source, they even used the VO menu for accessing Vizier, but all 
of this was just like teaching e.g. Word or something like this. Simply if 
you want the change paragraph, you click here.

(if you want to use Vizier catalog, you must go to this strange VO window 
;-)


They did not yet hear anything about VO ! about the infrastructure, 
architecture and protocols . They dont know (but not only students, their 
tutors as well !) anything about principles, registry etc....

So when I explained them the very basics of VO (sending tables to Aladin 
or SPLAT, clicking on table rows to see both images and spectra of the 
object in them or querrying 10deg circle in LAMOST SSA (in splat) and 
sending it to Aladin to see individual fibre positions etc ......,
the students got excited about VO and required from me more info .


So I am afraid, that the discovery potential of young people is limited by 
unsufficient VO advertisements, still despite numerous summer schools, 
CASADIE etc workshops - the info is not delivered to the wider community.

So I see some (probably crazy) solutions which might help ...

1) Its time to revive the VO inside logo or VO-powered ....
We were joking about it some years ago, but I am sure it would attract the 
interest if it will be stamped to TOPCAT main page - perhaps on the About 
page (IMHO there are logos of sponsors but having the IVOA logo with link 
to web there would be good as well.

2) on the TOPCAT main page I would add - even in abstract - more accent on 
VO ...

So e.g. first sentence of abstract should read

TOPCAT is an Virtual observatory {supporting|compatible} interactive ...

(ideally the Virtual observatory should be link to IVOA web - best to
https://www.ivoa.net/about/what-is-vo.html

In Introduction section I would use

TOPCAT is an interactive graphical program which can examine, analyse, 
combine, edit and write out tables, obtained either locally, or from 
internet sources, including the powerful technology of global Virtual 
Observatory.

again the VO as a link to some relevant page.


I have learnt from my sons partly the way of thinking of current 
generation dependend on social networks.
They are accustomed to check all the buzzwords promissing some new 
powerful technology  etc .... (influence of technological marketing of 
google/Amazon ....) and they expect to have a link to read more behind 
this.

I understand that the massive self-promotion of VO is not compatible with 
our conservative way of humble scientific statements , and it may be hard 
to push through on the IVOA Exec, but at least the changes on the stuff 
you have under control might help a lot.

The same for Markus - the ADQL tutorial is nice and apparently used by 
many tutors who need to work with Gaia data (at least) , but IMHO also
here is nothing on VO - the Gaia web mentions TAP , ADQL but not where it 
stems from - nothing about VO, IVOA...

So IMHO, Markus your ADQL tutorial could have more accented the VO 
(explaining that ADQL is a companion of TAP - main part of VO technology 
etc .....

You have VO keywords in section 2 (data intensive science) and 4 (why SQL) 
but without any explanation and links ....

I talk about http://docs.g-vo.org/adql-gaia/html/
(it was recommended by the Potsdam tutors as a short and concise ADQL 
manual preferred to official gaia tutorial ......


Simply I think that with minimal effort of changing the current major 
applications, manuals and tutorials can be risen the VO-awareness of young 
generation and it would help  the VO community in getting more attention 
of scientist ...


Maybe I am naive but still hoping in it ....

Cheers, Petr



>
> For ADQL 2.1 services, the preferred cone search idiom now looks like
>
>   WHERE DISTANCE(t.ra, t.dec, 189, 62) < 0.01


*************************************************************************
*  Petr Skoda                         Tel   : (323) 649201, l. 361      *
*  Stelarni oddeleni                          (323) 620361              *
*  Astronomicky ustav AVCR, v.v.i     Fax   : (323) 620250              *
*  251 65 Ondrejov                    e-mail: skoda at sunstel.asu.cas.cz  *
*  Ceska republika                                                      *
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