To whom should the school be addressed?


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  • #529

    Dear all,

    Before discussing the content of the school, I suggest that we discuss to whom it should be organised ?

    Ideally, we wish to contribute to the extension of the neutron community and I guess that all of us would be very happy to learn that the scientific community prefers to use neutron scattering because – among other reasons – it is easier to perform neutron experiments in complex environment than with other techniques.

    Today’s situation is that several facilities have acquired a lot of expertise over the past decades while others are starting acquiring their own experience at new facilities. Most of us also face a lack of staff and the contribution of the instruments teams is essential.

    So the main goal might be to raise the overall technical level at all facilities to improve the reliability and efficiency with which we carry out neutron experiments. If you agree with me, this first school could be organised for the instruments teams, i.e. technicians, scientific associates and scientists, and also for newcomers of our teams and others willing to extend their skills.

    Of course, the content of the school will have to evolve. Its content and organisation will have to be reconsidered each time it is organised.

    What are your thoughts ?

    Cheers,
    Eddy

    #574
    Klaus KieferKlaus Kiefer
    Participant

    Dear all,

    I think, like Eddy, that it is a good idea to cover in the first place the basics of sample environment for neutron scattering in the coming school – with a strong emphasis on “hands-on” after a relatively short but illuminating introduction into the physical/theoretical aspects of the subject.

    Klaus

    #575
    Admin (Marek)Trator_3568
    Keymaster

    Dear Colleagues,
    I do wish to present a problem that we hadn’t previously considered from our (ORNL) side. DOE has a rather strange aversion to conferences, which severely limits our ability to send many participants to at once. For example, we were limited this past year from sending more than 5 scientific staff to the ICNS meeting (that’s 5 total from the entire lab- both SNS & HFIR). There is not as much restriction on a school. Unfortunately, with our coupling of these together the school is being seen as part of the workshop, and I am already being told that likely only 2-3 technicians (from both facilities) will be able to attend, and this will also prevent others from attending the conference. So we have this dilemna, where the target audience for the school was junior staff, and our general presenters at the workshop are senior staff, developers, & management. In hindsight, I likely would have suggested that we do the schools in the ‘off-year’ as to provide a meeting for new, junior, or those who need some expertise hands on. It is an unfortunate situation for us, as we were very much looking forward to attending the workshop, as always.

    #576
    Admin (Marek)Trator_3568
    Keymaster

    Dear Colleagues,
    We (ISIS team) were unaware of the issue described in Chris’s post. Many thanks for letting us know. I think we need to digest this information before we return to the forum for discussion. By the way, is there any potential impact on our American colleagues travel funding in 2014 financial year due to the Federal Government Shutdown?
    Oleg

    #577
    Admin (Marek)Trator_3568
    Keymaster

    To answer Oleg correctly, the crystal ball would have to be of exceptional quality. I don’t expect problems, as much of this is simply saber rattling till the next election in 2014. By then, the US might be using the ‘pound’, the UK using the Euro, & China might be borrowing from Greece.

    I would love to hear your thoughts on how the school might proceed though, and numbers of how many actual participants to the different facilities might send.

    As for ORNL, I would expect no more than 2-3. If it were a school unattached to the workshop, the number would likely be higher.

    #578

    I too was unaware of the issue raised by Chris.
    I must also add that ILL is facing financial constraints (Fukushima effects) and that we will probably have to limit our participation to 2-3 people. Another issue is the duration of the school+workshop: if they match a cycle we won’t be allowed to have staff attending both. I regret these problems.

    Oleg, you are right and we wait for you to digest and come back to us.

    #579
    Admin (Marek)Trator_3568
    Keymaster

    I will propose a totally selfish idea, but it may be beneficial as you think thru it: What would work much better for us (I.E. the selfish part) would be to have the workshop next fall, at the workshop we could work out the details of 1) who is teaching what 2) who/how many will be sent 3) when exactly — It would obviously still be at ISIS, but we could then plan it for the following summer (if that is convenient to all?) allowing for a bit of a split in funding (for us) into 2 fiscal years. This might also relieve the host facility of having to organize 2 events back to back, and would allow for us to send more technicians. I am not attempting to throw a wrench in things, but now is likely a better time to think about it than later. Thanks for your consideration.

    #582
    Admin (Marek)Trator_3568
    Keymaster

    After intensive discussion with other members of the workshop organising committee we actually came to a conclusion similar to proposed by Chris. What is about running the workshop as we planned, but postpone the school to February 2015? This month is convenient for us from the point of provisional ISIS user cycles timeline. It is also in different FY for our American colleagues.

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