Proposal Data Entry Centre (PDEC)

Astrid Heske

After more than seven months of operations and the ``Phase 2'' data for nearly a thousand proposals successfully entered, the ISO Proposal Data Entry Centre - PDEC - closed its doors for visitors on 21 July 1995. More than 500 observers from European and Japanese institutes visited PDEC; during some weeks, PDEC was operating at its maximum capacity of 30 visitors. The number of questions nearly reached the same order of magnitude as number of observations entered! An idea of the pace of operations can be gleaned from the following numbers:

PDEC staff continued working until the end of July to implement small corrections, requested by some visitors, to proposals already in the database.

In parallel, US observers visited the ISO Data Entry Centre at IPAC during the same period.

Explaining ISO 's possibilities and constraints to visitors and trying to find solutions to their problems helped the SOC staff to understand better their observing programmes. Many comments from visitors helped to improve the software systems. All comments and criticisms were appreciated.

Somewhat difficult was to adjust the unpredictable air conditioning system - it was either too warm or too cold - depending on the unpredictable Dutch weather conditions.

PDEC will remain at ESTEC during the entire mission and it will be available as needed, depending on the progress of the mission. Current plans are for PDEC to re-open in mid-1996 for the Phase 2 data entry of the Supplemental Call and, possibly, also for modifications of observations, after the end of the performance verification in early 1996.

Throughout the mission, requests for updates to observations (``tuning-up'') may be sent to the HELPDESK (see the new address on page 2). SOC staff will process these requests and contact the observer where necessary.