Data Analysis Working Group Charter

Adopted: July 2021

Last Amended: July 2021

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Acronyms

• DAWG: Data Analysis Working Group
• WG: Working Group
• RST: Radar Software Toolkit
• PI: Principal investigator
• PIEC: (SuperDARN) Principal Investigator Executive Council
• DOI: Digital Object Identifier

Mandate

To maintain, improve, document and distribute the core SuperDARN data analysis software for use by scientists and students.

Scope

The scope of the Data Analysis Working Group (DAWG) is to provide oversight of the core analysis software that generates the key SuperDARN data products. The core analysis software includes the following packages from the Radar Software Toolkit (RST):

• fitACF: algorithm(s) to generate the physical properties of the received backscatter (power, velocity, spectral width, elevation, and their errors) from the mean autocorrelation and crosscorrelation function estimates
• map_potential : generating global plasma circulation (“convection”) maps based on statistical model and H-M boundary selection by fitting spatial distribution of velocity estimates provided by fitacf
• all other software and algorithms essential to the functionality of the above packages (e.g. mapping the SuperDARN data into geographic and geomagnetic coordinates)

Responsibilities

The DAWG is responsible for approving and publishing upgrades/changes to the RST, and offering technical assistance to users.

The RST should:

• Uphold its performance from release to release, especially in relation to speed, functionality, and usability
• Be written/structured in a way that is accessible to scientist- and student-developers
• Install on common platforms used by the SuperDARN community
• Include user-friendly documentation on installation and usage of the package
• Be released with a citable DOI and announced on the SuperDARN-user mailing list

The DAWG’s responsibilities do not extend to the following:

• Other software developed by various users to support scientific analysis (e.g. the pyDARN package)
• Supporting or maintaining the on-site software that controls the radar hardware and generates the primary radar data format files (rawacf, iqdat) for download to the PI institutions
• Supporting or maintaining the on-site software that produces secondary data products (such as fit-level data), although this WG can help to interpret this software for radar operators
• Distributing data products or plots produced using the RST (e.g. fitacf/grid/map files, convection maps)
• Any task or mission that another WG or the PIEC is responsible for

Oversight

All DAWG activities should be conducted in accordance with this charter and the SuperDARN Working Group Guidelines.

The DAWG has autonomy in relation to normal development activities. However, the following types of changes require formal approval before implementation into the software:

• Changes that could affect the scientific interpretation of the radar data, which require approval from the PIEC;
• Changes that require approval from another working group

Membership

There should be at least two permanent members of the WG: a Scientific Chair and a Software Development Chair, who share responsibilities in running the group. WG chairs shall be appointed by the Executive Council.

A person shall be considered a member of the DAWG if they meet the general membership criteria in the SuperDARN WG Guidelines and contribute regularly to the DAWG’s activities in at least one of the following ways:

• Provide assistance with developing, testing or documenting the RST
• Contribute to discussions on Github (issues and pull requests)
• Attend working group meetings

The DAWG welcomes code contributions, suggestions and feedback from anyone in the SuperDARN community. There is no requirement to be a WG member in order to contribute. Note that the above membership definition is distinct from the DAWG’s criteria for software authorship.

Links to other documents

• SuperDARN Working Group Guidelines (to be provided by PIEC)
• Guidelines for software authorship