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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 Members of the Collaboration should not present unpublished experimental results in seminars or conferences until (a) a memo has been circulated to the Collaboration giving details of the analysis and results, and (b) a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.