Membership Policy

ROTSE Collaboration Membership Policy: Version 0.002

Motivation:

The ROTSE collaboration has been formed to conduct an extensive set of studies of astrophysical transients. to accomplish this goal we must be able to gather and utilize resources (human and financial) in an effective way. This means giving the members of the collaboration the rights they want and, as important, not giving these rights to people who do not earn them.

Definitions:

	Membership: Membership in the ROTSE collaboration implies a set of rights and responsibilities. A member is a person who fulfills these responsibilities, and hence is allowed to exercise these rights.
	Senior Members: Members of the collaboration who are permitted PI status by their institution.
	ROTSE Institutions: Many of the responsibilities for governing this policy fall on the ROTSE institutions, currently Los Alamos National Lab, Lawrence Livermore National Lab and the University of Michigan.
	ROTSE Spokesman: Akerlof
	Collaboration Council: A committee of four people charged with executing the policy described here. Unresolvable disputes within the council will be settled by the spokesperson.

Determination of Membership:

	Membership for junior members will be determined by the senior collaboration members of each institution. it is the responsibility of these senior members to insure that members proposed at their institution meet their collaboration responsibilities and abide by collaboration rules.
	Senior staff (beyond the post-doc level) must apply of membership to the collaboration council. This application should explain clearly the extent to which the applicant will contribute to the experiment, and describe interests in the scientific results of the project.
	New institutional members will be approved by the collaboration council according to a set of criteria similar to those which apply to senior staff.
	A list of members, and their status, will be maintained in an electronically accessible site by the collaboration council.

Responsibilities of Members:

	Collaboration members at all levels are expected to contribute materially to the scientific success of the ROTSE project. There are many possible contributions, from hardware work and fund-raising to analysis.
	Collaboration members are required to respect the data access and publication policy outlined in a companion document.

Rights of Members:

	All collaboration members have complete access to all ROTSE data.
	All collaboration members have equal status as co-authors of ROTSE science papers. this co-authorshop becomes active by default after 6 months of membership. It can be granted earlier by application to the collaboration council.
	All collaboration members have the right to present publicly ROTSE scientific results once they have been reviewed by the collaboration.

Allocation of Resources: Decisions about allocation of ROTSE resources shall be made by collaboration consensus.

Continuing Membership:

	When a collaboration member leaves their member institution, their co-authorshop rights will continue for two years. This right can be extended in special cases by approval of the collaboration council.
	If a collaboration member leaves their member institution for a new position in which they have senior status, they may apply to remain a member of the collaboration.
	Membership of any collaborator can be reviewed by the collaboration council on request from the collaboration.

Data Release: Once published, ROTSE data become public domain, and use of them is unrestricted.

Amendment: This policy may be amended with approval of the collaboration.