200 - Tailoring to the end user comminity

Description

Unlocking the full potential of the Gaia catalogue and archive is not straightforward and will require an ambitious and innovative approach to data publication and access. A key aim of GENIUS is to ensure that the corresponding technical developments are driven by and focused on the scientific needs of the astronomical community that will use the Gaia catalogue. That is, the Gaia catalogue and data archive should be tailored to the needs of the scientific end user, but also the interested amateur or curious member of the general public.

Tailoring should be done by capturing the end user’s scientific requirements and turning those into specifications on the basis of which the Gaia data archive, catalogue and data access methods can be built. This issue has been recognized by the Gaia community and a requirements gathering process amongst the scientific users is currently underway, coordinated by the Gaia archive Preparations group. This process is non-trivial because of the often vague nature of the scientific requirements. It is easy to state that we want to compare a multi-billion particle N-body simulation to the entire Gaia catalogue but how will this be done in practice and what requirements does that set on the way the Gaia data is published and made accessible? In this work package these top level requirements will be analysed with the goal of turning them into detailed requirements. These requirements should be cast in a language that both the scientists and the archive developers understand.

The GAP requirements gathering process has revealed a number of advanced requirements (the Grand Challenges) that go much beyond the normal queries to data archives, and which require research in order to work them out in detail. Implementing these requirements will add very significant value to the Gaia data archive, while the expertise built up in this work package can be employed to enhance the value of other existing or future archives. The requirements for the following Grand Challenges will be researched in this work package: