IVOA website Andy comments on draft pages, 2010-05-09 ==================================================================== Button Pictures Members - I like the globe suggestion Deployers - I like the gears suggestion Astronomers - I like the original converging meteors suggestion, but we need to check credit/copyright. Or we pick any one of a million HST pictures.. ==================================================================== Banner/buttons Can the row of section-buttons go on top of the banner, to the right of the name ? This would give us more real estate. Possibly the Name bit could become the "home" link, so the only extra buttons are for About/members/deployers/astronomers ? ==================================================================== News etc on front page I am starting to feel more comfortable on the "front page clutter" issue. Probably the "keep it to five" suggestions solves it. But anwyay, we can show the with and without versions to the Exec and see what they think. I like the calendar by the way. Just hope this and the news stuff isn't too much to keep up. ==================================================================== Home page At the moment this reads too much like an "About page", and is a tad dry. Here is a suggested replacement paragraph. First, no need for a headline I think, just some brief friendly text. "The Virtual Observatory (VO) is the vision that astronomical datasets and other resources should work as a seamless whole. Many projects and data centres worldwide are working towards this goal. The International Virtual Observatory Alliance (IVOA) is an organisation that debates and agrees the technical standards that are needed to make the VO possible. It also acts as a focus for VO aspirations, a framework for discussing and sharing VO ideas and technology, and body for promoting and publicising the VO. If you want to learn more about the IVOA as an organisation, check out the "About" section. If you want to learn more about the VO from a user's point of view, including how to get at VO tools and services, read the "Astronomers" section. If you want to learn how to publish VO services, or write VO-compatible software, start by reading the "Deployers/Developers" section. Internal IVOA discussions are publicly viewable in the "Members" section." Then I would remove the four links below - they belong on the "About" page. ==================================================================== About Pages Structure The "About" button is inconsistent. From the home page, it goes to /ivoa/about/ which is a page with links to the "about" subsection. But once you go to one of those subsections, the About button goes to /ivoa/about.html which is a page explaining about the IVOA. I think my original description of structure was ambiguous, so here is a suggestion which could hopefully solve this confusion, and which could also be applied to the other sections. /ivoa/about/about-top.html is the page listing subsections and is always where the About button goes to. /ivoa/about/what-is-ivoa.html is the page currently called about.html /ivoa/about/what-is-vo.html is the "What is the VO" page etc. ==================================================================== About / Top Page Looks good, like the plain english descriptions. ==================================================================== About / What is the VO Here is a draft : The goal of the Virtual Observatory (VO) is most easily described by analogy with the World Wide Web. When browsing from one hyperlink to another, a user is able to access a huge range of documents. These are constructed by many different people and organisations, and spread all over the world, but to the user they feel as if they are inside her computer. The Web is transparent. The goal of the Virtual Observatory is to achieve the same feeling for astronomical data - that it is all available to explore in a single transparent system. Like the World Wide Web, the VO is not a fixed system, but rather a way of doing things. The VO allows astronomers to interrogate multiple data centers in a seamless and transparent way, provides new powerful analysis and visualization tools within that system, and gives data centers a standard framework for publishing and delivering services using their data. This is made possible by standardization of data and metadata, by standardization of data exchange methods, and by the use of a registry, which lists available services and what can be done with them. The long term vision is not one of a fixed specific software package, but rather one of a framework which enables data centers to provide competing and co-operating data services, and which enables software providers to offer a variety of compatible analysis and visualization tools and user interfaces. The first priority for the VO projects worldwide is to develop the standardized framework, which will allow such creative diversity. More about the VO from the Astronomer's point of view More about the VO from the Deployer's point of view ==================================================================== About / What is the IVOA The text still looks pretty good. Somebody might want to update later, but is fine for now. Most of the links in "additional information" now belong in other sections eg roadmap, participation, or deployers section etc. But we