The following notes were taken by Elizabeth Rye. Corrections are welcome.

Planetary Data System Standards Teleconference
8 June 2005 9-11 AM

Participants:

Steve Adams (EN)

Mitch Gordon (RINGS)

Ed Guinness (GEO)

Steve Joy (PPI)

Ron Joyner (EN)

Sean Kelly (EN)

Todd King (PPI)

Anne Raugh (SBN)

Elizabeth Rye (EN)

Dick Simpson (RS)

Susie Slavney (GEO)

Quick status report on the MeetingPlace interface. (Sean Kelly)

• The results of testing the MeetingPlace interface over the past week have not been good. The telephone part of the system works well, but the browser based part does not. Basically, those on Windows machines, using a recent version of Internet Explorer, or on OSX (panther (10.3) or tiger (10.4)) with a recent version of Safari, are okay. Most others lack the capability to do Application sharing, including white boarding and annotating presentations.

• Sean's recommendation for us is to convert our presentations into PDF format, and include page numbers in the presentations. When talking through the presentation, keep people in sync by stating which page you are on. For those who can use MeetingPlace, powerpoint slides would still work.

• Susie recommended that we not use this interface for our weekly telecons, but that when we have a full-blown tech session over the phone, the attendees make an attempt to find workable interfaces or gather in groups in order to make the system work.

• In the meantime, we will have a small prototype group keep an eye on the technology to see if the browser capabilities are catching up sufficiently that MeetingPlace will become effective in the future.

SCR 3-1006 Directory Naming Conventions

The SCR, as written, will be modified in the following ways:

• Correct "18.3" in the SCR to "8.3"

• Rather than providing a lot of new text in 10.1.2 regarding syntax rules for directories, modify text to simply refer readers back to section 8.2

• Remove the final sentence of the first paragraph in section 10.1.1

• Fix the third paragraph in chapter 10

• Update the SCR's impact statement to reflect this is a positive impact

• Consider updating 8.2 to indicate that 8 character lengths are still preferred to 31

• Re-read all of chapters 8 and 10 to verify no more inconsistencies.

• Elizabeth will re-write SCR and send to Todd for review. If okay, it will be voted on at next meeting.

SCR 3-1001 Add SEARCH_NOTE as a Data Element

The general consensus was that adding this keyword to labels would not fix the problem it was designed to solve, that of enabling a Google-type search on PDS data. (Fundamentally, there is no practical way of implementing it.) It was noted that SBN data may be unique enough that they will need to implement a node-specific solution to their search problems. Some lukewarm interest was expressed in continuing to discuss how to enable these types of text-based searches, but no one volunteered to be on a tiger team.

SCR 3-1004 Wavelength Regime

The consensus on this SCR was that adding an INSTRUMENT_DETECTOR object to the INSTRUMENT catalog object will provide little value for searching. This mechanism would provide the entire wavelength range of an entire data set, which is of little use when searching for specific data products within a specific range. A counter suggestion was made to provide individual wavelength keywords in each product (sample values: IR, FAR-IR, etc). The idea of making them required was firmly rejected.

Since MINIMUM_WAVELENGTH and MAXIMUM_WAVELENGTH keywords already exist, it was suggested that no further action is needed since teams can already include these keywords in their product labels. However, since the impetus for this SCR is cross-correlative searches, it was generally recognized that there is a need to standardize values for the keywords across data sets.

Furthermore, not all disciplines use the same nomenclature for identifying the wavelength regime they are interested in. Some like to use numerical measurements of wavelength (eg. Angstroms); while others favor general regimes (eg. IR, NIR). Other disciplines abandon wavelength entirely in favor of frequency or energy.

In general, the nodes interested in each regime are as follows:

wavelength:

GEO

IMG

SBN

RS possibly

frequency:

RS

PPI

SBN possibly

energy:

PPI

SBN possibly

Finally, Todd pointed out that there is a recent ISO document standardizing the names for various wavelength regimes:

ISO 21348 Definitions of Solar Irradiance Spectral Categories http://www.spacewx.com/pdf/SET_21348_2004.pdf

(If you have any difficulty downloading this document, please contact Todd directly.)

Dick pointed out that the radio community uses these conventions, as well as including five additional categories at frequencies below 3 MHz.

Action is for Elizabeth to attempt to write a greatly simplified version of this SCR standardizing use of the wavelength, frequency, and/or energy keywords to assist with correlative searches.

Discussion on Keyword Approval Process

• Change process diagram to reflect the DNs are the primary mission interface, and DN interface to EN (i.e., no direct interface between mission and EN data engineers).

• The DNs act as first line of defense in vetting candidate keywords submitted to the PDS.

• DNs would like to receive an email notification when a keyword is submitted (at the time that the DN hands the keyword off to the EN); this will be accomplished using the existing subscription service.

• The DNs are expected to respond via email, whether or not they approve, to the keyword-coordindator (at the EN); if the DN fails to respond, they will be reminded of their responsibility by phone and/or email after the 1st week.

• The DNs are responsible for responding within 2 weeks of receiving the email notification. The keyword-coordinator will review the set of DN concerns (if any are generated) and will make a judgement call as to whether or not the concerns warrant a broader discussion about the keyword. Concerns need not mean rejections; simply the desire to have a broader discussion about the keyword.

• DN failure to provide input will be regarded as tacit approval.

• This process is not intended for local data dictionaries.

• Missions must be held to better schedule; the necessity for turnarounds less than 1 week should be extremely rare

Elizabeth will revise the diagram (or more likely re-write it as a policy document, with noted updates). Revised process will be reviewed at next telecon.

Announcements:

• Send DN input to Steve Joy on generic INSTRUMENT_TYPE keyword (i.e., standard values) - by July 1st (Note that these are intended to be generic, not specific, instrument categorizations.)

• Elizabeth will send out email requesting feedback on each participant's summer schedule, so as to plan upcoming meetings.

• Many pages on Standards Coordination web site don't load properly because the images were loaded from the old server; I am in the process of fixing these.

Agenda for future meetings:

• directory naming conventions: ~June 15
• keyword approval process review: ~June 15
• standards process discussion: ~June 15
• generic instrument_type SCR: ~July 6

Miscellaneous:

• Elizabeth will fix links on Standards page to SCRs for next telecon