sPHENIX is a new detector at RHIC.

[Christine Nattrass <saccharomyces.cerevisae AT gmail.com>]

    Hi Gunther, all
    
    First, many thanks to the committee writing the authorship policy! 
    I think this document is really coming together!
    
    Second, I really think we should have another meeting to discuss
    this before we vote on it.  This has a lot of big changes (most/all
    of which I support!).  Obviously we need an authorship policy ASAP,
    but I worry that the collaboration has not actually had enough time
    to mull over and discuss the policy.  Maybe if we must vote in two
    weeks, could we squeeze in an IB meeting or collaboration
    discussion, say, next week?  Not that I lack meetings to go to, but
    this is a very important policy.  I am worried about unintended
    consequences of some provisions.
    
    -------------------
    
    Here are comments on the current version which come to mind now:
    
    - What if someone is rejected for authorship when they submit their
    annual report, but they would have met the requirement, say, the
    next month?  This appears to indicate that someone can apply for
    authorship only once every 6 months.  I say this because of
    1.1.4.3.  The authorship committee should be able to say, "Apply
    next month," or, "Please reapply in June."  That said, you don't
    want someone reapplying every month and creating unnecessary extra
    work for the committee.  Proposed tweak: add, "Additional reports
    can be submitted at intermediate times determined in collaboration
    with the authorship committee if it is likely that authorship would
    be granted then."
    
    - What is meant by someone who is a current member of the
    collaboration?  Specifically, is a second year graduate student who
    has been taking classes and TA'ing full time (therefore has not
    spent much time working on sPHENIX) but has had some involvement in
    sPHENIX currently in sPHENIX?  I guess this would be decided by the
    authorship committee?  But it would be good to have some guidance as
    to what is meant by current members in the case of students who are
    taking a full load of classes (or, say, were last semester).  These
    would be precisely the people most likely to trigger the previous
    provision, where reapplying later might be warranted.
    
    - If I read 2.2 correctly, the main reason why the IB might vote on
    exceptional authorship would be if the IB objected to the
    spokespeople's decision.  That might be fine - the vast majority of
    these cases will be clear cut (since 1.4.1 basically says grad
    students on sPHENIX will remain authors forever, this would likely
    mainly be undergraduates who met the bar for authorship).  So we're
    talking about edge cases of edge cases.  This also doesn't state how
    a vote by the IB is triggered.  Who decides that the IB has to vote?
    
    - I question the wisdom of 1.4.1, which says that anyone who has
    been an author for three years will remain an author in perpetuity. 
    I get where this is coming from, but if we make this the policy now,
    we can't decide in three years that we would like a different policy
    because that's what the policy said when someone was on sPHENIX.  We
    may need that leverage at a later date because authorship is one of
    the ways to encourage participation.  What if [insert unpredictable
    world event] and sPHENIX ends up taking data for 10 years?  Not
    likely, but we're tying the hands of the future collaboration.  More
    likely, perhaps sPHENIX continues to exist with people analyzing old
    data for a decade - this says that someone who joins in year 6 and
    stays on for three years would be an author on all sPHENIX papers in
    perpetuity, even though that person would almost certainly do almost
    exclusively data analysis.
        There are three possible modifications I could see -
    guaranteeing authorship for a fixed period of time (but not
    forever), guaranteeing authorship for people who were on the
    collaboration while sPHENIX is taking data, or deferring a decision
    to later in the life of the collaboration (when we might have a
    better idea about what the future sPHENIX looks like.)
    
    - I question the wisdom of a hard policy saying, "This provision
    cannot be used to add the same person to the author list more than
    once in any 12 month period."  I get what the goal is - you don't
    want people only working on the papers they're interested in - but I
    can conceive of weird special cases where you would want to be able
    to override this.  Why not say, ""This provision can only be used to
    add the same person to the author list more than once in any 12
    month period by a 2/3 majority vote of the IB."  That is a hard bar
    to clear, and it will probably never happen, but it means if, say,
    you have a REALLY productive undergrad or a post doc who makes an
    amazing contribution 3 months after showing up, they could be added
    as an author.
    
    - Section 2.5 says that a person who has been removed from the
    author list for misconduct requires the spokespeople to recommend
    that they be added back in order for the collaboration to add them
    back.  Of course we hope we never remove someone for misconduct, BUT
    we don't want to be haggling over policy when & if we do.  I do
    not think a single person should ever be able to make such a
    significant change unilaterally.  This allows the spokespeople to
    unilaterally block someone from rejoining the author list.  Also,
    what if we have two co-spokespeople and they don't agree?  It should
    always be possible to override the spokespeople, even if that bar is
    high.  Most of the time the IB is going to vote with the
    spokespeople anyways.  I also think a simple majority of the IB is
    too low of a bar, either for removal or putting them back on.  I
    would propose removing the spokespeople from the decision and
    requiring a 2/3 majority vote, both for removal and adding them back
    in.  [Note I believe the bylaws say we can remove someone from the collaboration
    for misconduct, and that decision is reviewed by the EC.  They would
    then remain on the author list - in perpetuity, according to section
    1.4.1, at least if they're on the author list for three years.]
Greetings,
Dr. Christine Nattrass
--
she, her, hers
Associate Professor
Undergraduate Program Director
Completed Tier 2 Safe Zone training
Physics Department
University of Tennessee, Knoxville
Office:  SERF 609
Office Hours:  by appointment
Address:
1408 Circle Drive
Knoxville, TN 37996
phone number at UTK: (865) 974-6211
http://nattrass.utk.edu

On 5/8/23 13:27, Gunther M Roland via sPHENIX-l wrote:

      Dear Collaborators, IB members,

Following the discussion at the recent IB meeting, we are circulating the updated draft of the proposed authorship policy. We are planning an IB vote for two weeks from now, which should give everyone sufficient time to review the proposed policy.  We encourage all IB members to discuss with their respective groups before the vote.

The changes in this draft were summarized by the Authorship committee as follows:

"The text "Mentoring junior people in the performance of the preceding tasks" has been added under the list of qualifying service work. This is to recognize the significant time investment that more senior people make in training junior people. Depending on the student's knowledge, the senior person may even wind up effectively collaborating with the student on what is nominally the student's service task.

        We have introduced Secs. 1.1.5-1.1.7, which defines an
        Authorship Committee and sets up an appeals process. The appeals
        process is intended to (1) allow for the Authorship Committee to
        review its decisions and engage discussions with the affected
        parties, and (2) provide an independent review of decisions to
        deny authorship. While the Spokespersons make the final decision
        in the case of an appeal, an independent committee would study
        the issue on their behalf and make a recommendation. This is to
        ensure that the appeal receives a hearing from people who are
        not overburdened with other tasks in the collaboration.
        
        We have added Sec. 2.6, which allows authors to be listed under
        a different affiliation. This is intended to address comments
        made during the recent IB discussion and help people who want to
        continue to work in sPHENIX after moving to a smaller
        institution that is not a member of the collaboration.”

Many thanks to Anders, Marzia, Neeraj and Virginia for their hard work in putting this document together! 

Best,

Gunther and Dave

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