First 90 minute meeting, 22 July 2002

• Chair John Towns called the meeting to order, and explained the purpose of the Research Group to the first-time attendees. Towns announced an agenda change. Owing to travel problems, George Myers (NASA), lead author/editor of the 'Grid Constitution' document, had not arrived. Towns adjusted the agenda so that a discussion of the 'Trouble Ticket Interchange' document (led by Esther) could begin immediately following other adminstrative items.
• There was a brief discussion of two important BoFs that have ties to User Services, one for production Grid management, that were both being held at 7:30 on Tuesday (unfortunately). Members of the UserServ-RG split themselves up to attend both BoFs.
• Esther Balarnado started the discussion of the Trouble Ticket Interchange document by displaying a viewgraph of the tracking system interface used at her site, and asked for input. Towns gave an overview of the goal of the document, which is to define what is required to be passed from site to site. There was some general discussion of the advantages and disadvantages of using XML to interchange this information.
• A lengthy discussion followed of how ticket originators would likely want to know if a problem was solved, even if it had been handled by another site where the ticket was sent. Alistair Mills opined that getting sites to even agree on a half-dozen fields would be a large step in the right direction, but difficult. There was some discussion and general agreement of how we cannot anticipate all types or combinations of problems that might be passed from one user services group to another.
• There was some consensus for a more detailed schema than in the current version of the draft, which uses a more minimalist approach. Some urged for a less detailed approach, for simplicity purposes. Basic information to be exchanged and passed along should include the following: Local unique identifier, User contact information, status, priority, desired response time (priority), email exchange history. No real need for resolution *type*, but just to make sure resolution of the problem was achieved an a hand-off problem. Resolution might include handing back ticket to originator with the message that it wasn't their problem.
• John Towns introduced the 'Support Services and Tools Requirements' document, as well as Alistair Mills who will be taking on the editing task of the document.
• Sean Mullin (IBM) volunteered to write some text in support of the Tools Requirements document, asking for a tool that allows users to insert some sort of 'wrapper' to a submitted job in order to ask for the collection of extra parameters.

Second 90 minute meeting, 23 July 2002

• Chair John Towns called the meeting to order, and gave an introduction of group and its goals for the benefit of new attendees.
• Towns handed out copies of the Grid Constitution document and announced he was going to lead the upcoming discussion due to the emergency absence of George Myers. Towns went thru the Grid Constitution document section by section, along with some co-authors of the document (Jim Ferguson, Nancy Wilkins-Deere) at the meeting. Each person available commented directly on their section of the document and asked for input. Towns encouraged the authors to do another pass on their sections and then solicit commentary after the conference via the mail list.
• Towns mentioned the fact that many of the authors are North American, and that it is very likely that the practices represented in the document may not reflect current practice and sensibility in the Far East or in Europe. There was discussion on different mechanisms of allocation of resources, specifically for individual users. The discussion was steered back toward the draft of the Constitution, which is directed mainly at groups/institutions that have resources they wish to share on the Grid. Other issues brought up in the discussion may be ripe for further docuemnts from the RG in the future.
• There was a discussion on provisions for auditing the usage of resources, and ensuring each site is contributing to the Grid as they have promised. There was also a discussion on user 'ethics', and expectation of users behavior. Section 4.2 needs to be expounded upon, perhaps to try to ensure a minimum code for users. Perhaps as a template for each organization/provider to base their policies upon. Maybe a "how to be a good Grid citizen" statement.
• Towns and the groups' hopes for this document (Grid Constitution) is that it is essentially finished (i.e. in official GGF Draft status) by the next meeting, mostly by iteration over email. Towns explains the current document process.
• There was a call for pointers to information to be possibly be added to the RG web site. Nancy Wilkins-Deere volunteered to collect this information from everyone. She'll wait a week, and then do a call via the maillist to give people time to subscribe to the email list. Collection of this may precipitate the writing of a catalog or other document directed at users. Also need to collect online training materials that are grid- and user- related.