DP0 Delegate Homepage

This page includes the guidelines, resources, and activities for DP0 Delegates.

“DP0 delegate” is the term for the 300 scientists and students who will have accounts in the Rubin Science Platform (RSP) at the Interim Data Facility (IDF) during Data Preview 0 (DP0). This term has been adopted to reflect DP0 participants’ important roles of representing the broad science community as learners, testers, and providers of feedback, and of sharing the benefits of their DP0 participation with their communities as teachers and colleagues. Delegates’ DP0-related activities will be supported with resources and infrastructure (as described below). The simulated data set being used for DP0 was created by the Dark Energy Science Collaboration (DESC) as part of their second Data Challenge (DC2).

Delegate Action Items Checklist
1. Get one of the RSP Accounts for DP0 delegates.
2. Set up your account in the Rubin Community Forum.
3. Attend one of the DP0 Kick-Off Info Sessions.
4. Review the Guidelines and Expectations for delegates.
5. Consider participating in the DP0 Delegate Assemblies.
6. Learn about Getting Support for DP0.

RSP Accounts

Activation: Delegates will be contacted by Rubin staff to provide their GitHub username. All delegates will be invited to join the rubin-dp0 GitHub Organization and its Delegates team, and must accept this invitation in order to log into the RSP at the Interim Data Facility (IDF; the Google Cloud). With a browser that is logged in to GitHub, navigate to http://data.lsst.cloud and choose “log in” at upper right. A pop-up window will ask to “Authorize Rubin Science Platform IDF Production Environment”. Click the green button that says “Authorize lsst-sqre”. This authorization step will need to be done after every log out.

Policies: RSP accounts are not transferrable and delegates must not share their password with others. DP0 delegates are being given access to a shared-risk developmental version of the Rubin Science Platform and the accompanying documentation. Everyone is responsible for their own safe usage of the RSP and must be familiar with this list of RSP Risks and Caveats, and review the Guidelines and Expectations for DP0 delegates.

Deactivation: Delegates who are no longer using their accounts and would like to relinquish it to make way for others should please submit a GitHub issue in the rubin-dp0 GitHub Organization to let us know, and then leave the rubin-dp0 GitHub Organization. (Log into GitHub, navitate to https://github.com/settings/organizations, and click on the “Leave” button for the rubin-dp0 Organization.)

For delegates who need to get a GitHub account: go to http://www.github.com and select “sign up” in the upper right corner. For participation in DP0 it is not necessary to learn how to use git as a version control system, nor any of the git workflows or command line tools. GitHub will not be used for RSP accounts during Rubin Operations, this is a DP0-specific implementation.

Rubin Community Forum

The Rubin Community Forum is the central hub for all virtual discussions and support. It is the best place to post your questions about anything and everything related to DP0.

Accounts: Go to http://community.lsst.org and use the “sign up” button at upper right to create an account (unless you have one already).

Join the DP0 Delegates Group: Go to https://community.lsst.org/groups and join “DP0 Delegates”. This will ensure you have access to the private “Support - DP0 RSP Service Issues” subcategory.

Find DP0-Related Content and Discussions:
1. Support - Data Preview 0: for all questions and discussions related to DP0. For example, use of the RSP’s aspects for science, contents of the DC2 data set, delegate activities, brainstorm new investigations, show-and-tell DP0-related results, etc.
2. “Support - DP0 RSP Service Issues”: a private subcategory for technical Q&A and discussion about potential bugs, service outages, etc.
3. Topics tagged with #dp0 across all categories.

DP0 Kick-Off Info Sessions

All delegates should please attend one of these identical sessions. One of them will be recorded and made available.

Connection Info: ls.st/clo4989

Slides and Recording: here

Contents of the Kick-Off Info Sessions:
- RSP and Community Forum accounts
- RSP hazards and delegate expectations
- resources and support for delegates
- DP0 goals and the road to Rubin operations
- time for question and answer
Dates and Times:
- Tue Jun 29 2021, 8am US Pacific Daylight Time, 3pm UTC
- Wed Jun 30 2021, 12pm US Pacific Daylight Time, 7pm UTC
- Thu Jul 1 2021, 4pm US Pacific Daylight Time, 11pm UTC
- Tue Jul 6 2021, 12pm US Pacific Daylight Time, 7pm UTC
- Wed Jul 7 2021, 4pm US Pacific Daylight Time, 11pm UTC
- Thu Jul 8 2021, 8am US Pacific Daylight Time, 3pm UTC

DP0 Delegate Assemblies

Connection Info: ls.st/dp0-events

The Delegate Assemblies are a live, virtual seminars for DP0 delegates to learn more about DP0, the RSP, and the DC2 data set. Every assembly will be split into 2 one-hour sections, and all are welcome to join for only the first or second hour, or both hours.

