Proposed Talks Committee Guidelines

1. Proposed Talks Committee Guidelines M. Hebert, E. Hungerford, T.J. Liu

2. Where We Are Now • We have a committee in place consisting of myself, Ed Hungerford, and T.J. Liu, following an Institution Board election in January • We have had three presentation opportunities to consider thus far: • PANIC02 in Osaka this fall • NuFact02 in London July 1-6th • Topical Seminar on Frontier of Particle Physics 2002: Neutrinos and Cosmology in Beijing August 20-25th • We have succeeded in landing one speaker thus far • Hebert for the PANIC02 talk • We do not have any explicit rules regarding exactly how the committee, or the speakers it approves, are supposed to function Michael Hebert, UC Irvine Talks Committee Guidelines

3. What Guidelines Do We Need? • I think in general everybody understands the purpose of a talks/presentations committee • The problems arise in the details • Our goal is to head these problems off at this early stage by establishing a charge to the committee and a written set of operating procedures that both the committee and the speakers will follow • This talk presents the first draft of these guidelines so that we can get your feedback, incorporate it, and complete this task in the relatively near future Michael Hebert, UC Irvine Talks Committee Guidelines

4. Committee Membership and Term • The committee consists of three members of the MECO collaboration, elected by majority vote of the Institution Board • Each member serves a three year, renewable term • One new member is elected to the committee each year • Note: for the moment TJ, Ed, and I don’t know who is up for reelection next January. • Note also that we have all volunteered to be the short timer Michael Hebert, UC Irvine Talks Committee Guidelines

5. Draft Charge to the Committee I • The committee is constituted to solicit presentations that widely disseminate information about MECO and its physics, to select collaboration members to make these presentations, and to ensure that the material presented is drawn from the collaboration-approved set of figures, tables, and parameters. • This simple statement raises a number of questions: • Exactly how do we solicit speakers? – addressed in the SOP section • Is the committee the final arbiter of contentions over talks? – again in the SOP section • What constitutes collaboration-approved materials, who approves them, and where are they kept? – addressed at the end of this talk • How do we ensure what is being presented? – again in the SOPs Michael Hebert, UC Irvine Talks Committee Guidelines

6. Draft Charge to the Committee II • The committee shall attempt to distribute presentations equally among all collaboration members in good standing. In selecting speakers the committee will give preference to collaborators; • having a more detailed knowledge of the subject of interest, • whose seniority is appropriate for the level of the conference or presentation, • whose career prospects will be enhanced by giving a particular presentation. • The aim here is to say that we will both share the wealth and look out for young people in particular to further their job prospects whenever possible • This raises a question that is beyond the scope of this committee, namely what determines if a collaboration member is in good standing? Michael Hebert, UC Irvine Talks Committee Guidelines

7. Draft Charge to the Committee III • Although the collaboration rules for inclusion on the author list of any paper are established outside of this committee, the committee shall implement these rules by recommending the appropriate author list for any MECO publication to the Executive Committee • This places the committee in the judicial role of interpreting the author list rules • Clearly this begs the question of what are the rules for inclusion on the MECO author list? This needs to be addressed as part of the “what is a collaborator in good standing” debate. Michael Hebert, UC Irvine Talks Committee Guidelines

8. Proposed Committee SOPs I • The committee makes its recommendations to the Executive Committee. Unless the Executive Committee requests a review within a period of time TBD, the recommendation is approved. • A collaboration member is free to present seminars and colloquia at universities without contacting the committee. However, the committee must review presentations at all conferences, workshops, and national laboratories in advance. • If a collaboration member is specifically requested by invitation for a presentation that is solely about MECO, rather than as part of a broader review of the field, the committee will still determine who will give the presentation, although preference will be given to the requested individual. Michael Hebert, UC Irvine Talks Committee Guidelines

9. Proposed Committee SOPs II • The committee will announce all opportunities for talks to the collaboration as a whole in order to solicit nominees. Operationally this means broadcast e-mail and/or in collaboration meeting talks like this one • Nominations for speakers will be accepted for consideration from members of the Institution Board – this is to ensure that whatever requirements for giving talks within that institution have been met by the nominee • Nominees who have recently made presentations will have lower priority than those who have not Michael Hebert, UC Irvine Talks Committee Guidelines

10. Proposed Rules for Speakers • Speakers will provide electronic copies of all presentations, both in draft form to review in advance, and the final version to be archived on the MECO web site. • Speakers will present a practice talk to the committee and other interested collaboration members via a tele- or videoconference several days before the scheduled presentation date. • Presentations must represent the MECO design, capabilities, and results only by material approved by the collaboration. An up-to-date list of approved presentation material and electronic forms for all of that material will be available on the MECO web site in the Internal Documents section. • There is a strong preference for PowerPoint as the electronic talk format of choice to allow easy sharing of individual slides in multiple talks. Michael Hebert, UC Irvine Talks Committee Guidelines

11. Unresolved Issues • We require some rules stipulating what constitutes a collaborator in good standing • A corollary to this is that we need a clear statement of the authorship rules • The “Plot Blessing” Committee • In the long term this will either be the purview of the Executive Committee or a separate committee elected by the Institution Board • In the interim I propose that we consider at least the CDR, the proposal, and the TDR as approved materials (since they are already in the public domain) and we decide on a subset of the most up-to-date Technical Memos as viable source material as well. • If the material isn’t written up anywhere, I think we can safely conclude it is NOT going to be “blessed” Michael Hebert, UC Irvine Talks Committee Guidelines

12. Achieving Closure • My hope would be to get at least a portion of these guidelines agreed to in the IB meeting this afternoon so that we can exercise them on the upcoming talks • I would hope that whatever remaining uncertainties there are can be wrapped up so that we can get a complete set of guidelines decided upon by the next IB meeting • As with any part of the Management Plan, we can amend/alter it as needed down the road • I am eager to get this done soon because we will have a much larger spectrum of problems to deal with once the project is approved. Anything that we can decide now, we should. Michael Hebert, UC Irvine Talks Committee Guidelines