Notes on the Jefferson Lab CLAS Collaboration Meeting

July 24 - 26, 2003

Important Points:

1. Next Meeting:  Thursday , November 13 through Saturday, November 15, 2003 

                                        at Jefferson Lab, CEBAF Center

2. The meeting was again broadcast on the web, and the recordings are available from the archives at http://cc.jlab.org/services/streamingmedia/WebCastGuide.php? SubmitMode=GETEVENT&SearchString=8
   Thanks are due Marty Wise and Greg Adams who helped get this service in operation, and to Philip Coltharp, Burnham Stokes, and Mark van Asseldonk, who helped with the camera.

Meeting Notes

Because the information presented in the talks is, or will be, available from the web, the following notes concentrate mostly on the business items that took place during the meeting.

1. Four new Full Members were elected:  Paul Euginio, Florida State University; David Ireland, Glasgow;  Victor Mokeev, Moscow State; and Igor Strakovsky The George Washington University

2.  Five new Term Members were approved.  These are:  Ishaq Hleiqawi, Ohio
   University; Samuel Stepanyan, Kyungpook National University; Frederick Tong-Uk Lee,   University of New Hampshire; Mike Williams, CMU; and Lorenzo Zana,  University of New Hampshire.
   
   We welcome these new members;  we need all the help we can get.

3. Progress on publications (our principal product) has been picking up.  Since the last Collaboration meeting in February, six papers have been published, two papers have been accepted for publication, and four additional papers have been submitted for publication.  In addition, three papers are now under CLAS wide review and one under Ad Hoc Committee review (having been added since the meeting).  There are also a large number of papers undergoing Analysis Committee review, so if you have not been asked to serve on a review committee recently, you may anticipate getting a request soon.

    

4. On Thursday morning there was a long discussion on revisions of the CLAS Charter.  The discussion can be divided into sections as follows:

   1. The first set of proposed amendments  were in the nature of editorial changes related to the way business is actually conducted -- elimination of obsolete references to Technical Groups, clarification of 2/3 voting requirements, etc.  There were no objections to these changes from members present.  However, it was noted that strict interpretation of current language in the Governance Article  III C would not permit actual vote on these proposals until the next Collaboration meeting.  Thus, these amendments will be offered for consideration at the November, 2003, CLAS meeting.

              In the meantime the actual operating procedures will continue to follow the suggested revisions, just as they have for the past few years.

   2. It was explicitly proposed, and accepted by the Chair, that Article III C itself should be amended to permit voting on proposals which had been circulated to the membership at least one month prior to a meeting.  However, if such language were added to the current list of proposed amendments, then according to the current Charter, the amendments could not be voted upon until the following meeting.   Thus the additional change to the Charter, to allow voting on a proposed amendment that is circulated at least on month before the meeting, will be proposed at the November meeting, and that amendment will be voted upon at the first CLAS meeting in 2004.

   3. The subject that generates the most e-mail traffic between authors, members and the CLAS chair is authorship on our papers.  The CCC developed a proposed CLAS Charter amendment that would require each eligible member to positively request to be included on the author list, as opposed to the present system which requires a positive action to remove a name from the author list. The proposal for "opt-in" rather than "opt-out" for exercising one's authorship rights generated lively discussion (see XI B in the proposed draft).  It was agreed that the online mechanism required to implement this proposal should be developed and tested while retaining the existing "opt-out" language.  Accordingly, a formal vote to table the proposal for "opt-in" was recorded.   This will not automatically come up again unless a vote to remove from the table is taken at a future meeting.

      Work to develop a formal Web-based opt-out procedure, directed by Mabub Khandaker, is progressing and will be presented at the next CLAS Collaboration meeting.

       

   4. A proposal to adopt a more rapid review process for selected critical papers, called  FastTrack, required only modification to the ByLaws.  This suggested change, with two amendments to the original proposed wording,  received the needed endorsement by the membership.   These amendments to ByLaw C2 on "Publications" have now been edited into the current version of the By-laws.

5. A problem that continues to plague the Collaboration is the time it takes to complete the review process for papers to be published.  We have made some progress in this regard, but more can be done.  CLAS members should be aware that the review process can be shortened if the Working group Chair and the CLAS Chair are aware that the paper is coming.  Surprises can add weeks to the review process due to the time it can take to set up the appropriate review committees.

6. Members were reminded  during the meeting once again of their obligation to notify the Speaker's Committee whenever talks about CLAS are given.  The link to the web site that makes this task easy has been moved to a prominent place on the Hall-B web page.

7. At the  Collaboration Meeting an election for a new CLAS Chair (two year term)  was  held, and Larry Weinstein, Old Dominion University, was elected. The current chairs of the Physics Working Groups CLAS Committees were returned to office For your information, the present CLAS Committee and Working Group structure is as follows:

                   Coordinating Committee:
                       Hall Crannell (until September 1) then Larry Weinstein, Chair
                       Volker Burkert, JLab Hall-B Manager
                       Maruik Holtrop,  Multihadron
                       Mauro Taiuti,      Structure of the Nucleon
                       Dave Tedeschi,  Real Photons

           CLAS Committee Chairs

                   Membership
                       Kevin Giovanetti

                   Speakers
                       Jean-Marc Laget

                   Service Work
                       Barry Berman

                   Off-Line Technical Working Group
                       Latifa Elouadrhiri

   Reported by Hall Crannell