Dayle Kotturi
Gemini 8m Telescopes Project, 950 N. Cherry Ave., Tucson AZ 85719
The new generation of 21st century 8m ground-based telescopes requires a new model of proposal submission. The proposal submission tool must be globally accessible and provide an efficient mechanism to create a proposal and submit it for review. Global accessibility is dependent on network availability and connection time should be minimized to reduce this dependency. The efficiency of the tool is optimized by implementing checks which ensure that the proposal is complete before it reaches the reviewers. This saves the reviewers from having to contact the astronomer for additional information and the astronomer is assured that her/his proposal will not be rejected for its incompleteness.
The Gemini Phase 1 Science Proposal Entry Tool is a platform-independent software program which is downloaded from the web to reside on the astronomer's local machine. During the creation of a science proposal, no network connection is required. Input is entered through a Graphical User Interface (GUI) which consists of a series of pages. The astronomer can, for the most part, page around the GUI entering the information in any order. However, in some cases, data that determines what is displayed on other pages must be entered before advancing to the next page. Local saves and prints of the proposal can be made at any time. Also, the tool can reload an existing proposal so that the astronomer can work on a proposal over several sittings. Completed pages are indicated on a floating screen separate from the main GUI. When the astronomer is ready to submit the proposal, the file is verified for completeness. If complete, it is submitted to the National Time Allocation Committee via ftp.
Appears in Proc. SPIE 3349, "Observatory Operations to Optimize Scientific Return".
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