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I was charged with the task of summarizing a comment/ recommendation for the committee regarding the nature of a Symposium in 1997. Melanie has included a reference to this in her list of comments regarding Unidata 2003. But I would like to take this a bit further, and hopefully generate more discussion, if not, indeed, a resolution. It is my understanding that in the past, the User's Commit- tee has sponsored Unidata supported workshops. This to me implies a hands-on, or technical/educational focus, to make users aware of Unidata functionality (i.e., data and software resources). Now that most of the major Universi- ties, and many smaller institutions are Unidata IDD partic- ipants, I think we can move beyond a workshop to an Applications oriented symposium, or conference. Proba- bly influenced by my personal bias, I would like to see a conference which focussed on the research applications facilitated by the existence of Unidata (obviously, as the Unidata Users Group, we want the overarching premise of the meeting to still be the resources that Unidata makes available to the Atmospheric Sciences community). To keep the symposium more general, we could choose to make the program have two related foci...one emphasizing research applications of real-time atmospheric data flow- ing on the IDD, and the other emphasizing educational applications of real-time atmospheric data. With regard to educational applications, we might want to narrow the focus toward quantitative efforts which emphasize eluci- dating atmospheric processes, as opposed to just a focus on data presentation or display... again, the focus stays on usage. I think we should consider this question of pro- gram focus carefully. It is possible, given the other Uni- data activities which support educational applications (e.g. the small-grant proposals), that we should keep the focus entirely on research applications. I can imagine that a well-publicized science symposium could generate considerable community interest. Further- more, if we could work with a University which has a well-designed electronic auditorium, then we could really demonstrate the capabilities of all the data/software/tech- nology/and community-support aspects which combine to make the Unidata project a productive endeavor. We have all seen a lot of "sharing" of "how to" techniques for data display, etc. among the community users. This sympo- sium would be a much broader, scientifically focussed "how to" for describing research applications, and there could be a broad subject range, from... how to use the RUC model output along with satellite derived precipita- ble water estimates to improve short-range predictions of precipitation amount (just to make something up!!)...to.... how to model the real-time exchange of natural strato- spheric ozone into the troposphere (to take an example from my own work). Again, I think we would want the focus to be applications of real-time data via the IDD and Unidata/Community software to address scientific ques- tions. This would very likely demonstrate in a natural way the kinds of interdisciplinary research which is already being addressed within our community of users (and might help with the envisioning of an expanded User's Commu- nity). While we would all share in the exchange of scien- tific knowledge, I believe that a meeting of this nature would have the added effect of fostering a wealth of new ideas on how to combine and apply datasets which we all have access to in real-time, in other words, there would be some emphasis on creative technique. This kind of distribution of ideas and results should carry the status of publication with it. I envision a symposium that would be entirely electronic (although please note, I don't mean virtual... people would still travel to a meeting location, and meet face to face...if symposium funding were an issue, I suppose we could even consider a "virtual symposium", though I do not advocate this approach for this meeting). We would advertise the meeting to encour- age (require?) presenters to develop all their data, anima- tions, etc. so that they could be presented with a computer display (the unidata overhead projection system is nice, but back-lit projection systems look much better, with a much higher resolution "crisp" display). In addition to oral presentations (which would of course be limited in number and dependent on the length of the symposium), we could have an electronic poster session, where a fixed number of workstations could be made available to view poster presentations. It would be important to organize a peer-review panel to screen abstracts and to review final presentations for "publication". Finally, I think that the publication of these results (which is essential if you really want people to show the best of their work) should be done in a fully electronic format. I think we should encourage the inclusion of image loops, movies of model results, etc., and then one incentive will be to take full advantage of the technology, knowing that the results will be displayed in the media in which they were conceived. Of course, this is not presently the case, research results are still typically transferred to slides or overheads for presentation and to printed form for publica- tion. One outcome of the symposium might even be the "proof of concept" of a FULLY electronic journal (as opposed to the on-line electronic supplements of tradi- tional print journals, which are currently the practice of organizations like the AGU. I include here an item from the "AGU Special Alert", sent out with subscription renewal requests: "New this year! Authors are expanding the amount of research data made available to subscribers through increased use of peer-reviewed electronic supplements. AGU distributes electronic supplemental data sets so that other scientists can access and use them. The supplements are listed by AGU paper number on the AGU anonymous FTP site at: kosmos.agu.org in the apend directory". It is my understanding that the main value of this, at present, is to shake loose data...government organizations which have collected data, but never published anything from it, can effectively publish the data itself!) I hope we can continue to emphasize the advantages to the community that would result from a fully electronic jour- nal, one that circumvents the need for a printed copy, with a format that in fact precludes a printed copy (e.g., anima- tions, etc.). In summary, let me throw out a very drafty resolution: **** The Unidata User's Committee encourages Unidata spon- sorship of a summer 1997 symposium to address Applica- tions of IDD Resources and Unidata/Community Software in Atmospheric Research. (This symposium will be held in association with......some host University or perhaps NCAR?.....some additional society sponsor, like the AMS?). Jennie Lynne Moody Research Assistant Professor Department of Environmental Sciences Ph: (804) 924-0592 University of Virginia moody@virginia.edu Clark Hall Charlottesville, VA 22903 FAX: (804) 982-2300 Atmospheric Modeling and Operational Meteorology