The purpose of the UIG is to oversee the provision of a service for users, giving simple access to information including documentation, contacts, links to sites, access to user support, training, workshops, etc. The UIG specifically does not deal with information for the operation or installation of the EGEE infrastructure, general user-support issues and education planning. Nor does it critique operations, middleware and documentation, other than to flag up inconsistencies or shortcomings. The UIG will not try to act as an intermediary between activities except in matters affecting the aims of the UIG.

It is recognized that there is a continuum of users from prospective users to experts.  The UIG should ensure that the available information addresses the needs for the full spectrum of users, although there will be an evolution of the available information with its implementation prioritized by the UIG.

The UIG will ensure that documentation and information related to activities is accessible in a coordinated way.  This should be a central, welcoming, user-friendly web portal giving access to all forms of documentation and information, including news, procedures, documents and tutorials.

The UIG will perform an editorial role which implies a systematic, continual review of the existing information to ensure that it meets the needs of the user community.  This includes identifying missing documentation/information, prioritizing needed items, and suggesting the activities and people who could provide them.

It will produce and maintain an overview document describing the basic grid capabilities and strategies and EGEE middleware and infrastructure.  The group will also identify appropriate people to produce and update use cases (e.g. keeping them up-to-date with gLite releases; removing obsolete materials).

The work will be done in close consultation with that of the QAG on related matters such as quality control and tools for web-sites. It is foreseen that the UIG membership would include appropriately skilled and experienced personnel from NA1, NA2, NA3, NA4, SA1, SA3, JRA1.  The representation from NA4 should include some key users.

Categories of Information to be provided:

Introduction to grid concepts:

• overview
• Virtual Organizations (VOs)
• WORM data model
• inside/outside grid
• technicalities
• references

Per-discipline web pages:

A web page for the manager of each scientific discipline to provide information on existing grid applications in that discipline.  This should also include information or details specific to that discipline.

External services:

A section which describes application-level services which have been used in conjunction with the gLite middleware.  The focus here is to allow users to exchange their experiences with these tools and to recommend them (or not) to colleagues with similar needs.  Some tools which have been used already: TAVERNA (workflow), MOTEUR (workflow), OGSA-DAI (DB access), G-DSE (DB access), GridWay (resource brokering).

Search facilities:

There needs to be a centralized, coordinated search facility for all of the EGEE information.  This should include (eventually) GGUS, presentations, meeting agendas, meeting minutes, portal news, use case descriptions, etc.

Forum:

There needs to be an open forum for users and groups to exchange information.  Possible technologies would be a mailing list, chat, or wiki.  The details for this are to be determined.  Information should be accessible from search functions and contact details from the portal.

Use cases:

We view provision of use cases as the best mechanism to have a modular, flexible, easily-maintained user guide.  Being small, a large number of different people can contribute to these and they can be arranged in increasing complexity to address the needs of users with different levels of expertise.  A preliminary list of use cases is:

Beginner Users:

• get certificate (detailed by country/CA; maybe part of Quick Start Guide)
• run a job (hello world) + series of increasingly complex cases
• copy/register/access files on the grid
• recovering results (and viewing results)
• monitoring job status
• preparing a job

Normal Users:

• resource/service discovery
• linking jobs/data - jobs with data requirements
• environment setup (staging)
• monitoring status
• software installation (with a job, via SE)
• short-deadline job submission

Skilled Users:

• software installation (installing software on site)
• large-scale data transfer
• monitoring status (e.g. via R-GMA)
• data encryption
• AMGA metadata
• MPI
• workflow examples
• VO deployed services
• Biomed app kernel
• Geo app kernel

Documents for users:

A variety of documents for users will be provided. These will include existing documents judged to be appropriate and up to date, and annotated according to the target users.