First hour: a “formal” presentation with Q&A, such as:
– hands-on demonstrations and tutorials by Rubin staff
– presentations from delegates about their DP0 work
Second hour: breakout sessions for discussion, such as:
– “office hours” for Q&A with Rubin staff
– in-depth discussion related to the first hour’s contents
– grassroots DP0 science working groups and collaborative projects

Everyone is welcome to propose breakout topics for the second hour. The first five minutes of the second hour will be spent connecting people with similar interests and setting up breakout rooms. Rubin staff will always be on hand to answer questions and provide assistance with DP0-related work during this time.

Assemblies will occur biweekly on Fridays from 9am to 11am US Pacific time (alternating with Stack Club; 4pm UTC), which will be convenient for DP0 delegates in the timezones of North and South America, Europe, and Africa. There will also be a monthly Third Thursday Office Hour live virtual meetings at 9am Sydney time, which will be convenient for DP0 delegates in the timezones of Australia and Asia. Everyone is welcome to attend any and all of these sessions, as they are not restricted to delegates.

Assemblies Schedule

The first four assemblies will, in turn, focus on each of the first four DP0 notebooks in the tutorial-notebooks repository.

Rows in italics are tentative topics. Please reach out to Melissa Graham with suggestions or contributions (e.g., send her a direct message in the Community Forum). Suggestions and contributed talks are welcome from anyone, e.g., delegates, Rubin staff.

Schedule and planned content of DP0 Delegate Assemblies

Date (Fridays at 9am US Pacific)

First Hour Presentation Topic

Second Hour Breakouts Topics

Chair and Presenter(s)

2021-07-16

Introduction to DP0, and to the RSP’s Notebook and Portal Aspects.

Q&A with Rubin staff.

The Community Engagement Team (Melissa Graham)

2021-07-30

Querying Catalogs with TAP in the Notebook and Portal Aspects.

Portal Q&A. Notebook Q&A. DP0 science topics.

The Community Engagement Team (Leanne Guy)

2021-08-13

no assembly (Rubin 2021 Project and Community Workshop)

2021-08-27

Image Query, Retrieval, and Display.

How to use afwDisplay. Image type Q&A. DP0 science topics.

The Community Engagement Team (Jeff Carlin)

2021-09-10

Using the Butler for Data Discovery.

Butler Q&A. Gen3 for Gen2 Users. DP0 science topics.

The Community Engagement Team (Alex Drlica-Wagner)

2021-09-24

LSST Science Pipelines

Pipelines Q&A. DP0 science topics.

Yusra AlSayyad (Rubin Algorithms and Pipelines Team)

2021-10-08

Data Visualization

Visualization packages Q&A. DP0 science topics.

Keith Bechtol (Rubin Commissioning Team)

2021-10-22

Image Processing

Algorithms Q&A. DP0 science topics.

Andrew Bradshaw (Rubin Camera Subsystem Team)

2021-11-05

delegate presenter(s)

delegate working groups

TBD

2021-11-19

delegate presenter(s)

delegate working groups

TBD

2021-12-03

delegate presenter(s)

delegate working groups

TBD

2022-01-14

delegate presenter(s)

delegate working groups

TBD

2022-01-28

Special Session on DP0.1: A Half-Year In Review

small group discussions for delegate feedback

The Community Engagement Team

2022+, if desired

delegate presenter(s)

delegate working groups

TBD

Third Thursday Office Hour

Connection Info: ls.st/dp0-events

These live virtual meetings on the third thursday of the month at 9am in Sydney Australia (which is Wed at 4pm US Pacific Daylight Time, 11pm UTC) will be open drop-in time for DP0 delegates. Rubin staff will be in attendance. There is no set agenda for these sessions, the activities will be whatever the DP0 delegates in attendance request. For example, delegates could discuss their DP0-related analysis with Rubin staff and with each other, review the DP0 RSP tutorials together, collaborate on DP0-related science, and get support from Rubin staff as needed.

