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Hello,
Apologies for weighing in late on this round of the discussion. Thanks
to Vera for putting together this document, which I find to be a
well-written description of the problem and some potential solutions. I
have some general comments (I) and some specific comments (II).
I. General comments.
I find that it leans too heavily towards being an argument to support
the current authorship structure, without giving enough space or
credibility to other ideas and enough time to the the critical weighing
of their advantages and disadvantages; I think this is the most
important facet of this report. If the current structure is really
the superior balance of these factors, and not just the historical
inheritance from a younger era of our field, then it will stand out
among a list of options as the clearest choice.
That said, the current system has a strong and persuasive argument
that despite its weaknesses, it has worked reasonably well at
encouraging active participation by a broad group of experts and
encouraging innovation among analyzers. This is no small achievement in
the complicated world of research and funding incentives and I think
this point should be made clearly.
But the report is very clear on the concerns that the community has
with the current structure (Introduction); these concerns are the
reason for the creation of this committee and this discussion. We
should go to the effort to consider seriously the idea presented by
Vera (sub-consortia) and ideas more radical (one of which I detail
below and argue for).
The report discusses the impact of the current system, and describes
the advantages and disadvantages of the consortia idea. Perhaps it
would be stronger if there was an additional section which weighed and
contrasted the advantages and disadvantages more directly.
Alternative B: Assign paper authorship by assessing individual
contributions to the paper
In virtually every other scientific field, the question of paper
authorship is an individual one. Standards and conventions vary, but
across fields are preserved the ideas that
1) All of those who have contributed critical ideas or work to the
results described are named as authors
2) Those who have not passed that threshold are -not- listed as authors.
In almost every field, this is a difficult assessment to make, and one
that is often tangled with personal and political issues, but that is
because it is a very important and significant responsibility to the
rest of the community. One cannot argue that this task is too
difficult or burdensome and shrug it off; doing so shirks our
responsibility to name those who are responsible for the work.
In the days of smaller collaborations, (< ~25-50 people), it was a
reasonable approximation to make that everyone contributed a critical
piece of the work to each paper. In the days of larger collaborations
(>250 people), that approximation has broken down as the field itself
has split into specialized experts. This is similar to the divide
between detector and accelerator physicists.
What happens when the size of the collaboration approaches the size of
the HEP field? We need a new authorship structure which works in this
large-collaboration regime, one which doesn't break down as the number
of people in the collaboration nears the number of people in the field.
The current structure clearly does.
I suggest that it is critical, feasible and unavoidable to assess the
contributions to each individual paper, and to define standards which
define what constitutes a critical contribution. This is not an easy
task, but it is one that is faced by many other fields. Further,
this is a question which is already discussed informally, when people
want to know who made significant contributions to important results.
Instead of being discussed openly and decided in a standard manner,
it's done informally in hallways, bathrooms, over dinners and behind
closed doors.
In brief:
- All members of the collaboration would be required to contribute some
standard amount of time to collaboration-wide work (operations,
maintenance, development, etc) before they have the right to author
papers using the collaborations collected data and tools. This already
exists in most collaborations.
- Papers with physics results would be authored only by those who
contributed critically to the production of that result, not
generically to the building of the detector, running of the trigger, or
maintenance of computer farms
- Those who make critical contributions to the development of important
facets of HEP experiments (building of the dectector, upgrades, etc)
would be recognized as authors of papers describing those
contributions.
Some experts work only on computing issues, some nearly exclusively on
detector issues, and others on operations. We can't reasonably
suggest that all of these people have contributed critically to
-every- paper ranging from B-physics to top mass. Instead, they have
made specific contributions of their own to the development of critical
detectors and tools. Those advances and achievements should could
be recorded and recognized as individual papers themselves; only those
who have designed and developed a novel detector piece are included as
authors in the NIM article.
