Spreading the word -- current status of VO tutorials and schools

TL;DR

This paper reviews the current status and various formats of Virtual Observatory (VO) tutorials and schools across Europe, highlighting their role in training astronomers and engaging the community during periods of limited telescope access.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive overview of VO educational initiatives, including online and community-based formats, and assesses their impact and reach within the astronomical community.

Findings

VO schools effectively train early career researchers in VO functionalities.

Community engagement through blogs and virtual sessions increases outreach.

Different formats have expanded access and interaction with the astronomical community.

Abstract

With some telescopes standing still, now more than ever simple access to archival data is vital for astronomers and they need to know how to go about it. Within European Virtual Observatory (VO) projects, such as AIDA (2008-2010), ICE (2010-2012), CoSADIE (2013-2015), ASTERICS (2015-2018) and ESCAPE (since 2019), we have been offering Virtual Observatory schools for many years. The aim of these schools are twofold: teaching (early career) researchers about the functionalities and possibilities within the Virtual Observatory and collecting feedback from the astronomical community. In addition to the VO schools on the European level, different national teams have also put effort into VO dissemination. The team at the Centre de Donn\'ees astronomiques de Strasbourg (CDS) started to explore more and new ways to interact with the community: a series of blog posts on AstroBetter.com or a lunch time session at the virtual EAS meeting 2020. The Spanish VO has conducted virtual VO schools. GAVO has supported online archive workshops and maintains their Virtual Observatory Text Treasures. In this paper, we present the different formats in more detail, and report on the resulting interaction with the community as well as the estimated reach.