From G. Tue Jun 8 14:14:15 1993 From: G. (G.) Date: 8 JUN 1993 14:14:15 Subject: [IGSMAIL-268] Baltimore Oversight Committee Meeting Message-ID: IGS Electronic Mail 8-JUN-1993 14:14:15 Message Number 268 *********************************************************************** >From: G. Beutler Subj: Baltimore Oversight Committee Meeting ------------------------------------------- *************************************************************************** *** Summary of the 5th *** *** 5TH IGS Oversight Committee Meeting in Baltimore *** *************************************************************************** 5th IGS Oversight Committee Meeting in Baltimore ------------------------------------------------ Only two months after the 4th IGS Oversight Committee Meeting in Berne the 5th Meeting took place in Baltimore on 27 and 28 May, 1993 during the 1993 AGU Spring Meeting. Despite the very short time interval between the two meetings progress was made in different areas. Let me briefly summarize the important results of the meeting below. 1. Future Meetings --------------- David Boal and Jan Kouba from Energy, Mines and Resources Canada kindly agreed to host a small IGS workshop with the emphasis on the routine IGS processing (Global Analyses) in the week of 12 October 1993. The main topic of the participants invited to the workshop will be the coordination of the analysis as performed at the IGS processing centers. The precise time frame and the set-up will be defined later by Jan Kouba and Clyde Goad (analysis Center Coordinator). Martine Feissel from the Observatoire de Paris offered to organize a combined IERS/IGS workshop in Paris in spring 1994 (21 - 26 March 1994) in collaboration with the French Institut Geographique National. It is planned to reserve the first two days (Monday and Tuesday) for IERS, the third will cover both, IERS and IGS topics, the last two days (Thursday and Friday) are reserved for IGS. It is of course planned to schedule meetings for the IERS Directing Board and the (future) IGS Governing Board during this week (possibly also on Saturday, 26 March). The chairman thanked David Boal, Jan Kouba, and Martine Feissel for their willingness to organize the next IGS workshops. 2. The Terms of Reference ---------------------- The Terms of Reference were iterated several times between the Berne and the Baltimore IGS Meetings. In Baltimore they were finally accepted as the official document to be sent to the IAG. There was one substantial change: instead of having two coordinatores (an Analysis Center Coordinator and a Product Coordinator) it was decided to have only one coordinator, called Analysis Center Coordinator, who will be responsible for both, Analysis Center coordination and product coordination (in particular the combination of the processing center's products into a single set of products). It was furthermore discussed whether or not this coordinator should be included in the Governing Board. After this revision the Terms of Reference were accepted by a vast majority of the 16 IGS Oversight Committee members present at the Baltimore meeting. 3. Confirmation of Participation,Election of the Voting Members of the future Governing Board ------------------------------------------------------------ The chairman informed the Oversight Committee that all major institutions which participated in the 1992 IGS Test Campaign also confirmed their participation in the future official IGS by either answering the letter sent out on 31 March, 1993 or by giving verbal committment to be followed by a formal letter in the near future. A list of all confirmed participating institutions will be distributed by IGS Mail in the near future. The IAG representative in the Oversight Committee, Prof. Ivan I. Mueller, then presented the nominations for six members of the future IGS Governing Board (the three other members will not be elected, but either be appointed (IERS- and IAG- representatives) or be an "ex officio" voting member of the Governing Board (director of the Cenral Bureau)). The situation was "cristal clear" (Ivan's words) for the processing center representatives: Gerhard Beutler, Yehuda Bock, and Jan Kouba (in alphabeitc order) got clear majorities. The picture was not so clear in the case of the data centers (1 representative) and of the network (2 representatives). In accordance with the just adopted Terms of Reference it was therefore decided to consider the three processing center representatives as elected, whereas the data center- and network- representatives were elected at the meeting. It was also necessary to define the term-lengths for the elected members. The result is as follows: Elected Voting Members of the First IGS Governing Board _____________________________________________________________ Name Representing Organization Term Length _____________________________________________________________ Gerhard Beutler Proc. Center AIUB, Switzerland 4 years Yehuda Bock Proc. Center SIO, U.S.A. 2 years Jan Kouba Proc. Center EMR, Canada 2 years Carey Noll Data Center CDDIS, U.S.A. 4 years John Dow Network ESA, Germany 2 years Bjoern Engen Network ST-K, Norway 4 years _____________________________________________________________ AIUB : Astronomical Institute, University of Bern SIO : Scripps Institution of Oceanography EMR : Energy, Mines and Resources, Canada CDDIS: Crustal Dynamics Data Information System ESA : European Space Agency St-K : Statens Kartverk, Norway Nomination letters and election ballots have been deposited with the Central Bureau and are available for inspection from Ruth Neilan. 4. Central Bureau Activities ------------------------- Ruth Neilan presented the hardcopy version of the Newsletter recently sent out by IGS Mail. She also informed about the the state of the network, and about the state of assembling the IGS site catalogue. This document was iterated several times and will now be sent to all network/station responsibles. It is assumed that this catalogue will become available (e-mail and hardcopy) in the near future. 5. Epoch related Events -------------------- Peter Morgan developed his ideas concerning (a) the definition of an IGS polyhedron and (b) the next Epoch campaigns. It was first decided that no official Epoch Campaign should be organized in 1993 (the schedules of the participating organizations would not allow that). Peter then strongly supported the idea of organizing an official IGS Epoch Campaign around August 1994. The decision was postponed to autumn 1993. The IGS Oversight Committee is fully aware of the necessity to have fiducial stations in large numbers for regional geodynamics purposes. It is also fully aware of the increasing number of (either permanently or temporarily occupied) GPS sites. It was argued that the IGS should be aware of such activities (by maintaining catalogues at the network centers including site lists and an index of the acual observations) but that it would not make sense to concentrate the observations from all these sites at the global data centers. Regional organizations have to be in charge for the actual organization. But, in order to avoid mistakes made in the past, the announcement of a future Epoch Campaign by the IGS Oversight Committee must be accompanied by a list of fiducial sites that are expected to be observed. It may be appropriate to recruit these Fiducial Sites from the growing number of permanent regional sites. Additional fiducial sites of course may be added by regional organizations. Let me add that from my point of view it is neither necessary, nor may it be justified, to let these data (we are talking about 100 to 200 sites here) flood the global data centers. The issue needs to be settled in the near future. 6. Action Items ------------ - the proposal for the official establishment of the IGS on 1 January 1994 will be sent to IAG in June 1993. - the proceedings of the Bern IGS workshop will be finished in June. - the plan for the fiducial sites has to be prepared. - after having the first reactions from IAG (expected around the Beijing meeting) a last Oversight Committee Meeting will have to be organized to get ready for the 1 January 1994. Gerhard Beutler Chairman IGS Oversight Committee