[fitsbits] DOI for FITS standard document?

Fri May 1 10:31:59 EDT 2020

Hi Lucio,

Glad to hear from you!

The previous IAU FITS WG enlarged into the Data Representation WG at the time that IAU Commission 5 was refactored into Commission B2:

	https://www.iau.org/science/scientific_bodies/working_groups/314/

FITS is an international standard and an international organization like IAU should be regarded as the sponsor. As you say, IAU itself traces upward through other broader international science bodies, ultimately to the U.N. one supposes. My reading is that the IAU Comm B2 DRWG should be regarded as the responsible body, having, in effect, deputized NASA to work on v4.0.

IVOA was previously under the IAU Comm 5 WG "Virtual Observatories, Data Centers & Networks". This no longer appears as a separate WG under Comm B2:

	https://www.iau.org/science/scientific_bodies/commissions/B2/

In the absence of any action having been taken by the IVOA to find a new international sponsor, the options are that Comm B2 now has direct oversight responsibilities for IVOA (albeit rarely requested or invoked), or conceivably that IVOA is now completely standalone. The latter would seem to me to convey no benefit and significant risk, for instance to local interop hosts.

The IVOA might consider proposing a new Working Group or even a new IAU Commission in support of its activities. In any event this would most likely fall under Div B:

	https://www.iau.org/science/scientific_bodies/divisions/B/

Note that IAU WGs can be formed at either the Commission or Divisional level, e.g., the Time Domain WG which moved from Commission 5/B2 to Division B at the 2018 GA:

	https://www.iau.org/science/scientific_bodies/working_groups/260/

Best wishes,

Rob
--

On 5/1/20, 6:58 AM, "fitsbits on behalf of Lucio Chiappetti via fitsbits" wrote:

    External Email

    Dear all (in particular Jessica Mink, Robert Seaman, Thierry Forveille 
    and Malcolm Currie),

    I apologize for the delay in reply while quarantined offline, I am now 
    recovering the e-mail backlog and in particular this thread on DOI. I give 
    a tentative collective reply to your points which I briefly summarize 
    below.

    On Tue, 14 Apr 2020, Jessica Mink via fitsbits wrote:

    > The standard should be referenceable. Who or what would be the 
    > appropriate agent to get the DOI? Its host? The IAU FITS Special Expert 
    > Group?

    On Tue, 14 Apr 2020, Seaman, Robert Lewis - (rseaman) via fitsbits wrote:

    > Who has responsibility for this? If IAU Comm B2, a few of us remain on
    > that OC (and IAU is wanting feedback about what weʼve been up to). If
    > NASA FITS Support Office, who is the responsible party?

    On Wed, 15 Apr 2020, THIERRY FORVEILLE via fitsbits wrote:

    > I'd need to check with our publisher as they handle those aspects, but 
    > (speaking as its editor in chief) A&A could most likely generate one if 
    > desired, which would perhaps have some amount of justification since 
    > previous versions of the standard were published as A&A papers.

    On Wed, 15 Apr 2020, Malcolm J. Currie via fitsbits wrote:

    > Glad that I'm not alone at losing track of which body in the IAU is now
    > responsible for FITS.

    > Yes a DOI would be welcome.  The hard part is finding who will curate 
    > the Standard V4.0 (and possibly later versions).  These days a DOI 
    > comeswith publication.  Is the current Standard significantly different 
    > from the last published version that a journal would accept it?

    > Does it really matter under which banner it would reside, as long as it 
    > persisted for a long time to come?  The leading data curators in this 
    > area would include CADC, CDS, HEASARC, and MAST.  Would these 
    > organisations be happy to curate a document without data?

    As far as I can see the IAU resolution endorsing FITS
    https://fits.gsfc.nasa.gov/iaufwg/history/IAU_1988_resolution_b2.html
    has never been revoked.

    However the IAU FITS WG has never been made a "functional WG" (i.e. 
    permanent) but has passed hands to the FITS SEG (a second-order 
    subcommittee which I chair) of the IAU DRWG (chaired by Jessica Mink). 
    While on one hand it is clear that current curation (in terms of possible 
    updates) is in the hand of the FITS SEG, this has never been formally 
    organized (e.g. in terms of getting an own web site) because of the 
    uncertainties on its duration (and also I remind we should think of the 
    "succession" ... since most of the members are getting older).

    Concerning the 4.0 version of the standard its current official repository 
    is at HEASARC https://fits.gsfc.nasa.gov/fits_standard.html. I would like 
    to know if (the emeritus) Bill Pence, who originally set up the site, has 
    any comment on this (particularly on long term maintenance).

    Still concerning the 4.0 version, I am rather reluctant to consider it for 
    a journal publication, since de facto it merges (though with adjustments 
    and language editing) stuff mostly already published.

    A 4.1 or 5.0 with substantial improvements would be a different story, but 
    the discussion on long-name keywords, which we should resume, seems to 
    indicate this is not an easy or fast task.

    (but if Thierry could get a DOI without publication we should not discard 
    this possibility)

    I have no idea of the procedure to get a DOI for an "unpublished" document 
    (although nowadays, with the phasing out of HARDCOPY publication, what 
    does it mean exactly "published" ?), of how official should be the 
    requestor of a DOI.

    Ideally, if IAU (which is official enough, with 100 years of history and a 
    membership of ICSU or whatever it is called now) would set up a site of 
    its own for "IAU documents", I would say it should be some IAU 
    representative to get the DOI.

    Concerning the list of institutions by Malcolm, I would add IVOA. I am not 
    sure of its standing w.r.t IAU, and whether it has got DOI for its own 
    standards. Perhaps other people who are in both will know more.

    As a fallback, since the current version is stored at The FITS Support 
    Office at NASA/GSFC (HEASARC), maybe somebody there should/could take care 
    of getting the DOI ?

    That's all for the time being.

    -- 
    Lucio Chiappetti - INAF/IASF - via Corti 12 - I-20133 Milano (Italy)
    For more info : http://www.iasf-milano.inaf.it/~lucio/personal.html
    ------------------------------------------------------------------------
    "Can you see Enrico Fermi punching a time clock? There are effective
    ways to measure scientific productivity; times clocks are not the way."
    (Leon M. Lederman to INFN)

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