IVOA Roadmap for 2014B

This outlines the roadmap for development activities by the various IVOA working and interest groups in 2014 between the Banff and Sesto Interops.

Applications

Data Access Layer

Data Model

Grid and Web Sevices

Registry

RegTAP

We'll provide a 1.0 version for Exec approval in November. No major issues turned up.

Identifiers

We plan to issue an essentially minor (but major for technical reasons) update of the Identifiers recommendation; it will remove the obsolte XML form of identifiers and add text on the recommended forms for standard and dataset identifiers, together with a thorough treatment on the whys and hows. ETA is November.

Registry Interface and RegTAP

With RegTAP becoming REC, the Registry Interfaces document will need revision. There is a working draft on volute that retains the standard OAI protocol for harvesting from publishing registries, but it will remove the search capabilities and instead refer to standards like RegTAP and a planned keyword search interface.

We'll migrate this to ivoatex and provide an internal working draft by December.

Keyword Search

The Paris group continues to develop their prototype for a keyword-based search interface to the Registry. We will work towards making an internal working draft laying out the interface.

VOEventRegExt

While the actual authoring a registry extension for VOEvents, VOEventRegExt, is in the hands of GWS, RWG will continue to work closely with the authors.

Registry Metadata for Footprints

The RWG will continue to have discussions and evolve the current standards infrastructure in support of metadata for footprint descriptions, i.e. spatial regions of coverage. The advancement in the MOC standards definition will be evaluated in the context of footprint representation for support of applications in development of data discovery.

What we would eventually like to see is a facility for all-VO searches over footprints and other STC coverages within the Registry.

Alternative Identifier Schemes

For reasons lying in their design, IVORNs are not ideal for use in data citations. It would, however, be very desirable if with registration came citeability. We will therefore investigate ways in which registered services could be assigned DOIs in some controlled fashion. Parallel to this, we need to investigate ways in which alternative identifier schemes can be integrated into the Registry to allow managing the mapping between IVORNs and non-IVRON aliases.

Registry Operations and Curation

The RWG also keeps monitoring the health of the registry system as a whole, working with the operators of the publishing registries to resolve problems as they crop up; as resources permit, we also advise data providers on improving their registry records.

And of course, the RWG is the framework in which the various operators of, in particular, searchable registries provide their services.

-- MarkusDemleitner - 2014-06-26

Semantics

Data Curation & Preservation

Knowledge Discovery in Databases

Theory

Education

Time Domain

The SimpleTimeSeries Endorsed Note will be put to the RFC period following the Banff meeting. The VOEventRegExt document will be revised based on comments in the session and a new draft put out to the IG once all comments and concerns by the Registry group have been addressed. Similarly, the VOEvent Transport Protocol will be recirculated for final comments before being put up for RFC. The intent is that all three documents will be in RFC or ready for approval by the Sesto meeting.

Members of TDIG will attend the Hotwired IV meeting in Santa Barbara next May and will report back to the IVOA in Sesto.

Standard and Processes

Science Priorities