KEYWORDS: Data archive systems, Databases, Interfaces, Received signal strength, Astronomy, Astrophysics, Analytics, Data communications, Observatories, Web 2.0 technologies
For years following its 2006 debut, Twitter was rarely used as a medium for serious communication; however, today many scientific organizations are using the platform not only for public outreach, but for substantive communication scientist to scientist. Since the mission of the Chandra Data Archive is making data swiftly available in a variety of ways for astronomers and astrophysicists who want it, we have lately initiated the design of a Chandra Data Archive Twitter portal for the most current archive-related information { with a focus on highlighting data products which have been in the archive for many years, but have not attracted all the attention they deserve. This work is supported by NASA contract 8-03060.
The diverse and dynamic landscape of services provided by data archives that has recently emerged
is in stark contrast with the classical idea of astronomical archives as static, passive repositories whose
only goal is to capture, record and preserve forever the assets produced by their observatories. In this
new scenario, archives occupy a central role as engines and enablers of the success of the astronomical
facilities they support in multiple ways. More specifically, in the case of mature missions and established observatories
that have collected large amount of data, archives can be considered new instruments in the own right as they, by favoring re-use
and new uses of single or aggregated archival datasets, promote the investigation of regions of the observational
parameter space that can otherwise be impractical to access or inaccessible altogether. In this contribution, I
will describe how the Chandra Data Archive (CDA) contributes to the final science return of the Chandra mission by
focusing on four different areas: maximization of the observational efficiency through contributions to
smooth operations of the observatory; collection and curation of a comprehensive mission bibliography;
assessment of the scientific impact of the mission by the development of specific metrics; promotion of use of
archival data across different astronomical communities. Finally, using the Chandra archive as an example,
I will briefly discuss the changes to the roles and priorities of an astronomical archive that are necessary to
adjust to the evolving needs of the mission and its constituencies.
This work has been supported by NASA under contract NAS 8-03060 to the Smithsonian Astrophysical
Observatory for operation of the Chandra X-ray Center.
Observatories have wrestled for decades with the questions how to measure their importance to the astronomical
community, what their scientific impact is, and how their performance in that respect compares to that of other
observatories. There is a general sense that the answer is to be found in the publication record - specifically, in the
refereed journal articles. However, simple parameters (such as the number of papers) are not helpful, because in isolation
(applied to a single observatory) they are meaningless, while in comparison between observatories they are subject to
external influences that all but invalidate the comparisons.
We were fortunate in having the Chandra X-ray Observatory's bibliographic database with its rich variety of metadata
available as a resource for experimenting with more sophisticated metrics. Out of this project we propose a modest set
that contains meaningful information when viewed in the isolation of a single observatory as well as in comparison with
other observatories. Even so, we urge users not to draw conclusions on the basis of the face value of the comparisons,
but only after a serious analysis of potential causes for any differences or similarities.
We have designed our metrics to provide useful information in three main areas of interest: speed of publication; fraction
of observing time published; and archival usage. The basic measured parameters are the percentage of available
observing time published as a function of the data's age, at a few specific age values; the median time it takes to publish
observations; and similar parameters for multiple publications of the same observations.
Citation of results is a fourth category, but it does not lend itself well to comparisons and defies the search for definite
statements.
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