STAR Graduate Student Thesis Policy:
Draft #6

1. The STAR policy on student theses is based on the principles that any collaborator is free to delve into any aspect of the data, and that the basic arbiter of what constitutes a thesis is the thesis advisor. The main purpose of the policy is to state expectations about communication within the collaboration.
2. PWG convenors maintain lists of analysis topics in their areas of interest which are judged to be in need of additional effort.
3. Students and their advisors are free to pursue a project from any PWG convenor's list, or to propose a new project. It is expected that the specific details of a student's project will emerge only after the student has been interacting with the relevant PWG for some time, and after in-depth consultation with the PWG convenor and the STAR Analysis Coordinator.
4. The chair of the STAR thesis committee works with the Analysis Coordinator to maintain a descriptive list of all ongoing analysis projects, including names of all students and non-students working on those projects. The STAR council member from each institution is expected to review these listings periodically, and submit the necessary information to keep them up-to-date.
5. It is anticipated that there will always be many unpursued analysis projects in STAR, and many new analysis opportunities will open up every year as new detector subsystems come online, luminosity improves, etc. The likelihood of independent analyses with a large degree of overlap is small and will probably decrease with time. However, STAR policy does not explicitly discourage duplicate analyses.
6. In the event that there is a large degree of overlap between two independent analyses, it is primarily the task of the relevant PWG convenor(s) to adjudicate differences between the overlapping projects where required, and to oversee the development of manuscripts for journal publications. An ad hoc godparent committee appointed by the spokesperson may also be charged with helping to bring about convergence on a near-final draft manuscript.
7. In overlap cases involving a student thesis project, it is expected that the student's advisor will be a full participant in all deliberations which affect the thesis project and the related publication.
8. Each student who uses STAR data for his/her PhD thesis is expected to have contributed to a STAR community service project in some significant way. Usually this will be an amount of work roughly equivalent to one third to one half the total research effort for a typical PhD.
9. Advisors are primarily responsible for ensuring that their PhD advisees satisfy community service expectations. Council members are expected to respond to requests for information about the current service work of thesis students from their institutions.
10. The STAR thesis committee should review the operation of this policy as soon as sufficient time has elapsed to judge its effectiveness.

Return to STAR thesis committee page

October 4,  2000