Communication in the ARC network The cornerstone of the network “Communication in the ARC network”, ARC network review, January 14-15, 2015, ESO-Garching

Three dedicated people at ESO European ARC Manager (Paola Andreani) – Responsible for the ESO ARC – Coordination of the creation of the network, overseeing its successful operation – Link between the ALMA Director’s Office and ESO management ARC nodes Liaison (Martin Zwaan) – Responsible for all matters related to the nodes – Works closely with the ARC Manager ARC network coordinator (Evanthia Hatziminaoglou) – Contact person for Contact Scientists – Responsible for maintenance of documents and means of communication

Methods of interaction Mailing lists – ArcNodesAll: all EU ARC network staff – ArcNodesReps: ARC nodes representatives + ESO ARC Manager, Liaison & Coordinator Twiki – Who is who, network Organisation, quality assurance, user support, meetings, documents, training events, everything really Monthly Telecons – ARC nodes representatives, 1 st Monday of each month Face-to-face meetings – ARC nodes representatives, once per year, location among nodes – All ARC staff, once per year, location rotating among nodes Helpdesk & JIRA – Helpdesk is mostly used for communication between the project and the community but sometimes also used internally to report and track issues – JIRA is used for internal (project) communication Visits to the nodes – ESO ARC manager, Liaison and or Coordinator visit the nodes s, telephone calls, skype, google site

Mailing Lists ArcNodesAll: information relevant to all ARC nodes staff is communicated to this mailing list (e.g., meetings, events, ALMA- related announcement etc) ArcNodesReps: information regarding ALMA policies, network organisational matters etc Hosted and maintained at ESO, updated for every staff movement

TWiki Hosted and maintained at ESO, with the contribution of the nodes Twiki organised in Webs; Users organised in Groups

TWiki

Monthly telecons One-hour telecons, held on the 1 st Monday of each month (frequency regarded as optimal by the nodes) ARC nodes representatives and other interested parties from the nodes + ESO + CoE representative + EOC Agenda prepared a few days in advance; ESO and nodes fill in their sections – Commissioning updates – General ALMA news – ALMA status – Operations updates – Reports from the nodes (including ESO) Chaired by ESO (was rotating among the nodes in the past) Opportunity to raise issues, discuss (and solve) problems, suggest changes and improvements etc

Face-to-face meetings ARC nodes representatives; latest was May 2014 – ARC network updates – Updates on ALMA construction and development – Update on EOC and Science Verification – ARC nodes participation in EOC – Future of the ARC network – ARC nodes medium-term plans – Other matters of general interest

Face-to-face meetings ‘All hands’ (formerly ‘ARC Retreat’), latest was September 2014 – Status report on ALMA and Cycle 3 – ARC nodes activities – EOC and Science Verification – QA2 and Pipeline – Future of the ARC network – Cycle 3 and other developments – Phase 2 – Archival matters – Science!

Face-to-face meetings

Helpdesk & JIRA Helpdesk is used to communicate with the community, sometimes also used for internal issues (usually technical) – All ARC staff have helpdesk staff accounts – Each node has an account with ‘special’ privileges – Helpdesk is run at ESO, i.e. ticket distribution (aka ‘triage’), administration (e.g. staff account creation), answering user queries (but sometimes tickets are dispatched to the nodes) JIRA system – Communication inside the project (e.g. communication between the Phase 2 Group and the Contact Scientists (CS); bug tracking, OT developments) – All ARC nodes staff that participate in QA2 or act as CS have JIRA accounts

Visits to the ARC nodes ESO ARC manager, ARC Liaison and/or network Coordinator visit the nodes when specific needs arise Visits are often connected to other events We should establish a more regular visiting schedule

Challenges Information flow – Not all information is readily available even to ESO – Pieces of information sometimes missing – Keeping up with ARC nodes staff movements – Keeping everybody up to speed – Try and keep misunderstandings to a minimum and resolve rapidly those that arise Trust – Difficult to build – easy to destroy – Everybody needs to feel part of the project Implementation of new means of communication – Videocons, direct lines Views on communication vary within the network