Summary Notes of the Tenth Meeting of the JACoW Board of Directors
August 11, 2015
Present: Todd Satogata, Volker RW Schaa, Christine Petit-Jean-Genaz, Ivan Andrian, John Poole, Raphael Mueller,
Absent: Yongbin Leng
1) Approval of previous meeting notes
The notes of:
- JoB 08 Minutes approved (March 3 2015)
- JoB 09 Minutes approved (IPAC’15)
were approved and can be published.
2) Status of post-2014 TM activities/projects
Raphael has proposed a preliminary table showing activities and projects that are under way with names of responsible persons, deadlines, etc. He has included tasks summarized by Ronny Billen during the 2014 TM in Melbourne
The BoD agrees to this proposal. The table, following discussion during this BoD will be further refined, password protected and readable only to Team Members at JACoW.org. While all Team Members will have read access to the top level, only the BoD and the Project/Activity Managers will have write privileges and access to a drill down.
It is decided to exclude from the table the tasks that are software related and in SourceForge. The table could instead have a link to SourceForge and a text mentioning that software, etc. is tracked in SourceForge and not in this table. Feature Requests could be included, but not bugs.
The following summarises discussion on the list of projects/tasks. The BoD can comment between now and the next BoD, perhaps even by e-mail before that meeting prior to informing the Team.
Item 3: Update Website to ease finding TM presentations.
Chris proposes to follow up on Raphael’s suggestion that TM presentations are part of the wiki, which may be updated for the yearly presentations. This avoids having to update the documentation after each Team Meeting.
Action 1: Raphael will contact Charlie to discuss the issue
Action 2: Ivan to invite Charlie to the next BoD for further discussion
Item 4: Create a policy on publishing posters/talks as guidance for future editors:
This item actually concerns two distinct issues:
- Talks being found by the search engine on JACoW.org
- Publication of poster presentations, and their being found...
Part 1) was raised when it was found that talks were not showing up in searches on JACoW, but were showing up outside, because the hidden fields in the _talk files had not until now been populated by Volker’s scripts.
This omission has now been fixed in Volker's scripts, since it is clearly expected that if talks are processed in the Proceedings Office (at the request of the majority or all of the conferences), and have the approval of the speakers, then they should be published in the Conference Proceedings and of course be found in a search on JACoW.org. This was simply an omission, which has now been remedied.
Part 2) is a similar issue because posters have also until now been published without the hidden fields being populated, meaning they would not show up in a Search. However, since there is no clear policy about publication of posters, then the implications need to be understood. If it is expected that ALL contributions published in Proceedings should be found in a search on JACoW.org, then the JACoW rules for publication should stipulate that if a conference wishes to publish posters (as is their prerogative), then these too need to be processed, and have the hidden fields populated.
Since the extra effort involved in processing and populating the hidden fields in posters is not trivial, then conferences need to understand this and it is up to the conference to decide whether or not to publish posters. If they do decide to publish them, then this should be included in the guidelines for upload so all authors are aware of the policy.
Christine had been surprised to learn that some authors had uploaded posters to IPAC and that Volker's scripts had included them in the Proceedings, though it has never been IPAC policy to do so. Indeed she has always been opposed to such a policy for the simple reason that the processing of >1200 contributions requires a huge effort and the extra workload would be too great.
Todd agrees with Chris. Volker however feels that posters can have some added value and that Jim Sebek actually did the job himself for IBIC. He notes that he would however not have included a poster in the proceedings if a paper had not been uploaded.
The fact remains that the decision to publish posters lies with the conferences and that it should be clear in the Proceedings Office whether posters are desirable, and in which case they need to be processed and returnable by the search engine.
It has later been understood that ALL publications on JACoW.org are picked up by the Search engine, whether the hidden fields are populated, or not …
Action: Todd and Chris will write a policy that provides guidance to conferences concerning whether one publishes posters/talks, and how the search engine works with them.
Item 5: Connect JACoW profiles with ORCID
Volker has been following this for a while now. He has spoken to Matt, who was positive about the idea during the last TM. Matt is willing to add an additional field to JACoW profiles for ORCID IDs. There would be JACoW Profile IDs and an additional ORCID ID.
The INSPIRE people would like us to provide the SPMS Profile IDs and INSPIRE will provide JACoW with the ORCID IDs which could then be inserted in SPMS.
Action: Raphael will define this as a project with Volker and Matt as Managers.
Item 6: Add gender to the SPMS profile
It is agreed it is useful to have an indication of gender in the profiles, in particular for SPC when gender balance is carefully followed. An optional field may be added to profiles in SPMS.
Action: This item should go to SourceForge for development by Matt.
Item 7: Substitutes in the e-mail utility
In several screens in the SPMS different substitution fields sets are used. This needs to be standardised throughout the whole SPMS.
Action: This item should go to SourceForge for development by Matt.
Item 8: Add DOCM in the Central Repository as File Extension
Item 18: Investigate if new SPMS instances are properly propagated from central repository
The first issue has been understood and commented by Matt – and is now fixed.
But Volker is concerned some default values in the Central Repository are not correct in some conference instances. This essentially concerns file weights and thresholds. Christine is of the opinion that the problem is more likely to be the result of some “fiddling” by the Editor rather than a real problem with new instances.
Action: Ronny, Takashi and Matt to be asked to inform Volker every time a new instance is created so he can check file weights and thresholds to establish whether there is a problem when new instances are created.
