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Organising Committees

The organizing committees of ECRIS, similar to other events, are the Local Organizing Committee (LOC), the International Advisory Committee (IAC), the Scientific Programme Committee (SPC), Scientific Secretariat (SS), and the Editorial Board (EB).

With the introduction of a 2-year cycle through the regions Europe, Asia, America, the conferences adopt a similar approach to the conference organization. The main concept is that the SPC is a sub-committee of the LOC. For the LOC, the members come from the region organizing the conference, and for the IAC from all over the world.

Local Organizing Committee (LOC)

Since ECRIS is a smaller conference or workshop, the LOC also covers the tasks that usually are the responsibilities of the Organizing Committee (OC) of larger conferences.

An ECRIS LOC is composed of ~10 members, including the Chair. Further members, for instance the Scientific Secretariat, may be co-opted as necessary. The LOC decides policy, considers and approves, or rejects, proposals.

The LOC is normally composed of staff from hosting institutes – but this is not hard and fast. If the LOC needs outside expertise, a PCO for example, it should get it on board early on. The person responsible for the Scientific Secretariat is also a member of the LOC. The LOC meets as many times as necessary, the meetings becoming more frequent and targeting more specific issues as the conference approaches.

The LOC takes the responsibility for organizing the event at the local level.

For larger conferences, more and more frequently Professional Conference Organizers (PCOs) are being hired to take responsibility for registration, accommodation, the organization of the industrial exhibition, together with the Industrial Exhibition Manager who is a LOC member, space management, the organization of social events, etc. They are members of the LOC. Note that contracting a PCO to organize various portions of the conference does not mean complete outsourcing. The control over PCO activities should always remain with the LOC.

International Advisory Committee (IAC)

The IAC is normally composed of approximatly 15 international members, usually covering all the regions and having at least 3 representatives from each region.

It is available to answer an solve critical problems or questions related to the event. Members are kept informed of developments.

The IAC does usually meet at least once during the conference to decide the next conference host.

Scientific Programme Committee (SPC)

For ECRIS the SPC is often a sub-committee of the LOC and in addition contains local experts from the organizing institute.

SPC members are appointed the role of Session Coordinator, and are responsible for one (or more) of the Main Classifications adopted for the scientific programme.

It proposes contributed oral presentations for the approval of the LOC following the call for papers.

Scientific Secretariat (SS)

The job description of the Scientific Secretariat can vary nowadays depending on the conference, the region, the staffing possibilities. The SS is composed of at least one person who is responsible for the tasks listed below, and who often joins forces with at least one person with the responsibility for the IT side of the production of the proceedings (organizing the IT, the computers and printers set up and installed with appropriate software), and often a further person running various scripts during the conference, as well as the final JACoW publication scripts package.

It is efficient if the SS sets up a private website for the Organizers (LOC/SPC members). The SS organizes and prepares Agendas and Notes of all LOC/SPC meetings, to be published there together with all background or useful documentation. The SS follows up on all actions, working closely with the LOC/SPC Chairs and Committees to ensure excellent coordination across all committees.

The SS is responsible for all of the texts published at the conference website relating to author information and the scientific programme.

The SS is normally the Administrator of the Indico event, ensuring that the system parameters reflect the different activities in the life of the organization of the conference, assigning the different privileges to the people responsible for the various activities.

The SS is the interface between the conference, the scientific programme organization and the contributors/delegates, managing all communications via Indico.

The SS is responsible for setting up and organizing the JACoW team ready for on-line processing of contributions to the proceedings during the conference, generally with an IT Manager, and for the publication of the proceedings at the JACoW site as soon after the conference as possible.

In the Americas, and in PAC jargon, the “Editor” had the responsibility to produce the proceedings, which until 1996 involved collecting outsize sheets of camera-ready copy, producing a table of contents, adding page numbers, and shipping everything to a printer. The Editor had very little involvement in the organization of the scientific programme.

Successful prompt publication is more efficiently achieved if the SS is involved in all of the activities relating to the scientific programme or involving the use of the Indico (and former SPMS) providing for a seamless effort from start to finish of the conference.

“Scientific Secretariat” may not be the best term, but the jobs described in these paragraphs do result in a more than full time activity at least during the year leading up to the conference. Scientific Programme Coordinator, could be a possible title for the person carrying out all of the above. The title "Editor (in Chief)" should be reserved for the person with responsibility for the publication of the proceedings, if that person is different from the SS.

Editorial Board (EB)

Since the outset of electronic publication in JACoW, the SS worked together with some more technical people (IT, scripting, etc.) to produce the proceedings.

This small group collaborated early on at the planning stage to ensure that the relatively complex hard- and software, server and networking requirements were met for pre- conference, conference and post-conference activities. The group came to be called an Editorial Board (EB) and today it is usually composed of:

  • the SS responsible for the interface with contributors through Indico and veracity of the metadata (table of contents, author index, wrappers)
  • IT Manager (soft- and hardware, webserver, file server, networking, setting up of all computers, printers, etc.)
  • the SPC and LOC Chairs (respectively for scientific content and for budget)
  • the person who runs the scripts to pull the final proceedings together, if different from the SS/IT Manager. The EB does not meet. The SS is the Chair of the EB.

JACoW

ECRIS is a member of the Joint Accelerator Conferences Website (JACoW) Collaboration. JACoW is an international collaboration in electronic publication of accelerator conference proceedings. Organization, membership conditions and requirements are set out in detail in a Charter published at the JACoW.org website.

Requests to join the Collaboration are approved by the Board of Directors. Membership is conditional on a commitment from each series to publish at least three sets of proceedings at the site and send their Editors (past, current and future) to the annual JACoW Team Meetings.

The persons or EBs with the responsibility for the publication of proceedings, sometimes known as "editors", of the past, current and future conferences in each series, members of the JACoW Collaboration, form the JACoW Team.

Team members new to electronic publication can take advantage of introductory "hands on" training in basic processing techniques during major JACoW events (IPAC, NA-PAC, LINAC, FEL, ICALEPCS, etc.). Conference editors with little experience can also call on help from JACoW’s experts, normally by inviting them on to a guest editorial team during the conferences, on the condition that their local expenses are covered.

Each conference series is encouraged to build in a certain amount of continuity via the editors, inviting past and future editors as “guest editors” at each event.

More importantly, collaborating conference series undertake to send their Team members (Editors of the past, current and future event in each series), to the Team Meetings organized around the end of each year, rotating around Asia, Europe and the US. Conferences should include an item in the conference budget to cover this.

Team Meetings provide the opportunity for members of the Collaboration to pursue in greater depth all issues related to electronic publication, as well as the development of tools such as the Scientific Programme Management System (SPMS), Indico and the scripts which pull all of the individual files of contributions together into the final publication package. Professional electronic publication is not trivial, it cannot be improvised, and to publish according to JACoW's high standards implies that Team members receive adequate training, but also once their expertise is acquired, that they remain members of the Team for a certain period in order to take part in the training of novice editors.

Since JACoW is based on good will, attendance at Team Meetings and participation in JACoW activities is essential to maintain high standards and continuity and to the success of the entire venture. JACoW therefore reserves the right to exclude from publication any conferences not respecting this condition.