[clas_members] comment paper for opt-in

[Reinhard Schumacher]

Hello Ken et al.,

	Let me point out that we have a mechanism in place for "Fast Track" 
publication of a CLAS result.  It is in our Charter by-laws under 
Section C, which I largely quote below.  The Coordinating committee can, 
when time is of the essence, appoint an ad hoc review committee to 
review the paper within 7 days.  There is even the provision that the 
draft of the paper be made available to the whole Collaboration at the 
same time the ad hoc committee is appointed, thus, there is no time lost 
to the "opt-in" procedure.  Thus, you could appoint an ad hoc committee 
today to review the paper you have already made available, open the 
"opt-in" window for one week, and let the members voice their scientific 
judgment on the matter.

	It seems to me that this is an instance to activate this "Fast Track" 
mechanism in order to formalize a Collaboration response.

	I would add that from my personal perspective it would be OK to let the 
ad hoc committee make small stylistic and grammatical changes in the 
text to make the whole thing "read" a little better, but that is the 
call of the Coordinating Committee.

Regards,
Reinhard
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

 From the By-laws:

"C.1 When is a scientific result ready for publication by CLAS?

    a. Normal Process: The Physics Working Groups (PWG) have the initial 
responsibility to recommend to the Coordinating Committee (CC) when a 
new CLAS result is ready to be published. The definition of, and the 
procedures for releasing new scientific results itemized in Bylaw D2 (on 
Talks) cover this first stage of the publication process.

    b. Fast Track: In exceptional cases, the authors of a paper may 
request a Fast Track designation for their paper. In such cases, the 
authors will submit a written request to the Chair of the Coordinating 
Committee, specifying in detail the need for Fast Track designation. At 
a minimum, the reasons submitted must defend the exceptional importance 
of the results and show clear indications of imminent publication of 
similar or confirming results by other laboratories. The Coordinating 
Committee will decide if Fast Track status is to be granted, and will 
inform the authors of this decision. If Fast Track status is granted, 
the Coordinating Committee will further decide whether or not a PWG 
analysis committee is required, with the condition that any decision to 
bypass such PWG review must be unanimous. Turnaround times on other 
review steps will be adjusted as indicated in 2) and 5) below.

C.2 When should an Ad-Hoc committee be designated, and how long should 
it have to do its work?

[...] When the Ad-Hoc committee is asked to review a finished draft of a 
paper, it should act within 15 days with recommendations regarding the 
paper -- reduced to 7 days for Fast Track.

[...]

C.5 Time Limits:

The normal comment period for feedback from the Collaboration to the 
authors and Ad-Hoc committee shall be at least 15 days. For FastTrack, 
the Collaboration shall be notified of FastTrack status and the draft 
shall be made available to the Collaboration for initial reading at the 
same time that it is assigned to the Ad Hoc committee. The feedback 
period is reduced to 7 days beyond the period specified in 2) for Ad-Hoc 
committee recommendations.  "



___________________________________________________________________
Reinhard Schumacher         Department of Physics, 5000 Forbes Ave.
Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA 15213, U.S.A.
phone: 412-268-5177         web: www-meg.phys.cmu.edu/~schumach
___________________________________________________________________


Hicks, Kenneth wrote:
> Dear CLAS Collaboration,
> 
>  
> 
> Attached is a PDF file with a draft of a comment on the paper that was 
> circulated by M. Amaryan et al., see the preprint at:
> 
> http://arXiv.org/abs/1110.3325
> 
> For some history, this is the pentaquark analysis presented earlier this 
> year at a CLAS Collaboration meeting, where a vote
> 
> was taken about whether to approve this as a CLAS paper. (The vote failed.)
> 
>  
> 
> At present, the attached paper is signed by the CLAS Coordinating 
> committee members, plus Elton Smith (chair of the analysis
> 
> review committee for the Amaryan et al. analysis).  The intent is to 
> publish the comment paper on the arXiv website.
> 
>  
> 
> If you would like to join this paper as a co-author, please send email 
> directly to me (hicks at jlab.org <mailto:hicks at jlab.org>).  (Do NOT reply 
> to this
> 
> email unless you have a comment to go to the collaboration as a whole.)  
> If you want to suggest revisions to this paper,
> 
> send your comments to hicks at jlab.org <mailto:hicks at jlab.org>.
> 
>  
> 
> The deadline to join the paper is Friday, October 28.
> 
>  
> 
> Best regards,
> 
> Ken Hicks
> 
>  
> 
> 
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
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