The monthly meeting of the OA Users Group was held 31 Jan 1997 at 1400 hours, at the Metrica Inc. conference room, Ste 400, San Antonio, Texas. Elena Weber, OMYX, chaired the meeting. Those in attendance included:

Elena Weber           AFOMS/OMYX   652-5811  WeberE@mail.omsq.af.mil
Joe Bergmann          AFOMS/OMYA   652-3696  BergmanJ@mail.omsq.af.mil
Mike Ostrander        AFOMS/OMYV   652-5030  Ostrandm@mail.omsq.af.mil
Hank DuBois           AFOMS/OMYV   652-5030  DuboisH@mail.omsq.af.mil
Timothy O'Neil        AFOMS/OMYX   652-5811  ONeilT@mail.omsq.af.mil
Janice Buchhorn       AL/HRTD      536-4005  Buchhorn@alhrt.brooks.af.mil
Darryl Hand           Metrica      340-8211  codap@metricanet.com
Jimmy Mitchell        IJOA         349-8525  IJOAJLM@aol.com
Johnny Weissmuller    Metrica/IJOA 340-8211  MPT@metricanet.com

1. With the departure of SqdLdr Herlihy, Royal Australian Air Force exchange officer at Armstrong Laboratory, Human Resources Directorate, Manpower and Personnel Research Division (AL/HRMJ), a new chair of the group is needed. Ms. Elena Weber, OMYX, acting vice-chair agreed to serve as permanent chairperson (with the concurrence of Mr. Tartell, OMY chief). The group appointed Dr Mitchell, IJOA, as interim vice chair, until a permanent vice can be identified.

2. Mr. Hand discussed the status of CODAP on the Web. A CODAP program flow diagram section is now available (http://metricanet.com/groups/codap/flow/). Ms. Weber passed out hard copy examples of the flow charts as they appear on the website. There are five new documents - Audit, Case Clustering, Task Clustering, Job Descriptions, and Interrater Reliability. Each document contains a program flow diagram, along with descriptive text and clickable links to referenced programs. TSgt. O'Neil has completed his review of the CODAP web documentation and he will meet with Mr. Hand next week to suggest corrections and improvements. Anyone with suggestions for changes and improvements should submit them to Mr. Hand as soon as possible.

3. Mr. Hand reported one AIX program update. EXPORTCD was improved to blank out computed variables C0003-C0006. The old version wrote out unprintable characters. When a binary transfer occurs (such as ftp or ODDBALL), there is no problem with the associated IMPORTCD. However, for ASCII text transfers (for example, using DataExpress to upload files to the Unisys), these characters cause truncation of that record, thereby losing the values for C0007 through C0010. C0007 is an important variable, as it contains the number of valid task responses for an individual, while C0008 contains the sum of the task responses. This correction has also been made to the Unisys version. No change is necessary for IMPORTCD.

4. An upgrade was also made to CONHGP, which converts HIER-GRP output into a CODAP Cluster Solution file. This software is only available on the Unisys but perhaps should also be made available on RISC equipment. Mr. Tartell indicated that for OMY, this program was unlikely to be used. However, the issue of advanced CODAP programs that are Unisys-unique needs to be dealt with, in preparation for final shutdown of the AL Unisys mainframe. This was discussed at some length. Some of the more notable programs include SEDGRP and OVLGRP (non-hierarchical clustering), and a version of VARSUM that also reports the pair-wise probability of samples being drawn from the same population. While it is unknown as to how long the HR Unisys will be available, Mr. Tartell considered it prudent to convert and save these programs on the RISC. While this software would not be generally available, the technology would be preserved under the /codap/dev development library.

5. Mr. Hand reported a problem connecting to the OMS RISC. It was suggested that he contact Dennis Stone at OMS to resolve this. Both the Metrica and OMS nets have undergone major changes recently.

6. Elena Weber requested a modification to RPDEL. Currently, RPDEL copies reports from an input Report file, excluding those specified by the user. The output reports are then renumbered sequentially. OMS would prefer to retain the original report number in the output file, as it eliminates confusion between analysts and technicians when referring to reports.

7. Mr. Hand discussed OMS data transfer from the Sperry via 9-track tapes written with ODDBALL. Olga Velez had trouble reading in the data in her first attempt. The problem was caused by the loss of end-of-record characters. As a result, each file was coming in as a single large record. To correct this, Mr. Hand wrote a Perl program to split the file back into 80-character records. The resultant output was then successfully converted into a Task Factor file. The end-of-record characters were not present because the ODDBALL program wrote the file in EBCDIC. In the future, the ODDBALL runstream should be modified to write out an ASCII file. Then, the "dd" command can use an option to convert to EBCDIC, along with the end-of-record characters.

8. Mr. Ostrander asked about the status of the AUTHOR software (Air Force Authoring System), noting that it was predicted "soon" in the October CODAP Users meeting. Dr. Mitchell indicated that a much-improved system which will meet OMS requirements is in beta testing and should be available for OMS use with the next week or so. He indicated he preferred to have IJOA personnel "walk through" a survey or two and requested IJOA involvement at each stage of survey disk production. Mr. Tartell indicated he would like that; his objective is to have his developers/analysts observe the creation of a survey. They will then duplicate the disks on OMS equipment, have developers/analysts take the survey, and observe how data can be loaded to a CODAP format file through the collect program within AUTHOR. Mr. Tartell indicated he expected to have the system read in a PC-TIARA file from a typical enlisted survey. Dr. Mitchell stated that before this would be possible, IJOA needed the format of the PC-TIARA file; to date, IJOA has not been provided an example of such a file although it was requested last September. After some discussion of developments and priorities of the PC-TIARA system, Mr. Tartell indicated he would take care of getting such an example file to IJOA early next week. Dr. Mitchell indicated that this version of AUTHOR would be some interim number (such as 2.7), with a final major version (3.0) expected by the time of the International Occupational Analysts Workshop (IOAW) in late May or early June. This will provide time for final beta testing, revision of help comments, redevelopment of AFSAS training, etc.. He anticipates offering AUTHOR training sessions on the weekends before and after the IOAW, for a suitable fee. Mr. Tartell responded that OMS was close to finalizing the date and arrangements for the Next IOAW.

9. TSgt. O'Neil requested an updated HAILS disk. Metrica agreed to provide this, along with the most recent changes to the Airman and Officer Classification charts. In exchange, Mr. Weissmuller requested an updated study-status document (STDYINFO.DOC) from OMS. TSgt. O'Neil stated that he would send an updated version as an e-mail attachment to Mr. Hand.

10. The next meeting is scheduled for 1400 hours, 27 Feb 1997, at the new IJOA offices, 10010 San Pedro, Ste 440.