Dates:
- Thu July 15 2021
- Thu Aug 19 2021
- Thu Sep 16 2021

More dates will be added to continue these office hours if they are useful to DP0 delegates in Australia and Asia.

Stack Club

Connection Info: ls.st/dp0-events

Stack Club is a group of LSST Science Collaboration members committed to learning how to use the Rubin Observatory LSST Science Pipelines (colloquially called “the Stack”). The idea is that the best way to learn something is to try and teach it, and so they work collectively on creating useful tutorials featuring the Stack. Many of the DP0 Delegate Assemblies presentations will be based on tutorials developed by the Stack Club. DP0 delegates are welcome to join one or more Science Collaborations and to join the Friday Stack Club Zoom sessions.

Stack Club meets biweekly on Fridays from 9-11am (i.e., alternating Fridays with the Delegates Assemblies; 4pm UTC). Stack Club meetings start with a roundtable of what people want to do or learn that day, and then work proceeds as people stay connected via Zoom, with the occasional question or discussion happening. Sometimes breakout rooms are used to discuss emergent topics. Often times Rubin Data Management staff join to provide support.

DP0 delegates do not need to formally join Stack Club unless they want to contribute specifically to the Stack Club’s repository of tutorial notebooks. Stack Club members use the NCSA implementation of the RSP, where they also have access to the DC2 data set. DP0 delegates do not need NCSA accounts because they have RSP accounts at the IDF.

Guidelines and Expectations

Understand the shared-risk basis of DP0 RSP use. Delegates are responsible for their own safe usage of the RSP and must be familiar with this list of RSP Risks and Caveats

Abide by the code of conduct. All delegates are expected to abide by the LSST Communications Code of Conduct.

Use appropriate acknowledgements and citations. If you publish work enabled by DP0, the RSP, and/or the DESC’s DC2 data set, please include: “CosmoDC2: A Synthetic Sky Catalog for Dark Energy Science with LSST” Korytov et al (2019), “The LSST DESC DC2 Simulated Sky Survey” (arXiv:2010.05926), and potentially “DESC DC2 Data Release Note” (arXiv:2101.04855), especially if you used the Object or Truth-Match tables presented in that release note. If you use someone else’s Jupyter Notebook as a starting point for your work, please include the original creator(s) in your acknowledgements.

Choose a delegate activity. Delegates are invited to take on an activity that helps to maximize the impact of DP0 with respect to the DP0 goals of testing and informing development of the RSP and preparing the scientific community to do LSST science. See Suggested Delegate Activities.

Interact with your co-delegates. Participate in the Rubin Community Forum and join the biweekly DP0 Delegate Assemblies as often as you can.

Use your RSP account! As there are a limited number of RSP accounts for DP0, please try to make some use of your account and learn to use at least one aspect of the RSP. There is no minimum time that you’re expected to spend on DP0. If you find that you are done with DP0, consider relinquishing your account so it can be offered to someone else.

Suggested Delegate Activities

All delegates are invited to take on an activity that will inform and improve development of the Rubin Science Platform development, and/or extend and enhance the benefits of DP0 within the science community, beyond the limited number of DP0 participants that Rubin Observatory is able to support.

Delegate activities are envisioned to be simple and enjoyable. They are completely voluntary and will not be tracked. Group work is encouraged, as are delegate-designed activities.

Inform and improve the Rubin Science Platform

- complete one or more feedback surveys for Rubin Observatory
(links will be circulated when the feedback surveys are ready)
- submit bug reports via GitHub issues (here; see Getting Support, below)
- suggest a new RSP feature via GitHub issues (here)
- post about your experiences in the Data Preview 0 forum category
- communicate directly with the Rubin RSP Users Committee
(more information about the Users Committee is forthcoming)

Extend or enhance the benefits of DP0 in the science community.