One might argue that this would lead to ugly battles, and that it would
discourage collaboration members from working on tasks which contribute
to the collaboration in general and not specifically to a paper's
result (MC generation, trigger operations, etc). In response, I
would make three arguments:
1) This structure would certainly result in a considerable amount of
time and energy spent on the question of the authorship of a paper.
But this is a critical piece of information which should be attached to
a paper; this information is lacking in the current structure, which
leads to an informal, unofficial understanding of who contributed
significantly to a given analysis. This discussion happens anyway and
should be done in an official, open and standard manner.
2) Authorship on physics papers has become diluted to the point where
this reward for collaboration-general work is worthless. A scientist
who only devotes his time to collaboration-general work cannot
seriously claim credit for B-physics papers, Z measurements, etc. It
is already true that only those papers in which one has contributed
significantly to the analysis can one credibly use as support when
applying for positions.
3) collaboration-general work is required for access to the
collaboration's data. Before one can use the data, one must contribute
in a general way to the maintenance or development of the
data-gathering and interprettation. In this way, collaborations have
entrance requirements which require and encourage service work.
This authorship structure reflects the specialized nature of
contributions to HEP experiments, allows for realistic authorship lists
which reflect the contributions of those who performed the physics, and
scales well as collaborations grow in size.
II. Specific comments
On page 7, the arguments in favor of the current system could be
strengthened. In my view, the significant point in favor of the
current system is that is the only system that has been tried; while it
has important weaknesses, it has seen the field through many years of
productive research. Other suggestions may sound persuasive, but it's
difficult to predict the effect they might have on the complex web of
incentives and pressures on researchers.
Point (a) argues that many contributions to the detector are
-necessary- for the production of the final result. I think this is
lacking the argument that those contributions are -sufficient- for
authorship of a physics result. The work of the accelerator division is
equally -necessary-, but it doesn't rise to the level of -sufficient-.
Points (b), (c), and (d) argue that the choice of authorship would be
"difficult and sometimes controversial". I see how that argues that
the current system is the easiest, but not that it is the best or most
appropriate.
Point (e) emphasizes the historical momentum of the current system. I
think that the points laid out in the introduction demonstrate that the
field is a the point where these choices need to be made for reasons
other than tradition.
Daniel
On Apr 24, 2005, at 4:44 PM, Luth, Vera G. wrote:
> Dear Colleagues,
>
> Thanks for response (at least from some of you) to the draft summary of
> our deliberations. The most detailed and critical response came from
> Max, and I have incorporated some of his comments and suggestions in
> the draft
> which is attached.
> Max's note questions the usefulness of including the proposal of
> relating authorship to analysis working groups and the idea of
> encouraging scientists working on the detector and support to join
> these groups so they can contribute more directly to the physics
> results.
>
> I append Max's final statement (please read the rest also) and my
> response.
> Clearly, this and other parts of the summary report need to be
> discussed in more detail with all of you. Remember, at this stage,
> the document is a discussion paper, not a recommendation.
>
> My question is: what next?
>
> We should probably have another meeting, preferentially in person with
> many of you before I can finalize the draft document with your various
> suggestions and then send it to C11 members for consultation.
>
> C11 meets at Uppsala on July 1st. If many of you will attend LP05 we
> could try and meet in Uppsala the day before.
> At the last day of the conference I also usually give a brief plenary
> talk
> on C11 and IUPAP activities. I was planning to discuss the WG report
> and announce the questionnaire, provided I get the consensus from you
> and C11 to do so.
>
> I would also like some advice from you on how we approach the
> collaborations through you or through the spokespersons.
>
> I will be visiting CERN on May 31 - June 3rd. The best time to have a
> meeting is probably Friday, June 3rd in the afternoon. We could try
> and get others on the phone (though we may miss Japan because of the
> time difference)
>
> I would still like to hear from all of you before by May 6th, by
> e-mail and
> on the phone.
>
> The topics I need input on are:
> - inclusion of consortia as proposal in the report
> - any other critique, comments, additions, ...
> - do you try to proceed with the questionnaire?
> - if yes, how do we submit it to the community? when?
