HEASARC went to AAS this past summer to do demos at a table at the NASA ‘booth’. It was very well received, and we had lots of good interactions, so we are going to do it again in January. We are also contemplating something like a splinter session at the HEAD meeting in the spring to do more of this kind of outreach.
What kind of outreach would you like from HEASARC? So far, we have been doing demos of HEASARC@SciServer as well as of a new (beta) Xamin interface, as well as general question and answer. For example, do you see a need for us to re-introduce long-standing (let’s not say “old”) HEASARC services to a new generation? Would you prefer a session that is mostly us doing demos or mostly you bringing questions and us providing live help? Etc.
I like live help sessions, because as grad student or early Post-Doc I was very reluctant to contact the help-desk for anything (any helpdesk, not just HEASARC) because I always assumed they had more important things to do than to figure out my problem (now, I work for the CXC and no that’s not that case and don’t hesitate to email).
So, being accessibly in person might help newer people in the field. Personally, I find demos less important, because I can for example) run through a jupyter notebook on my own. However, a demo might still be a good opener to get into a conversation about individual problems.
Ask your grad students maybe.