Judith - I'm forwarding your followup to the mailing list, so others can comment. LM

Date: Fri, 02 Dec 2005 14:54:40 -0500 From: Judith Utley <jputley@earthlink.net> Subject: Re: [pgs-rg] GGF16 (Athens) Activities? To: Laura F McGinnis <lfm@psc.edu>, david.wallom@ierc.ox.ac.uk Cc: jputley@mac.com Reply-to: jputley@earthlink.net X-Accept-Language: en-us, en User-Agent: Mozilla Thunderbird 1.0 (Windows/20041206) X-Spam-Status: No, score=-2.6, required=5, tests=BAYES_00,SPF_HELO_PASS X-Scanned-By: MIMEDefang 2.52 on 128.182.58.100

Laura F McGinnis wrote:

...

Real life is interfering with extracurriculars for me right now, so I apologize for not getting GGF15 materials poster in a more timely manner. But...GGF16 planning is already starting, so we need to talk about what we want to do in Athens.

At the business meeting at GGF15, we discussed the possibility of having a Grid Accounting/Usage Tracking workshop for the Community program. Time constraints have not been supportive of preparing this, so we will have to table this activity for a later GGF.

The one activity we definitely want to followup on is the idea of spinning off a Campus Grids RG. I propose we request a BOF at GGF16, with the goal of gauging interest in the European projects for such an organization. We already know from the GGF15 workshop that there is significant interest in the US. To this end, we need a draft charter to submit when we request the session.

Just an FYI: All the folks I talked with at GGF15 who were interested in this were looking more at a regional alternative such as Geoffrey Fox brought up at GGF14. Now that I am in this area, I am finding that it is very hard at most public universities to get funding for international travel UNLESS the person is presenting a technical paper at a technical conference and then only one a year at most. I have been told that in VA such requests must be approved at a very high level. There is also the budget concerns for overseas travel. Most state universities just do not have that level of funding unless they have it though a grant. So this is likely to be only professors and then only if they give a talk. I know that Ed Seidel travels from a state of LA institution, but he also associated with a German institution as is one on his staff. It might be that LA has an entirely different policy than VA. An example, NC would not allow folks to travel even to Atlanta (which should have been a very reasonable drive!) due to Hurricane Katrina. Why this was the case they could not figure out, nor can I. NC was not involved in Katrina at all. LA sent people. Go figure. Anyway to summarize, not much any of us can do about state policies. What I was thinking was to start something completely in the USA that would team up with PGS when GGF is in the states, and try to meet some other times during the year at a host university or around a widely attended conference/workshop outside of GGF. This was well received. This is also not to say that Europe and Asia could not do the same and coordinate any joint activity through PGS. It seems to me that the folks from Asian and European are able to travel more freely. Not to say that if such a 'regional' research group in those countries would not have many more attendees at the 'off' GGF meetings. What I was talking to folks about was NOT taking away from PGS, but enhancing with the 'regional' meetings. If GGF would not be supportive of this, then the 'off' GGF meeting could be called something different and we just all show up at the in USA GGF meetings and attend PGS. :^) As I said, I heard Geoffrey bring this up in relationship with K-12 at GGF14 and it just made sense to me that this would be a very good fit for USA higher education as well. So I asked around at GGF15 and found many who thought this was a great idea, but they will not likely be in Athens for all the above noted reasons. If you heard about this and thought I was undercutting PGS it was certainly not my intentions. I think it would more likely improve PGS attendance, especially if there were 3 or more 'regional' groups to gather ideas and feed into PGS. We could divide up, you keep PGS since the website is at your site and Teragrid is not really a campus grid. David handle Europe and me USA (if I am still at a university by GGF18), find someone for Asia. Have the BOF at Athens for the European 'branch', another BOF in Japan for the Asian 'branch' and a BOF at GGF18 for the USA. My thoughts anyway.

... -- Judith

...

We should also request an RG working session for a business meeting. This will primarily focus on the activities the group needs to follow up on, and make commitments for future GGF conferences, including planning future workshops.

If there's anything else you would like to see the group address in Athens, please post to the list.

thx LM

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Laura F. McGinnis, Project Coordinator Data & Information Resource Services Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center email: lfm@psc.edu 4400 Fifth Avenue, # 409D voice: 412-268-5642 Pittsburgh, PA 15213 fax: 412-268-8200 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

--

Judith Utley jputley@earthlink.net 757.868.8345

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Laura F. McGinnis, Project Coordinator Data & Information Resource Services Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center email: lfm@psc.edu 4400 Fifth Avenue, # 409D voice: 412-268-5642 Pittsburgh, PA 15213 fax: 412-268-8200 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ ...