The Future of ADASS

TL;DR

This paper discusses the future direction of the ADASS conference series, emphasizing community feedback and proposing adaptations to maintain its relevance and vibrancy in the field of astronomy software and methods.

Contribution

It presents survey results and community discussions to guide the evolution of ADASS to better meet the needs of its participants.

Findings

Community desires for conference format improvements

Survey insights on attendee preferences

Recommendations for future ADASS planning

Abstract

ADASS has been a successful conference series for 24 years. If it is to continue to be successful and relevant we need to ensure that it provides what we as a community need from an annual conference. Earlier this year the ADASS Program Organising Committee conducted a survey on the content, style and governance of ADASS, in order to ascertain the conference needs of our community of astronomy software, methods and algorithms providers and users. 140 people participated in the survey: familiar faces, newcomers and a significant number of people who have yet to attend an ADASS. We summarise the Birds of a Feather session held on 7 October 2014, which discussed the findings of the survey and the shape that the community would like future ADASS meetings to take: What do we like of the current format? What would we change? What can we do to make ADASS fit our current and future needs? If we are to ensure that ADASS is vibrant, interesting and at the cutting edge of our subject we need to take collective responsibility for shaping its future.