Date: Fri, 17 Mar 2006 18:16:30 -0500
From: eowaagen <eowaagen

In a posting on March 10, Mike Simonsen wrote to Bill Goff:

"...Probably one of the reasons no paper has ever been written 
describing the 'mysterious AAVSO validation process' is because a great 
deal of it was done by Janet's personal knowledge of the observers and 
their relative strengths and talent..."

Janet did indeed know the observers very well! However, she also knew 
that for a project like the validation project, we had to have in place 
standardized policies that could be applied to each observer equally and 
procedures that could be followed by everyone working on the project. 
She developed these policies and oversaw the establishment of the 
procedures, and the project was carried out following them, ensuring a 
homogeneously evaluated database.

The AAVSO Validation process actually has been described a number of 
times, both for the amateur and professional communities. I presented a 
poster at the January 2004 AAS meeting that described the validation 
project and process (online at http://aavso.org/news/posters.shtml, 9.5 
Million Variable Star Observations Coming to You by 2005!), and 
displayed the same poster at the AAVSO's Miras Workshop in April 2004. I 
also gave a talk at the AAVSO spring meeting in Berkeley in July 2004 
that discussed the validation project and process (AAVSO Validation 
October 2005 (after the Validation Project was completed), Kerriann 
Malatesta from Headquarters gave a very detailed talk on the validation 
project and process. Her talk was based on a paper written by her and 
those others at Headquarters who worked on the project; this paper will 
be published in JAAVSO, and it is being prepared for posting on the 
AAVSO website in the next week.

Please read Kerri's paper when it comes online, look at my poster, and 
if the process still seems mysterious :) please don't hesitate to ask 
questions!

Good observing,

Elizabeth

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Elizabeth O. Waagen, Senior Technical Assistant
American Association of Variable Star Observers (AAVSO)
                                     www: http://www.aavso.org
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