2001 original bylaws

Revised Sections II and III 28 November 2001

I. Collaboration Membership

1. Members

   Scientists, graduate students, engineers and other technically-oriented persons intending to make a significant contribution to this collaboration over a period of a least one year are eligible to be members. Members of other RHIC collaborations will not be members of this collaboration without permission from the Council.

    

2. Institutions

   Institutions (universities or laboratories) are admitted to the Collaboration by the Council upon recommendation of the Spokesperson. Normally an institution will have at least two Ph.D.s who are eligible to be members. Each institution is responsible for its list of members and for designating a contact person who will receive and disseminate collaboration information within that institution.

    

II. Council

1. Membership

   The Council will consist of one member from each collaborating institution who will represent the membership from that institution. Institutions are admitted to the Collaboration by the Council upon recommendation of the Spokesperson and upon receiving an affirmative vote of at least 75% of the Council. Each institution will select its representative. Institutions may also be admitted to the Collaboration without Council membership. Such an institution should be affiliated with another institution which has Council membership and may be given its own Council membership at a later time by a vote of the Council. The Spokesperson and Deputy Spokespersons will be ex-officio members of the Council. The Council may add extra members.

   Younger members of the collaboration will be represented by up to three at-large Council members with no more than five years experience beyond the Ph.D., at least one of whom should be a graduate student. Candidates for at-large positions can be either self-nominated or nominated by others after a call for nominations by the Spokesperson. The at-large representatives will be elected by those members of the collaboration with no more than five years experience beyond the Ph.D. Elections should take place at least every two years.

    

2. Function

   The Council will deal with general issues which concern the collaboration. Examples include the organization and governance of the Collaboration, adoption of the bylaws and amendments thereto, the policy on admission of new members and institutions to the Collaboration, and publication policy. In addition, the Council is responsible for election of the Spokesperson and for approval of Deputy Spokesperson appointments.

    

3. Governance and Meetings

   The chairperson of the Council is elected by majority vote of the Council from among its ranks. The term of office is two years, and is not renewable. At the end of the Chairperson's first year in office, a deputy is elected who will become the chairperson's successor. After the end of the chairperson's term of office, the chairperson will serve yet another year as deputy.

   Normally, Council meetings will be held during collaboration meetings. At the discretion of the Council Chair, additional meetings can be called with at least two weeks notice. Any Council member unable to attend a given meeting can name a substitute representing the same institution or group. All Council meetings will include a closed session, without the Spokesperson and Deputy Spokesperson(s) present. Elections by the Council, of the Spokesperson or Council Chair or Deputy Chair, must be announced publicly to the entire collaboration at least two weeks in advance of the meeting at which the elections will take place.

    

4. Voting

   The Council will make decisions on all issues except elections and admission of new institutions based on a simple majority of all voting members. Any member may call for a secret ballot. Votes on adding extra members, admitting new institutions, or amending these bylaws must be announced ahead of time. Proxies to the Council chairperson are allowed for non-election votes, as are electronic meetings and ballots.

   Voting for Spokesperson will be carried out by secret ballot, and without proxies, at publicly announced Council meetings. A quorum of 60% of Council members must be represented at the meeting for a valid vote. A candidate for Spokesperson can be elected in the first round of voting only if he or she receives more than 50% of all votes cast, including abstentions. If no candidate obtains this absolute majority, runoff rounds will be conducted for the top vote-getters until one candidate obtains more than 50% of the votes cast, not counting abstentions. The re-election of a sitting Spokesperson requires a 2/3 majority of the voting representatives present at the meeting.

   Candidates for Spokesperson can be nominated by any member of the collaboration. An ad hoc nomination committee consisting of the Council Chair and two Council members appointed by the Chair will solicit nominations at least 30 days before the election, and will prepare and oversee the ballots.

    

III. Spokesperson

1. Selection

   The Spokesperson is elected by the Council and serves at its discretion. The normal term of office is 3 years, renewable with a 2/3 majority of the voting Council representatives present at the meeting.

   The Council can decide to terminate the Spokesperson's term in office at any time and to request new elections. Such a termination requires a 3/4 vote of the representatives present at a Council meeting with a quorum of at least 2/3 of the members represented.

    

2. Function of the Spokesperson

   The Spokesperson will be the representative of the Collaboration in scientific, technical, and managerial concerns. The Spokesperson will be concerned not only with the design and construction of the detector and its upgrades, but also with all other preparations required to operate the experiment efficiently and to publish results in a timely and responsible fashion, and with continued leadership of the Collaboration.