Items 9, 10 and 11: These three items all concern templates
Jan had earlier volunteered to take review templates, procedures, etc. He should be officially invited to take on the role of Templates Manager, set up a Working Group, and report back to the BoD.
Action: Ivan will draft a procedure and discuss it with Jan.
Item 12: Advice for Editors on the policy for handling post-conference requests from authors for changes to conference Proceedings
As a rule, and unless there is excellent justification, we do not modify published proceedings. However, if there is a real error on JACoW's part, or if there is plagiarism, or if the modification is really important, a simple swap of one file may be allowed, though it does require extra work to produce a new PDF, and populate the "hidden" fields.
Note that in cases where the author list is different, meaning the re-running of the scripts over the totality of contributions, or where the number of pages changes, again meaning a re-calculation of page numbers, far more consideration is necessary and these cases should only be accepted under very serious justification.
Thus, if the Editor ran the scripts or prepared the final publishable version of the proceedings with hidden fields populated, he can, again under exceptional circumstances, provide a new file for replacement.
While thus we “normally” do not replace files, a pragmatic approach is necessary to evaluate the importance of the replacement, and the impact or effort. If the change is important, if the replacement of a file is straightforward, then a paper may be replaced in a discussion between the Editor and the Webmaster. Policy might be needed whereby changes with greater implications should be agreed by the BoD.
Action: John is willing to write a policy for publication on JACoW.org.
Items 13, 14 and 15: All three concern Acrobat
Items 14: Upgrade of Acrobat/Pitstop
Volker mentions that we are facing real problems with a move to a subscription model (Acrobat Document Cloud). Volker provides this about the possible costs:
Single license costs:
Subscription 14.99 USD annual payment 14.99 EUR
24.99 USD monthly payment
Desktop 449.00 USD 559.00 EUR
All prices are without VAT.
JACoW now have 10 licenses for Acrobat 9 (MAC) and 30 for Windows, a total of 40 licenses. Since new licenses are valid for both Mac and Windows, we need at least 35 licenses; the costs projection is as follow:
subscription 6300 EUR / 7493 EUR PER YEAR
desktop 20000 EUR / 23283 EUR -
We have used the current Acrobat 9 license for 5 years. We need to find out whether CERN might have special treatment with a 15% discount on over 1000 licenses.
A decision is going to be necessary. Probably within the coming year, since this is the last year we can buy a desktop version. There is normally a discount for Academic licenses.
Questions: Could Ronny check whether CERN is using the Subscription or the Desktop Model? What are the discounts? Could Todd find out what is the tax for the US versions?
Action: Volker will contact Ronny to see what is in use at CERN, and Todd should find out what is the tax for the US versions. Furthermore, Volker will try to have quotes from major laboratories in the three regions to understand how their software is bought, the cost, etc.
Items 13 and 15: Update and test of Acrobat/Pitstop and New Acrobat Version Comparison
The last problem is the testing of the new Acrobat versions to see whether they are OK for us. Todd is happy with Acrobat 11. This is functional and suffices for what we are doing. Volker says a number of things in later versions can now be done in both Acrobat and Pitstop.. He also feels Version 11 is OK. No need for a comparison (point 15). No problem either for Pitstop.
We do however need to update this year so for the next IPAC (IPAC'16) we will need a documentation that has been read and checked by a number of people by February/March next year.
Volker thinks Charlie Horak was willing to do some documentation on Acrobat. Ivan suggests that since David Button has several conferences this year he could do some testing/checking.
Action: Charlie to be asked to confirm her willingness to collaborate (Volker to contact her). With her agreement, Charlie and David Button to then be asked to work together.
Item 18: Are new SPMS instances properly propagated from the Central Repository?
See under 8 above.
Items 19 and 20: Organize meeting with InDiCo/Feature comparison between InDiCo and SPMS
See below under Agenda item 3).
Item 21: Team Meeting Synoptic Table
See under Agenda item 4) below.
3) Status and Future Actions about Indico/SPMS integration Project
Recalling earlier discussions, and in particular a mail from Ronny concerning his contacts with CERN on a collaboration to integrate SPMS and InDiCo, some action is now required to move further. Ronny proposed the preparation of a 10 or 15 page report for CERN Management, outlining such a project. Ivan suggests this report might be prepared as a basis for discussion during this year's TM where at least a half day session should be foreseen. Based on the discussions, a technical specification would be prepared following this meeting.
Ivan further notes that there is a possibility to obtain some manpower/financing via the CERIC/ERIC Central European Research Initiative hosted at Elettra.
Action 1: Raphael to enter this in the list of projects. Ivan will follow the details.
Action 2: Christine to include this in the TM agenda, to be scheduled during the initial Development and Superusers part and to invite the InDiCo people to take part.
4) Planning for next TM
Christine reports on the current status of discussion with the INFN/Legnaro people. We have some preliminary information. The laboratory is currently closed during August. Discussions will continue in September on the local arrangements concerning meeting rooms, accommodation, social events, registration, etc. In the meantime she will send Ivan and Stefano the information currently available to publish at the JACoW.org site. She will prepare a synoptic table to provide an overview of the schedule prior to setting up an SPMS instance.
Action: Christine to pursue arrangements for the TM as well as a synoptic table with preliminary programme.
5) AOB
The next BoD meeting could take place in October. It is noted that Raphael will be away until 4 October, and that Volker leaves on 10 October to Shanghai. The window might thus be between 5 and 9 October.
