Reviewer comments

Chris Walter, Jan 8 2022

Hi Chris,

Happy New Year!

CRC asked me to look at your book proposal since I was on your list.  I did and gave them positive feedback for publishing it.  I didn’t know some of the NASA stuff so it’s nice to see that all in one place!

There mostly wasn’t really a place for suggestions on their form.  I didn’t realize that when I read through it and made some anyway.  In case any are helpful here are some from my notes.  One of two of these made it into the form.  Use or ignore as you see fit.

-Chris
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- One thing I have noticed that I (personally) don’t think is very positive or healthy is a bleeding of project management culture (which is needed for constructing facilities) into scientific research where it usually isn’t appropriate.  I see young people learning that “this is way we do things” and it worries me sometimes.  I’m not sure where and how you would bring this up (maybe ch. 5 on science organizations?).  But mentioning the appropriate scope of the tools might be a good idea.

- The forms and amounts of funding, review process etc, can be very different in each country.  It’s sort of obvious but it might be good to say this explicitly for the reader and note what you think is generic advice and what is US centered.

- I think a explicit description of the snowamss p5 and astro2020 process might be very useful to young people.  They often don’t understand them, what the difference is between Snowmas and P5 etc.

- I’m not sure if you want to bring it up, but having too many reviews is also a problem, people spend all their times in reviews instead of doing work.

- The section on things like operations, is definitely oriented towards projects from a more astro-side where there will be a “products” presented for community users. At a place like (say FNAL) the PAC would be thinking about how to use the common infrastructure (like the accelerator) and what projects should go ahead.  The experiments (like ATLAS and CMS) at LHC are independent entities which will have their own project management and will be producing data for the members.  

- Although not completely filled out, the sections comparing DOE, NSF and NASA with figures is really useful! I think it might also be good to mention some of the sub CDs for DOE (I often have to look this up: CD4a etc).

- One thing I learned when I started workin in LSST is that if you are going to have outward facing data and software that is going to cost a lot more and require a lot more planning and resources. It’s not something you can just bolt on at the end to something primarily designed and documented for internal use.

- I would say the collaboration description is still a bit more oriented towards astro collaborations.  An interesting one to look at in astro which is probable more like a HEP case might be DESI.  There, like in HEP, I believe institutions join and there is an expectation of bringing particular expertise and work and new people joining must be discussed and approved.  The threshold for being part of something like the DESC (which you can do as an individual) is incredibly low. Some types of collaborations also have MOUs etc.

- I think in 5.4.4 stressing the usefulness and importance of pub boards and internal review would be very good.  I’ve seen young people complaining because they want things to be as fast as possible.  But, they don’t understand how important the internal review process is to making things correct and better before it goes to the journals.

- FWIW ‘Builders' was a new concept to me since in HEP there usually an alphabetical list with everyone included (with some criteria usually tied to if they are still in the collaboration etc).

- Related: In HEP type experiments you will be expected to make a service contribution (shifts other work etc etc) to be in the collaboration and remain on the author list. So in some sense being a ‘builder’ is a requirement.

- The section on how reviews work was good.  One good thing to explain would be the differences between ‘recommendations’, ‘findings’ and ‘comments’.

- I think in the section on advice and leadership, telling people to really work on their people skills, assuming good will, learning to listen and undertanding the perspective of others is always good advice.