A Guide to ALMA Operations and Interactions with the Community

A primary goal of the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) has always been to be a facility accessible to astronomers, radio-interferometry experts and non-experts alike. As a project, it is strongly committed to listening to its users and to utilising this input in decision making and priority setting. Feedback from the community highlights the perceived complexity of ALMA’s organisational structure and, by extension, a diffuse uncertainty around how to make users’ voices heard. The aim of this article is to provide insight into the functioning of ALMA as an integrated observatory, with an emphasis on science and science operations. We present information on the ways the observatory communicates with the broader community, with a focus on the mechanisms by which the community can provide feedback to the project.