still want the first link (Hanisch and Quinn paper) and the third link (Quinn Lawrence and Hanisch paper). There could be room for something newer, but we will let that emerge in due course. ==================================================================== About / Who is involved Looks great. Miles nicer than the existing version. But can I take the opportunity please to rename "Virtual Observatory United Kingdom" to "AstroGrid Project (United Kingdom)" I see you are using Cold Fusion for dynamic content. The result is nice, but if I understand right, its not open source. Is there a lock-in danger here ? ==================================================================== About / Roadmap Since its formation in 2002, the IVOA can boast of a number of achievements : * Reaching truly world-wide cohesion in debating and agreeing key astronomical standards. The IVOA is endorsed by the International Astronomical Union (IAU) as the accepted method for producing astronomical data-related standards. Our standards are passed on to IAU Commission 5 for ratification. * Establishing a forum for discussing and debating astronomical data technology in general as well VO standards in particular. The twice yearly "Interoperability Meetings" have been a key feature in resolving international differences as well as sharing ideas and technology. * Rapid agreement on an initial set of basic standards - a table exchange format, a specification for simple catalogue and image query services, the definition of metadata describing resources, a dictionary for standardised column names, and a suite of standards allowing the construction of VO registries. Services complying with these initial standards are already deployed around the world. Also very successful has been the definition of a simple standardised way for applications to pass messages between each other, so they can collaborate smoothly on VO tasks. At the time of writing the IVOA has agreed a crucial new standard, the Table Access Protocol, which allows software to send flexible queries to a wide variety of databases. The IVOA is working hard on further standards, including those needed for virtual storage addressing, single sign on, semantic reasoning, grid and web service modularisation. Top-level Roadmap Documents * A Mission and Roadmap Statement 2002-2005 (June 10th 2002) (make a PDF out of http://www.ivoa.net/pub/info/Statement2002-2005.htm) * Status Report 2005 (May 2005) (make a PDF out of http://www.ivoa.net/pub/info/status2005.html) * Status Report 2010 (somebody should write one !!!) Technical Assessment and Roadmap Documents * The IVOA in 2005 : Assessment and Future Roadmap (August 2005) * The IVOA in 2006 : Assessment and Future Roadmap (June 2006) * The IVOA in 2007 : Assessment and Future Roadmap (June 2007) * The IVOA in 2008 : Technical Assessment and Roadmap (August 2008) * The IVOA in 2009 : Technical Assessment and Roadmap (October 2009) just use links to http://www.ivoa.net/Documents/latest/RoadMap.html http://www.ivoa.net/Documents/latest/RoadMap-2006.html http://www.ivoa.net/Documents/latest/IVOARoadMap-2007.html http://www.ivoa.net/Documents/latest/IVOARoadMap-2008.html http://www.ivoa.net/Documents/Notes/IVOATechRoadmap2009/ ==================================================================== About / Contacts Looks good, including tabulated links to member orgs and WGs. I found myself wondering whether we should list people's institutional affiliations. It might give more perspective, but on the other hand its nice and clean and simple just now. For the WG list, presumably the "page" links will go to an appropriate twiki page. ==================================================================== About / Participation Here is a draft : The IVOA welcomes participation, in several ways. * We strongly encourage universities, facilities, data centres, and astronomy projects worldwide to become involved as providers of data, services, information, and software, by following standardised VO methods and interfaces. To do this, there is no need to make a formal link to IVOA, but we welcome your input. * We encourage individuals to participate in the IVOA working groups that develop and agree standards, as well as the Interest Groups that discuss wider issues. Normally working group members are drawn from IVOA Member Projects, but we also welcome others, such as astronomers, technical staff, or developers at data centres or astronomical facilities. If you wish to participate as a Working Group or Interest Group member, please contact the appropriate chair (see working group contacts). * We welcome proposals for VO projects who wish to become members of IVOA. Our expectation is that development teams and data providers will organise themselves at national level, and that it is these national projects who will be members of IVOA. (For example, we do not normally expect that individual observatories will be member projects of IVOA.) It should be recognised that becoming a member project represents a serious committment to contribute to the VO in general and the IVOA in particular. If you are organising a project that you think should become a member project, please start by consulting the guidelines for participation, and then contact the current IVOA chair to discuss your proposal. Guidelines for Participation IVOA contacts Working Group contacts