IVOA Roadmap for the 2024B time span

This outlines the roadmap for development activities by the various IVOA Working and Interest Groups between the November 2024 (Malta) and June 2025 (Maryland) Interops.

Working Groups

Applications WG

• Standardization VOTable 1.5
  • note on usage of MiVOT

• Parquet support
  
  • Note is available at ( https://www.star.bristol.ac.uk/mbt/voparquet/voparquet.html) awayting comments from users until the end of the year.
  • Made a call for prototype implementations (TOPCAT/STILTS/STIL available, CADC TAP in the works, others?). Progress at: https://wiki.ivoa.net/twiki/bin/view/IVOA/ParquetInAstronomy
  • TCG Endorsed Note? What are the requirements?

• HIPS
  • extension of usage for large catalogs (Healpix for catalogs)
  • extension for 3D HIPS

• MOC
  • Evolution on MOC usage versus s-region

Data Access Layer WG

Primary

• DALI

  • Polygon definition clarification

  • Add format: Parquet

  • PR-1.2 by June 2025

• TAP

  • WD-1.2 by June 2025 (mainly OpenAPI document (context: P3T))

  • Note about User managed persistent tables by June 2025

• ADQL

  • Erratum to remove boolean support from the BNF in ADQL-2.1

  • WD-2.2 by June 2025 (PEG grammar only)

• Conesearch

  • Modernize required UCDs (UCD 1.0-> UCD 1+)

  • RESPONSEFORMAT, MAXREC

  • Allow services to reject unknown parameters

  • WD-1.1 by June 2025 (PR pending validators and implementations)

• ObjObsSAP

  • Make its new name official on the IVOA-Docs page

  • Status about existing implementations

  • PR-1.0 by June 2025

• Datalink

  • Start WD-1.2

    • Get a solution to provide data across multiple locations

• DAP (Data Access Protocol)

  • SIAP-2.0 into DAP

  • Gregory D.-F. become the 2nd Editor with Pat D.

  • Proceed with renaming, expansion of supported data product types

  • Miscellaneous changes

  • WD-1.0 by Nov. 2025

• LineTAP

  • Species table with molecules and InCHI codes

  • Second implementation expected for 2025

  • PR once 2nd implementation available - 2025

• SODA

  • Return extended metadata

  • New transformation types

  • WD-1.1 by 2026

• ADQL

  • 2.3 - support INTERVAL, MOC and arrays, and review the optional status of some features

Data Model WG

Distributed Services Protocols WG

Registry WG

• CURRENT FOCUS
  • Work towards adoption of PR VOResource-1.2 (in RFC from 2024-11-17)
    • https://wiki.ivoa.net/twiki/bin/view/IVOA/VOResource12RFC
  • Investigate "Serving Simulated Data in VO Services/Collections"
    • cf https://wiki.ivoa.net/internal/IVOA/InterOpNov2024DAL/DAL_at_IRSA_Laity.pdf
    • Open question: reuse SSAP datasources for VODataService ?
  • Support data publishers towards filling coverage information as MOCs in publishing registries according to REC RegTAP -1.2
  • Participate in "alternative links" in DataLink effort with DAL WG to publish cloud-based data products cf https://github.com/ivoa-std/DataLink/issues/117. Also investigate with GWS WG if necessary to have such metadata in the Registry.
  • Prepare future RegTAP -1.3 to facilitate searching by product type served after VODataService -1.3

• STANDARDS IN PROGRESS
  • VODataService -1.3 (editor: MD) "A VOResource Schema Extension for Describing Collections and Services"
    • https://github.com/ivoa-std/VODataService
    • Status: WD https://ivoa.net/documents/VODataService/20241113/index.html
      • adding a productTypeServed element child to to DataService
      • working on mechanism to discover simulated data
  • DocRegExt -1.0 (editor: MD) "Educational Resources in the Virtual Observatory"
    • https://github.com/ivoa-std/DocRegExt
    • Status: WD https://ivoa.net/documents/DocRegExt/20230426/index.html
  • StandardsRegExt -1.1 (editor: RS) "A VOResource Schema Extension for Describing IVOA Standards"
    • https://github.com/ivoa-std/StandardsRegExt
    • Status: WD https://ivoa.net/documents/StandardsRegExt/20240125/index.html

• CONTINUOUS WORK
  • Implementation: Continue developing and maintaining the new PyVO Registry search and discovery API
  • Curation and Validation: setup a hackathon and project board to correct Registry issues at College Park Interop in June 2025
  • On-boarding Effort: Prepare and fund a workshop to discuss and disseminate best practices for registry publishing
  • Continue discussions on “Linking capabilities with tablesets” (cf https://wiki.ivoa.net/internal/IVOA/202404InteropRegistry/InterOpMay2024Reg_linking_capabilities_tablesets.pdf)
  • Continue involvement with DCP IG, esp. on the note “Data Origin and the VO” https://www.ivoa.net/documents/DataOrigin/

Semantics WG

Interest Groups

Data Curation Preservation IG

• Draft for a DOI note planed to next IVOA
• Promote BIBvo: discussion for an endorsed note?
• Promote DataOrigin. Add DataOrigin in astroquery, pyvo
• investigate the interaction between data retention and AI ?

Education IG

High Energy IG

• ObsCore continuation - work to get a concrete recommendation to move this forward
• VOEvent - followup/continuation from the side-meeting we had in Malta; form a plan
• DataModel /Event List/High Energy data formats - pursue next steps

Knowledge Discovery IG

• following the Malta KDD-GWS joint session and its discussion about AI impact on IVOA standards,continue to interact with IVOA WGs/IGs through the gathering of experiments and knowledge in the AI frame
• reflect the state of the scientific and technological art in AI to the VO community
• Investigate standards for multimodal astronomical AI-ready data

Operations IG

Ongoing activity:

• Monitor VO health:
  • Coordinate "weather reports" (service compliance)
• Address non-compliancy:
  • Identify common/persistent errors
  • Support/encourage service operators to improve service compliance
  • Work with WGs on standards-related issues
• Validation:
  • Ensure validators are available (IvoaValidatorsSummary)
  • Encourage use of validators:
    • on deployed services
    • during standard development
• Communication:
  • Provide forum for discussion of operational issues
  • Host/invite "site reports"
  • Encourage feedback communication between ops services and data providers

• Work with DAL on standards issues:
  • ConeSearch: UCD1+
  • DALI: Sexagesimal markup standards
  • SSA: A couple of Errata suggested
• Push for service metadata improvements:
  • VOUnits, UCDs
• Operations in the cloud
• Security in VO services
  • Encourage TAP validators developers to add checks for sql injection susceptibility
• Authentication as an operational necessity
• User agents used in VO services clients

Radio IG

Solar System IG

Time Domain IG

Committees

Standard and Processes

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investigate the interaction between data retention and AI