In this memo we present the proposed policy and the mechanics for implementing it. The last section contains a discussion of the motivation behind the policy.
Following suggestions from the SLD community, the Expert and Non- Expert shifts will be offset with respect to each other by 4 hours. The three Expert shifts and two Liaison shifts will be:
Owl: 00:00 to 08:00
Day: 08:00 to 16:00
Swing 16:00 to 24:00.
The three Non-Expert shifts will be:
Owl: 04:00 to 12:00
Day: 12:00 to 20:00
Swing 20:00 to 04:00.
All shifts will be taken in consecutive blocks of 3 or 4 days:
Collaborators will be assigned to one or more of the shift types (Non- Expert, Expert, Liaison, Run Coordinator, Off-line). In particular, all graduate students will be labeled Experts. It is their responsibility to insure their level of competence is consistent with the role.
In addition, each collaborator will be assigned a weighting factor that will increase or decrease the number of shifts assigned. The default weighting factor is 1.0. All graduate students will be assigned a weight of 2.0 until they are in the process of writing their dissertation. Individuals may ask to be assigned a higher weighting factor if they wish; the advisors of graduate students may request a higher weight for their students if they feel it is desirable. The SLD Final Focus Background Team will be de- weighted to 0.2.
Shifts will be assigned through a scheduling program that uses as its input availability lists provided by members of the collaboration who expect to sign physics papers that include data from the run in question. Details of the procedure for specifying availability will be provided in a future memo.
Some relevant features of the availability lists are as follows:
It is recognized that financial constraints may require an individual to serve his/her shifts for the entire run in a block. The sign-up program will have a field where the user may indicate if they want their shifts packed together as densely as possible or not. Collaborators desiring maximum packing would so indicate. Collaborators not desiring their shifts packed together will leave the field blank. Detailed instructions will be included when the sign-up program is made available.
The program will enforce the block structure and attempt to EQUALIZE per collaborator:
After shifts are assigned, it is the PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY of the shiftee to trade shifts he/she cannot attend. Off loading assigned shifts is not allowed. A master list will be maintained in the CEH and all changes must be made on it. The SCP record of who actually took the shift will be used when the program calculates the assignments for the next block of shifts.
We are planning for a nine month run, nominally beginning June 1, 1994, and will assign shifts in three blocks of three months each one month before each block. The program will have look ahead and look back features.
The Shift Czar will be the Head Commissioner (Steve Manly until 8/94). The Shift Czar will operate the program and serve as a contact person. He will NOT help collaborators trade shifts.
The Shift Policy Committee will disband itself when the run begins. Thereafter, the Run Coordinators, under the leadership of the Shift Czar, will take responsibility for the success of the run. This committee suggests that the Shift Czar and Run Coordinators hold fortnightly meetings to review procedures, developments, changes of shift type assignment, etc. We suggest that the SLD member of the SLC steering committee attend these meetings. Our ideal is that the RC group, as the pool of SLC Program Deputies after which RCs are modeled, provide continuity and guidance to respond to changes in the run conditions.
The "8:00 AM Daily Report" to SLC aspect of the RC's job should be de- emphasized. Counts of Zs on tape from STATUS are adequate for the daily report with a weekly reporting of hard numbers. We urge that the RC role stress monitoring of data quality, education of less-trained shiftees, and expertise for times of problems.
20 Run Coordinators,
25 Non-RC Experts,
18 Liaisons, and
75 Non-Experts
For the reasons given earlier we will limit the RC pool in 1994 to 20.
Making graduate students Experts will result in about 15 new people
running double shifts. The effective Non-RC Expert pool size should then
be about 55. Transferring an additional 10 qualified individuals from the
Non-Expert to the Liaison pool augments its size to 28 and leaves a total of
50 Non-Experts. Again, while the numbers below are only estimates, we
believe the number of assigned shifts should be sufficiently small so as not
to be a burden.
We feel that insisting that shifts be served in blocks is the best way of addressing the level of competence and data quality issues. The system is constantly changing; it is better to learn it once and use it before it changes again. Previously we requested that people voluntarily sign up in blocks. This usually didn't happen. Instituting a scheduling program that enforces the block structure and eliminates claims of unfairness and unavailability seems to be the best solution. The voluntary system is partially accommodated by allowing "preferred" shift blocks. The concept of shift points was generally recognized to be ineffective in fairly distributing shift loads. In the current plan we will try to equalize the discomfort as much as possible.
Clearly, collaborator cooperation in this scheme switches from a willingness to sign up for shifts to a willingness to enter availability data. As the existing publication policy prevents SLD management from using it to achieve compliance, shift availability will be defaulted to AVAILABLE. Collaborators will be socially ostracized and hassled by the Shift Czar and management if they decide not to participate in the system.
Any scheduling program needs some flexibility in order to function. On the other hand, each collaborator's flexibility will vary according to his/her place of residence, teaching schedule, or personal requirements. These can both be accommodated by requiring each collaborator to make himself/herself available for a minimum number of shifts. After much discussion, we settled on a minimum required availability of 20% for all collaborators, resident at SLAC or not. It is hoped that physicists whose schedules are not highly constrained will make themselves available for a larger percentage of shifts and limit their use of PREFERRED availability.
A poll was taken of SLC EOICs to determine if there is a need to continue Liaison shifts. Their unanimous desire was to keep the status quo. The small size of the pool and the perceived problem of its sociological composition will be addressed by requiring that Liaison shifts be filled in the same manner as the other shifts. Various physicists labeled for the Liaison pool will be cross indexed for the Expert or Non-Expert pools and vice versa to try to address these issues.
Discussions with Richard Dubois resulted in a decision to keep the Off- line shifts organized as they were during the previous run. Physicists will be cross referenced for that pool as well so that the system may assign them. However, no points will be awarded for these shifts; they will in effect become service work.
There was a strong agreement that ALL graduate students need to be more involved with the detector that collects the data used for their dissertations. The decisions to label all graduate students as Experts and to assign them twice the nominal shift load are the steps we have taken in that direction. The Advisory Group felt that even these steps were inadequate; advisors who feel their students will profit from greater participation may apply to have their weights or responsibilities increased.
We feel that the Run Coordinator pool needs to be welded into an effective quality control team that recognizes the changing needs and conditions of the experiment. The current model, where one serves one's tour dominated by the stress of preparing for the SLC morning report, should be changed. A good model is that of the SLC Program Deputies. All RCs need to keep current of the SLD situation; the pool should be small enough and its members expert enough that they form a group that is recognizable, has the respect of shiftees and SLC operations, and can deal with any reasonable questions that might be asked. They should review the SLD status on a fortnightly basis and either institute or eliminate procedures as required.