    

3. Deputy Spokespersons

   There will be up to two deputy spokespersons. The spokesperson and the deputies must all belong to different institutions. The deputy spokespersons will be appointed by the Spokesperson subject to the approval of the Council. The deputy spokespersons provide support and assistance to the Spokesperson in the management of the experiment and collaboration. They may be appointed by the Spokesperson to act on his or her behalf and to represent the Collaboration.

    

IV. Adoption

These bylaws were adopted by the Council on 21 June 1991 and amended on 16 Nov. 1991, 21 April 1993, 7 Nov. 1995, and 28 Nov. 2001.

(Adapted from the SDC)

Publication Policies

Quick reference

• Committee Members
• Committee Charter

Members

Charter

August 14, 1994

Goals. The publication goals of the STAR Collaboration are as follows:

1. The speedy publication of results that the Collaboration has agreed are sound and ready for publication. Here "publication" means the announcement of results through seminars, conferences, and/or scientific journals.
2. The avoidance of rumors and premature publication. 
3. The equitable assignment of credit to individuals for their work.

    

Policies.

The following policies and practices have been adopted to further the above listed goals:

1. Data from all parts of the STAR detector shall be available to all members of the STAR Collaboration for analysis. Furthermore, it is the responsibility of all collaborators to see that the necessary correction algorithms and correction parameters be updated and made available to the entire Collaboration in a timely manner. Any member of the Collaboration is free to analyze any part of the data.
2. Given the overriding principle of open communication within the collaboration, collaborators should, upon request of a colleague, provide relevant code and input assumptions that would permit results to be checked and confirmed.
    
3. Members of the Collaboration should exercise caution and good judgment when discussing experimental results with individuals outside the Collaboration before the results have been published (i.e., presented publicly in a seminar or conference or submitted for publication in a scientific journal). These results should clearly be labeled "Preliminary". When individuals outside the Collaboration are consulted for advice on the analysis or interpretation of the data, those individuals should be asked to respect the confidentiality of the data.
4. Members of the Collaboration should not present unpublished experimental results in seminars or conferences until (a) a memo has been circulated to the Collaboration giving details of the analysis and results, and (b) a rehearsal has been held in front of several members of the Collaboration, including a Council member and, if possible, the Spokesperson. In particular circumstances the Spokesperson may waive both these requirements.

   The Spokesperson will be designated as the Talks Coordinator. He will strive to distribute speaking invitations received by the Collaboration on the basis of the suitability of the speaker to the topic and an equitable distribution of talks to individuals and institutions with appropriate consideration of regional distinctions. As an aid to this end, he will maintain a record of all talks; thus members of the Collaboration who receive personal invitations to give talks should inform the Talks Coordinator. Speakers are encouraged to deposit a copy of their transparencies in a file which will be maintained by one of the secretaries.

5. A paper should not be submitted to a scientific journal until the above requirements have been met and (c) a not-far-from-final draft of the paper has been discussed at a general meeting, and (d) the final draft has been circulated. After the discussion of the not-far-from-final draft, an ad hoc committee may be appointed by the Spokesperson to facilitate the preparation and submission of the final draft. This committee would consist of the principal authors and one or more individuals not directly working on the analysis. It would be empowered to adjudicate disagreements on details of the paper. In addition, the Spokesperson will maintain the list of publications.
6. The Spokesperson will maintain the Collaboration's current author list. In general, the authors of papers will be those collaborators who have contributed to the taking or analysis of the data reported in the paper. In recognition of their contributions, collaborators who have worked on the installation of new equipment but have left the Collaboration prior to the taking of data will be included on the initial papers of the Collaboration using that equipment. Normally individuals are dropped from the general author list one year after they leave the Collaboration; however, individuals who have made special contributions to a given topic, either in hardware or analysis, should be retained on the author list of papers for which their contributions are relevant. Technical papers need only list as authors those individuals who contributed to that project, but the "STAR Collaboration" should be acknowledged. Decisions on the inclusion of authors will be done on the basis of these guidelines by the Council member from the author's institution with the concurrence of the Spokesperson.

   The authors of papers will be listed in alphabetical order, preceded or followed by the phrase "STAR Collaboration". Papers which result from student's theses should be so indicated by appropriate footnotes. Papers for conference proceedings are normally submitted in the speaker's name, plus other major contributors if appropriate, plus "STAR Collaboration", and require only the Spokesperson's agreement on the wording of the text.

7. The Spokesperson will maintain a list of students' thesis topics which will be updated at collaboration meetings. The Council may aid in resolving any conflicts.
8. Members of the Collaboration should not issue press releases or call press conferences without the approval of the Spokesperson, who will consult with the members of the Council.