CFHT National TAC Guidelines
Since the matter of scheduling has become more than usually problematic recently,
the Board of Directors has requested that guidelines be drawn up that emphasize
some of the non-scientific considerations that need to be addressed by CTAC
and CFGT in submitting their ranked proposal lists for scheduling.
- Proposals should initially be ranked in order of scientific merit as judged
by the committee with advice from referees and CFHT as relevant.
- The list should contain all proposals that are acceptable - i.e. omit only
those that would be a waste of telescope time or are flawed.
- The ranked list should include proposals that fill all months of the semester.
Severe oversubscription or undersubscription of any months will only cause
scheduling problems that will have to be dealt with later.
- The ranked list should also fill the available balance of lunar phases for
the same reason.
- The rules for for instrument changes and length of run should also be considered.
- In the case of problems with these distributions it may be helpful to consult
the chair of the other TAC to see if any useful trade can be made between
months, lunar phases, or instrument runs.
- The committee should also consider whether the requested months or lunar
phases can be extended beyond those requested and still be viable.
- In the case of severe oversubscription with high ranked proposals the committee
should consider whether time may be shared between similar proposals.
- Where it is necessary to re-rank proposals for any of the above reasons
additional criteria may be:
- thesis project
- balance of subject areas supported
- selection of proposals that ease instrument changes
- track record or other considerations of individuals outside the specific
proposals.
- It should be the goal of the TACs to submit ranked lists that do not oversubscribe
dark or bright time or individual months by more than a factor of 1.5.
- It is anticipated that CFHT12K will be operated in queue scheduled mode.
For queue scheduling, the ranking considerations also should include a range
of the necessary image quality. However, there will be less emphasis on dates
and lunar phase since partial nights can be used.
- The proprietary time is now approved at 1 year, and the TAC should look
for and comment on any requested extensions to this in the proposals.
Dennis Crabtree, John Hutchings Dec 1998