Please collaborate with us! For those wishing to join the survey or become external collaborators, please reach out to yse.astro.ec@gmail.com or members of our executive committee.

Joining YSE

There are three kinds of YSE memberships:

1. PI membership: a PI with junior members (i.e., less senior than the PI) of his/her team. Everyone directly paid by the PI will be a YSE member. Other people working with the PI, e.g., independent postdoctoral fellows, will have to apply for YSE membership and their membership is pending EC approval. The fee for PI based membership is half of the Institutional membership.
2. Institutional membership: an institute with up-to four individual PIs. Similarly, to PI membership each individual institutional PI can bring his/her team to YSE, i.e., people directly paid by the PI. The fee for institutional membership is twice that of the PI membership.
3. In-kind membership: In exceptional cases a PI membership can also be paid as an in-kind contribution. The in-kind membership, and the number of people the PI can bring to YSE collaboration, is pending EC approval. Kenneth Chambers (IfA), leader of the group running Pan-STARRS, is automatically an in-kind member of the YSE collaboration and brings with him the Pan-STARRS Scientific Team (as listed in the Collaborative Agreement).

Fees will be paid directly to the University of Hawaii, through a Collaborative Agreement. PI membership can at any point be upgraded into Institutional membership by paying the difference in membership fees. If in-kind contributions are used for YSE membership, the EC will decide what is the appropriate level of contribution for joining the YSE collaboration.

If more PI and/or Institutional members join the collaboration the fee for everyone is reduced accordingly. Admitting additional members to YSE collaboration has to be approved by EC. Note though, that no additional EC approval is needed for upgrading a PI membership into an Institutional one.

The members have the following rights:

1. Executive Committee: EC consists of PI and Institutional members, and people appointed by them. Each PI is an EC member or can appoint one person into the EC, and each institute can appoint two people. Each EC member has one vote in situations where voting is needed.
2. Advisory Board: AB consists of the in-kind members, and people appointed by them. Each PI paying in-kind contribution to join YSE is an AB member or can appoint one person to AB. The chair of AB is a non-voting member of EC.
3. Data access: All YSE Collaboration members (defined as the above members and their teams) have access to all the YSE data.
4. Authorship: All YSE Collaboration members (defined as the above members and their teams) can lead or contribute to YSE projects and papers once a project/paper intent has been announced (see Sections 5 and 6 for details).

Collaboration Principles

The YSE collaboration is run by seven main principles. All YSE members and external collaborators should agree to these priorities – we strive for a healthy, fair, and equitable collaboration.

1. Equity: Contributors will get a fair return to their investment – equal rights for an equal contribution.
2. Collaboration: To optimize the scientific output YSE works as a collaboration rather than a consortium.
3. Respect: The key to a successful collaboration is respecting your YSE colleagues, and their non-YSE collaborators.
4. Fairness: Abide by The Vancouver Convention guidelines for authorship, to ensure fair return and inclusion.
5. Communication: YSE will ensure good communication that enables smooth collaboration.
6. Transparency: YSE will implement the necessary tools and sharing mechanisms.
7. Agility: In transient science it is important to be able to react, follow up, and publish fast.

These principles translate into the governing concept of YSE:

1. The scientific rewards will be shared fairly across the collaboration in a way commensurate with the relative effort/resources of the different collaboration members.
2. YSE members will be respectful of the different career stages, work cultures, and personal circumstances of the members of the collaboration, and work in a way that achieves point (1), but allows for flexible ways to contribute.
3. Each member of the collaboration is expected to contribute in a substantial way, to any of the science programs in which they choose to be involved.
4. YSE will enable people from all time zones to participate (synchronously and asynchronously) in all aspects of the collaboration’s activities.
5. YSE will work in an open and transparent manner where possible conflicts of interest or other issues of concern are declared as soon as practical and managed in a collegial way.
6. Conflict is resolved in a collaborative mode, and complaints are duly considered.
7. Flexible governance structures will be created.

External Collaborator Policy

Our policy for external collaborators and a guide to the external collaborator application is embedded below. We encourage external collaborators and particularly those who are interested in science topics beyond those being actively pursued by collaboration members.

Access to Small Amounts of YSE Data

Occasions may arise in which authors of papers which are based predominantly on non-YSE data may like to use a small amount of YSE data in order to make a useful but incremental addition to the data in hand. These are expected to be one-off collaborations and usually established after some data are collected.

An example would be if an external group would like to include the light curves of a single transient in a study of that specific object. The collaboration would like to encourage YSE data to be used in this way and the expectation is that few YSE members would need to be included as coauthors.

If such an opportunity is identified either internally or externally, the EC will discuss the case with the collaboration and determine if there are any competing interests. If a YSE member actively working on the same topic objects to the collaboration, the EC will give their work preference over collaboration. If no YSE member objects, or no active project on the same topic exists, then the data can be shared with the external group under the conditions established here.

The EC will determine which YSE scientists must be offered co-authorship. The full Pan-STARRS and YSE acknowledgments must still be included in the acknowledgments section of the paper. Any resulting paper should still go through the formal YSE publication review.