EuroVO-DCA project: Information about the French Census of VO actions

• Action decided by the Scientific Council of the French VO (AS OV), in concertation with INSU
• Initial version of the census in 2005, update in 2006
• The calls were distributed through the directors of astronomy laboratories, the French VO mailing list, and the general email announcements of the French astronomical society (Société Française d'Astronomie et d'Astrophysique - SF2A ). The answers were sent to INSU and AS OV through the laboratory directors - to make sure that there were informed about the projects!

Information required in the 2006 census

• Project name (data centre, service, thematic centre, including data pipeline, ...)
• Laboratory; is the laboratory PI of the project?
• Person in charge in the laboratory
• Person in charge at the national or international level (if relevant)
• Short summary of the project (15 lines), including description of the type of service (archive, data analysis, support to scientific analysis, on-line service, methods/technologies, collaborations with IT, etc)
• Have you answered to the first census? If yes, summarize the evolutions since Febrary 2005
• Integration in VO (done, in progress, in project)
• Do you participate in IVOA activities? If yes, what is your contribution (standard definition, tool development, ...)?
• Role of the laboratory in the project
• Operational services produced by the project and their email address
• Is this activity linked to European or "Agence Nationale pour la Recherche" projects? If yes, which ones?
• National collaborations
• International collaborations
• Project schedule
• Origin of the project resources
• Inventory of staff and equipment
• Additional personnal needed

Excerpts of the covering letters translated into English (the originals can be found through the above links)

• Initial 2005 census

The Action Spécifique Observatoires Virtuels France (AS OV) makes an inventory of the 
French projects which participate or might participate to the Virtual Observatory in the 
astronomy, solar and space plasma physics, study of the planets, astroparticles. 
To be able to organise at bet the French participation to the Virtual Observatory, 
it is very important for us to get a complete view of potential actors.

• Census update in 2006

The Virtual Observatory development is a novel domain in rapid evolution at the national
and international levels. It arouses interest in most French laboratories. Community 
implication produces a wide diversity of on-going and proposed actions, which is a 
strength which will permit French laboratories to be present in a wide range of
services offered to the international community through the VO. It will be a weakness
if it leads to too many under-staffed actions.

We are still for some projects in conceptualisation or kick-off phases, others are near
consolidation, which is still more necessary because of the progress of European 
coordination, with the imminent signature of an agreement between Agencies 
for the development of Euro-VO (INSU will be the French partner), the 
installation of a European Science Advisory Group, and the start of 
the Data Centre Alliance Coordination Action, foreseen on September 
1st, 2006. The DCA will not provide resources to 
develop individual projects but will finance general actions.

AS OV role is to organise participation of the French community to the VO
developpement. It has supported the emergence of projects and will
continue to do so. It will also help consolidation. The evolution and European
schedule are such that we have to update the inventory of French projects
in a short delay.

A new inventory is thus launched, with the following objectives:
   . update the February 2005 census, to identify new actions and project
evolution
   . to prepare consolidation, in particular to identify possible synergies
   . to prepare French participation to the EuroVO-DCA, one of the first
actions of which is a census of European data centres.

The inventory covers all projects linked to the VO development, in their
diversity (archives, data analysis, support to scientific analysis of data, added-value
services, methods/technologies, collaborations with IT, etc).

-- FrancoiseGenova - 06 Oct 2006