Letters of Intent received in 2016

LoI 2018-1938
Bridging astronomers and the outreach communities

Date: 23 August 2018 to 24 August 2018
Category: Focus meetings (GA)
Location: Vienna, Austria
Contact: Sze-leung Cheung (cheungszeleung@iau.org)
Coordinating division: Division C Education, Outreach and Heritage
Other divisions:
Co-Chairs of SOC: Sze-leung Cheung (IAU OAO)
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Co-Chairs of LOC: ()
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Topics

Bridging the astronomers and outreach network
Data science and Scientific visualizations
Astronomer-amateur (Pro-Am) collaboration
Citizen Science projects
Global astronomy outreach program update
Facilitate the IAU members to volunteers in outreach activities through the OAO

 

Rationale

Acknowledging the existence of a gap between professional astronomers and the outreach communities, the IAU organized the International Year of Astronomy in 2009 (IYA2009) started to place the very own building blocks for the networks and facilitate collaborations among these two communities that we still see today. This work continued in the last decade by the Office for Astronomy Outreach (OAO), Office of Astronomy for Development (OAD) and Division C and its commissions. Today, the national outreach networks evolved from the IYA2009 is organized by the IAU Office for Astronomy Outreach, the network composed of educators, communicators, professionals, amateurs, planetarium and public observatories communities, and in this meeting we will focus on how to leverage the collaborations between the communities. We will address specific topics on the common edges of professional astronomers and outreach professionals communications, focusing on data visualization, citizen science and Pro-Am project collaboration. The works presented and discussions carried, will have an emphasis on the sustainability aspect of these collaborations and best practices of key cases shown.

The IAU GA assembled the perfect conditions for us to gather, to place experts in both fields, each bringing to the table their different backgrounds and expertise with a shared outcome – understand how can the IAU, through its existing extensive network of professional astronomers and outreach communicators, provide the standards, best practices and continued support to the wider global community.