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Electronic Proposals: Second Round (1Dec94)
(from KPNO, NOAO Newsletter No. 40, 1 December 1994)

The current proposal cycle was the second in which Kitt Peak encouraged
electronic submission of observing forms. In total, we received 224
proposals, of which 172 (77%) were submitted by e-mail. This is slightly
higher than the 73% we received electronically last semester. There were
108 figures submitted electronically for 66 proposals.

Proposals being submitted electronically are handled automatically by a set
of scripts written by Chris Biemesderfer (who also provided the LaTeX
forms and style files); these scripts return automatic acknowledgements, strip
off the mail headers, and perform the simple editing required to insert the
proposal number and correct figure names. Humans (in this case, Pat
Patterson, Marlene Salzer, and Judy Prosser) oversee the process, print out
the completed proposals, and deal with any problems that come up.

The process has worked quite smoothly both times, and it is clear that the
support requirements are actually lower than in dealing with the 15 paper
copies we used to require. However, a few problems did crop up:

1)  Of the handful of proposals with problems, the most common problem
    was simple typographical errors within the proposal. Evidently, not
    everyone is running their proposal through LaTeX at home and ensuring
    that they print out correctly! This semester we fixed these problems
    ourselves and sent notes to the PIs detailing the changes we had to
    make. One may reasonably suppose that the TAC will see the proposals
    in the way they print out when we receive them--so the person
    submitting the proposal should be happy with their look and feel. We
    are happy to provide help if needed.

2)  The most interesting technical problem was one in which four proposals
    resulted in a blank acknowledgement being returned. After impressive
    detective work by David Bell, it was determined that these were all
    proposals whose titles contained the "+" character, and a fix was
    installed.

3)  Some "encapsulated post-script" figures lacked the standard "%PS-
    Adobe" at the start of the file. These were invariably generated by Lick
    Mongo, and had to be fixed manually.

4)  Due to last-minute decisions as to how to handle WIYN time, the
    WIYN queue form had incorrect instructions on submitting the form;
    these instructions contradicted those found in the observing proposal
    itself. We tracked down the errant queue forms and fixed the
    instructions.

The transition to electronic submission of proposals continues smoothly, and
we are hopeful that the 77% will asymptotically approach 100% in the near
future.

Phil Massey, Jeannette Barnes, David Bell,
Pat Patterson, Judy Prosser, Marlene Saltzman

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