- join one of the eight LSST Science Collaborations

- participate in the Rubin Community Forum’s DP0-related categories
– ask questions about using the RSP or the DP0 data set
– respond to delegates requests for assistance when possible
– “show and tell” your DP0-related work in new topics

- participate in the DP0 Delegate Assemblies
– ask questions, join the breakout discussions
– volunteer to facilitate a breakout discussion during an assembly
– present the results of your DP0 work in one of the DP0 Delegate Assemblies
– facilitate a co-working group during the DP0 Delegate Assemblies breakouts

- contribute tutorials to the delegates’ shared repository
– create a tutorial Jupyter Notebook that uses the DC2 data set
– tutorials that use the Portal, TAP, or command-line are also welcome

- share your DP0-related work outside of DP0
– give a seminar about Rubin Observatory and DP0 at your home institution
– give a tutorial about your RSP/DP0 experience in your Science Collaboration
– publish a paper on your DP0-related work

Getting Support

Several venues are provided to support DP0 delegates, as described below. There is no wrong place to post questions or requests for assistance! Hearing about issues and recieving feedback from delegates is a key component of DP0.

Scientific Support via the Community Forum

The Support – Data Preview 0 subcategory is the best place for DP0 delegates to post topics related to scientific support.

Scientific support includes questions about the DC2 simulated data set, the DP0 data products, and/or the application of the LSST Science Pipelines to the DP0 data set, as well as general discussion about DP0-related scientific analyses, or DP0 policies and guidelines.

This subcategory will be monitored by the Rubin Community Engagement Team (CET). DP0 delegates are especially encouraged to post new topics and reply to others’ posts in this subcategory.

Technical Assistance via GitHub Issues

Bug reports, persistent technical issues, and requests for assistance from Rubin staff should be submitted by DP0 delegates as GitHub Issues in the rubin-dp0 GitHub Organization’s Support repository. Requests for new features or for global installatons of commonly used software packages are also welcome via GitHub Issues.

In the horizontal menu bar at the top of that page, click on the “Issues” option (with the circled dot icon), choose the green “New Issue” button at right. Next to either “Bug report” or “Feature Request” choose “Get started” (as appropriate for your case), and fill in the title and contents of your issue. In the right side-menu, do adjust the labels as appropriate, but leave the other options. Click “Submit new issue” when you’re ready. These issues will be addressed by Rubin staff.

Minor or Ambiguous RSP Service and Access Issues

Please feel free post even small questions as new topics in the “Support - DP0 RSP Service Issues” subcategory of the Community Forum.

This subcategory enables DP0 delegates to determine if others are experiencing the same issue (e.g., “is this local or general network outage?”, “my query is taking a long time, is this a real problem or did I do it wrong?”), crowd-source solutions to technical issues from each other when possible, and have a non-public venue for DP0-related questions. The CET will monitor this category, and it is visible only to Community.lsst.org users who are members of the “DP0 Delegates” group and to Community.lsst.org forum moderators. Updates about commonly experienced access issues or planned service outages will be posted by Rubin staff in this category.

Since the “DP0 RSP Service Issues” subcategory is not public, it cannot be linked to directly, but delegates who are logged-in to the Forum can access it via the main landing page at Community.lsst.org.

Read more in the Community Forum about Scientific Support and Technical Assistance for DP0 Delegates.

Live Support

Bring your questions to the Delegate Assemblies, third Thursday office hours, or Stack Club meetings. Rubin staff members will usually be in attendance and able to assist you.

Code of Conduct

Please review the Rubin Code of Conduct (CoC) at ls.st/comms-coc.

To summarize the CoC:
- Bullying and harassment will not be tolerated.
- Research inclusion and collaborative work must not be impeded by poor behavior.
- Discussion should be constructive and civil at all times.

If you experience or witness a violation of the CoC in the Community Forum, please flag the post. Forum moderators will handle the issue from there. Please note that there are a few reasons why posts get flagged, and CoC violations are only one of them. Here are some guidelines on how to react if your post is flagged.

If you experience or witness a violation of the Code of Conduct in another venue, please reach out to Sandrine Thomas, one of the Rubin Observatory Workplace Culture Advocates who has agreed to be the contact person for DP0 Delegates. Please also feel free to reach out to any Community Engagement Team member at any time: Melissa Graham, Jeff Carlin, Greg Madejski, Jim Annis, Alex Drlica-Wagner, or Tina Adair. All can be contacted by email or via direct message in the Community Forum.