Offline QA Shift Report Preparation and Instructions

Purpose of Form:

The main purpose of the shift report form is to guide the shift crew through the principal tasks which must be performed during the offline QA shifts. The QA team has made every effort to keep this form simple and compact. It is in the form of a check list which is easy to fill out and which can be quickly comprehended by others. Suspected problems which may show up in the histograms or scalers are reported by placing a letter (e.g. a,b,c...) in the appropriate column of the check list. Detailed comments may be included following the check list. Comments should be succinct, but lucid enough so that anyone reading the report can understand the reason(s) for marking the job as suspect. The check list has only 19 fields which represent over 100 histogram plots as well as the scaler run summaries. The compactness of the report form does not however diminish the responsibility of each shift crew member to carefully scrutinize all the available information about each production job and to write a clear, verbal description of suspected problems.

Web Based QA Shift Report Form:

An Offline QA Web based report form is provided. The fields are described on the form and should be self explanatory. Upon completion of this form an ASCII text version is automatically generated and emailed to 'starqa-hn' for distribution and archived as a permanent record. If the web page is unavailable an ASCII text template is also available (see following).

ASCII Template QA Shift Report Form:

An ASCII text form template is available at /afs/rhic/star/doc_public/www/comp/qa/shifts/offline_qa_report_example.txt. This should be used whenever the web based report form is unavailable. It is both a template and an example. The data filled in are for illustrative purposes only. Copy the file to a local working directory and edit it. Upon completion the new file should be emailed to 'starqa-hn'.

Instead of this older ASCII template, you may use a previous web generated ASCII report form as a template for your report in the event that the web based report form is unavailable. The Offline QA web based reports are archived in the 'starqa-hn' hypernews starting from July 25, 2001.

Line-by-Line Description of the Offline QA Report Form, ASCII Text Version:

• The first several lines record information about the shift crew member and the general status of offline production.
• The start/stop time for the shift should be in terms of the actual clock time at BNL regardless of where the shift is done. Shift times from non-BNL sites may be adjusted somewhat in order to be more convenient for other time zones provided this does not overlap with another person's QA shift.
• A telephone number and email address must be provided where the QA shift crew member can be reached during the next 24 hour period following the shift in order that they can be contacted by the Offline QA oversight team member on duty if necessary.
• For each data class there are two tables to complete. The first identifies the production job and status; the second contains a check list for the quality assessment summary and comments. Refer to the example form for the following description.
• In the first table column 1 is an identifier counter (i.e. 1,2,...) which is used to relate the job entries in the two tables. The remaining information about the production jobs is available from the Auto QA browser page for each job listed. Fill in one row entry for each job listed by the Auto QA browser for this class of data and query parameters.
• Description of items in the quality assessment table (second table):
  • Ref# = counter identifier (1,2....) assigned in table 1.
  • Mult = multiplicity range; low (L), medium (M), high (H) or all (A). This is assigned by Auto QA based on the number of global tracks and is indicated in the histogram ps file names.
  • #prim vrtx = number of events in run with found primary vertex as estimated from plot (1,2) on page 1 of the QA Shift histograms.
  • HITS (4 entries) = quality assessment of the number and distribution of reconstructed space points in the TPC, SVT, FTPC-East and FTPC-West.
  • EMC-SMD (3 entries) = quality assessment of the cluster quality and distributions in the EMC barrel, SMD both eta and phi grids, and the EMC-SMD Category 4 matched clusters.
  • Glob (4 entries) = quality assessment of the global track distribution and quality for global tracks with hits in the TPC-only, SVT and TPC, FTPC-East and FTPC-West.
  • Z-DCA (1 entry) = quality assessment of the distributions of the DCA points to the z-axis for all good TPC and SVT+TPC global tracks. This checks the distribution of primary vertices, TPC t0 and drift speed calibration, and TPC azimuthal distortions in the east and west halves.
  • Prim trk (3 entries) = quality assessment of the ratio of the number of primary to global tracks, primary track distributions, and overall primary track quality.
  • Prim vrtx (1 entry) = quality assessment of the number and distribution of primary vertices.
  • dedx (1 entry) = quality assessment of the distribution and calibration of dE/dx information in the TPC.
  • V0 (1 entry) = quality assessment of secondary vertices, their distributions and the Lambda and K0_short invariant mass distributions.
  • scl (1 entry) = quality assessment of the scaler summaries for the run.
  • Comments (entries as needed) = Letter lables (i.e. A,B,C....) which refer to detailed comments listed at the end of the table. These may be specific to one job or a common label may be applied to several jobs as needed.
  • General comments pertaining to this class of data may be included after the job specific comments.
• Definition of symbols in the quality assessment summary table:
  • + means quantities were checked and all were within expected ranges.
  • X means one or more quantities appear anomalous or missing; comments must be given for these.
  • ? means the results are ambiguous or unclear; comments must be provided.
  • - means the quantities are not applicable for this data class.
  • (blank) means the results were not checked; reason must be provided.
• These two tables are to be completed for each class of data which you may have to look at during the shift.
• If problems are suspected you must contact by email and telephone, if necessary, the appropriate QA Experts or Other Experts. Enter the names of the people and/or mailing lists which were notified in the final section of the report form.