>
> Please let me know how I can best get you on the phone,
> I'll be relatively free in the next two weeks, i.e. until May 6th.
>
> Looking forward to hearing from you,
> please post on the hypernews so everybody can follow the discussion.
>
> Ciao
> Vera
>
>
> =======================================================================
> =
> Max's statement:
> ATLAS and CMS can in no way be split now since they all work for
> discovering Higgs and SUSY, i.e. if one was working in a QCD group and
> was told one can only sign papers on pt spectra, for example, who
> would continue to work and
> agree to not sign the discovery paper, and who is important, the guy
> who saw the mass peak first or the one who has aligned a muon detector?
> There is the danger to be less efficient: being a member of a specific
> consortium I may overlook some work of others which may be of
> use for my own analysis. A collaboration has certain standards which
> are maintained by the current procedure. Being in group A and not
> agreeing with a result of group B leaves someone, in the proposed
> scheme,
> with no influence to oppose an analysis because one is not supposed to
> sign the paper of B anyhow. In other words I see no real advantage but
> too many counterarguments.
>
>
> Vera's Response:
> For ATLAS and CMS the common goal is to understand electro-weak
> symmetry breaking. If scientists were to focus on different scenarios,
> like SUSY and Higgs, and one would turn out to be correct, would the
> rest of the collaboration not share in the accomplishment of the lucky
> subgroup? But is that any different from choosing to work on a
> different experiment which in the past we had to do. Some experiments
> set limits other made measurements, a few made discoveries.
> In many ways, the LHC effort is a worldwide effort in which a very
> large fraction of our community is participating, not just the
> official members of the collaborations. Shouldn't this mean that we
> all will share the excitement of the results from these experiments.
> It is hard to conceive that everybody should be referenced as an
> author of this or that discovery.
> <WG_authorsxxx.pdf>
------------------------------------------------------------------------
---------------
|| Daniel Whiteson || danielw@fnal.gov ||
|| Univ. of Pennsylvania / CDF || 630-747-6467(c) x5591(o) ||
------------------------------------------------------------------------
---------------
--Boundary_(ID_fqjLUvsMEg8my5xWfn6Chw)
Content-type: text/enriched; charset=US-ASCII
Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT
Hello,
Apologies for weighing in late on this round of the discussion.
Thanks to Vera for putting together this document, which I find to be
a well-written description of the problem and some potential
solutions. I have some general comments (I) and some specific comments
(II).
I. General comments.
I find that it leans too heavily towards being an argument to support
the current authorship structure, without giving enough space or
credibility to other ideas and enough time to the the critical
weighing of their advantages and disadvantages; I think this is the
most important facet of this report. If the current structure is
really the superior balance of these factors, and not just the
historical inheritance from a younger era of our field, then it will
stand out among a list of options as the clearest choice.
That said, the current system has a strong and persuasive argument
that despite its weaknesses, it has worked reasonably well at
encouraging active participation by a broad group of experts and
encouraging innovation among analyzers. This is no small achievement
in the complicated world of research and funding incentives and I
think this point should be made clearly.
But the report is very clear on the concerns that the community has
with the current structure (Introduction); these concerns are the
reason for the creation of this committee and this discussion. We
should go to the effort to consider seriously the idea presented by
Vera (sub-consortia) and ideas more radical (one of which I detail
below and argue for).
The report discusses the impact of the current system, and describes
the advantages and disadvantages of the consortia idea. Perhaps it
would be stronger if there was an additional section which weighed and
contrasted the advantages and disadvantages more directly.
Alternative B: Assign paper authorship by assessing individual
contributions to the paper
In virtually every other scientific field, the question of paper
authorship is an individual one. Standards and conventions vary, but
across fields are preserved the ideas that
1) All of those who have contributed critical ideas or work to the
results described are named as authors
2) Those who have not passed that threshold are -not- listed as
authors.
In almost every field, this is a difficult assessment to make, and one
that is often tangled with personal and political issues, but that is
because it is a very important and significant responsibility to the
rest of the community. One cannot argue that this task is too
difficult or burdensome and shrug it off; doing so shirks our
responsibility to name those who are responsible for the work.
In the days of smaller collaborations, (<< ~25-50 people), it was a
reasonable approximation to make that everyone contributed a critical
piece of the work to each paper. In the days of larger collaborations
(>250 people), that approximation has broken down as the field itself
has split into specialized experts. This is similar to the divide
between detector and accelerator physicists.
What happens when the size of the collaboration approaches the size of
the HEP field? We need a new authorship structure which works in this
large-collaboration regime, one which doesn't break down as the number
of people in the collaboration nears the number of people in the
field. The current structure clearly does.
I suggest that it is critical, feasible and unavoidable to assess the
contributions to each individual paper, and to define standards which
define what constitutes a critical contribution. This is not an
easy task, but it is one that is faced by many other fields.
Further, this is a question which is already discussed informally,
when people want to know who made significant contributions to
important results. Instead of being discussed openly and decided in a
standard manner, it's done informally in hallways, bathrooms, over
dinners and behind closed doors.
In brief:
- All members of the collaboration would be required to contribute
some standard amount of time to collaboration-wide work (operations,
maintenance, development, etc) before they have the right to author
papers using the collaborations collected data and tools. This
already exists in most collaborations.
- Papers with physics results would be authored only by those who
contributed critically to the production of that result, not
generically to the building of the detector, running of the trigger,
or maintenance of computer farms
- Those who make critical contributions to the development of
important facets of HEP experiments (building of the dectector,
upgrades, etc) would be recognized as authors of papers describing
those contributions.
Some experts work only on computing issues, some nearly exclusively on
detector issues, and others on operations. We can't reasonably
suggest that all of these people have contributed critically to
-every- paper ranging from B-physics to top mass. Instead, they have
made specific contributions of their own to the development of
critical detectors and tools. Those advances and achievements
should could be recorded and recognized as individual papers
themselves; only those who have designed and developed a novel
detector piece are included as authors in the NIM article.
One might argue that this would lead to ugly battles, and that it
would discourage collaboration members from working on tasks which
contribute to the collaboration in general and not specifically to a
paper's result (MC generation, trigger operations, etc). In
response, I would make three arguments:
1) This structure would certainly result in a considerable amount of
time and energy spent on the question of the authorship of a paper.
But this is a critical piece of information which should be attached
to a paper; this information is lacking in the current structure,
which leads to an informal, unofficial understanding of who
contributed significantly to a given analysis. This discussion
happens anyway and should be done in an official, open and standard
manner.
2) Authorship on physics papers has become diluted to the point where
this reward for collaboration-general work is worthless. A scientist
who only devotes his time to collaboration-general work cannot
seriously claim credit for B-physics papers, Z measurements, etc. It
is already true that only those papers in which one has contributed
significantly to the analysis can one credibly use as support when
applying for positions.
3) collaboration-general work is required for access to the
collaboration's data. Before one can use the data, one must
contribute in a general way to the maintenance or development of the
data-gathering and interprettation. In this way, collaborations have
entrance requirements which require and encourage service work.
This authorship structure reflects the specialized nature of
contributions to HEP experiments, allows for realistic authorship
lists which reflect the contributions of those who performed the
physics, and scales well as collaborations grow in size.
II. Specific comments
On page 7, the arguments in favor of the current system could be
strengthened. In my view, the significant point in favor of the
current system is that is the only system that has been tried; while
it has important weaknesses, it has seen the field through many years
of productive research. Other suggestions may sound persuasive, but
it's difficult to predict the effect they might have on the complex
web of incentives and pressures on researchers.
Point (a) argues that many contributions to the detector are
-necessary- for the production of the final result. I think this is
lacking the argument that those contributions are -sufficient- for
authorship of a physics result. The work of the accelerator division
is equally -necessary-, but it doesn't rise to the level of
-sufficient-.
Points (b), (c), and (d) argue that the choice of authorship would be
"difficult and sometimes controversial". I see how that argues that
the current system is the easiest, but not that it is the best or most
appropriate.
Point (e) emphasizes the historical momentum of the current system. I
think that the points laid out in the introduction demonstrate that
the field is a the point where these choices need to be made for
reasons other than tradition.
Daniel
On Apr 24, 2005, at 4:44 PM, Luth, Vera G. wrote:
<excerpt>Dear Colleagues,
Thanks for response (at least from some of you) to the draft summary of
our deliberations. The most detailed and critical response came from
Max, and I have incorporated some of his comments and suggestions in
the draft
which is attached.
Max's note questions the usefulness of including the proposal of
relating authorship to analysis working groups and the idea of
encouraging scientists working on the detector and support to join
these groups so they can contribute more directly to the physics
results.
I append Max's final statement (please read the rest also) and my
response.
Clearly, this and other parts of the summary report need to be
discussed in more detail with all of you. Remember, at this stage,
the document is a discussion paper, not a recommendation.
My question is: what next?
We should probably have another meeting, preferentially in person with
many of you before I can finalize the draft document with your various
suggestions and then send it to C11 members for consultation.
C11 meets at Uppsala on July 1st. If many of you will attend LP05 we
could try and meet in Uppsala the day before.
At the last day of the conference I also usually give a brief plenary
talk
on C11 and IUPAP activities. I was planning to discuss the WG report
and announce the questionnaire, provided I get the consensus from you
and C11 to do so.
I would also like some advice from you on how we approach the
collaborations through you or through the spokespersons.
I will be visiting CERN on May 31 - June 3rd. The best time to have a
meeting is probably Friday, June 3rd in the afternoon. We could try
and get others on the phone (though we may miss Japan because of the
time difference)
I would still like to hear from all of you before by May 6th, by
e-mail and
on the phone.
The topics I need input on are:
- inclusion of consortia as proposal in the report
- any other critique, comments, additions, ...
- do you try to proceed with the questionnaire?
- if yes, how do we submit it to the community? when?
Please let me know how I can best get you on the phone,
I'll be relatively free in the next two weeks, i.e. until May 6th.
Looking forward to hearing from you,
please post on the hypernews so everybody can follow the discussion.
Ciao
Vera
========================================================================
Max's statement:
ATLAS and CMS can in no way be split now since they all work for
discovering Higgs and SUSY, i.e. if one was working in a QCD group and
was told one can only sign papers on pt spectra, for example, who
would continue to work and
agree to not sign the discovery paper, and who is important, the guy
who saw the mass peak first or the one who has aligned a muon detector?
There is the danger to be less efficient: being a member of a specific
consortium I may overlook some work of others which may be of
use for my own analysis. A collaboration has certain standards which
are maintained by the current procedure. Being in group A and not
agreeing with a result of group B leaves someone, in the proposed
scheme,
with no influence to oppose an analysis because one is not supposed to
sign the paper of B anyhow. In other words I see no real advantage but
too many counterarguments.
Vera's Response:
For ATLAS and CMS the common goal is to understand electro-weak
symmetry breaking. If scientists were to focus on different scenarios,
like SUSY and Higgs, and one would turn out to be correct, would the
rest of the collaboration not share in the accomplishment of the lucky
subgroup? But is that any different from choosing to work on a
different experiment which in the past we had to do. Some experiments
set limits other made measurements, a few made discoveries.
In many ways, the LHC effort is a worldwide effort in which a very
large fraction of our community is participating, not just the
official members of the collaborations. Shouldn't this mean that we
all will share the excitement of the results from these experiments.
It is hard to conceive that everybody should be referenced as an
author of this or that discovery.
<<WG_authorsxxx.pdf>
</excerpt><fontfamily><param>Helvetica</param>---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|| Daniel Whiteson || danielw@fnal.gov ||
|| Univ. of Pennsylvania / CDF || 630-747-6467(c) x5591(o) ||
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------</fontfamily>
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