I think that we need something a little more organized to help in the
shift determining process during commissionning. I also think that it is
in all the grad students' best interest to have that "little more
organization" come from the grad student group, that is to say, one or
more of the grad students should work out such a schedule for the shifts
(as opposed to a professor doing it). Since we do the shifts, we know
what the problems and practicalities of shift-taking are.
As such, I shall propose one possible shift-taking plan. It is not
necessarily the best; however, it is fair. Others should propose
different plans, if this one is not satisfactory. (Please do this, as if
you don't, this schedule MIGHT get chosen and you MIGHT not like it and,
since I proposed it, you MIGHT harbor grudges against me, and I do not
want that...)
First off, there are NOT as many grad students working fully on BLAST as
John's e-mail last week stated. The following students are all getting a
thesis off of the first set of runs next year:
Ziskin
Sindile
Filoti
Degrush
Maschinot
Crawford
C. Zhang
Meitanis
The following students are getting a thesis off of BLAST somewhere in the
further future:
Seely - currently studying for his part 3 qualifier
Clasie - currently studying for his part 3 qualifier
Karpius - currently taking a full load of coursework
As for the rest, J. Burton quit MIT 9 months ago; I don't think we can
count on him for any shifts. S. Stave does NOT work on BLAST; he is
getting his thesis from Mainz data!!! As for Xiao and Y. Zhang, I do not
know if either of them still works on BLAST.
As such, there are 8 grad students (who should be) giving full time to
BLAST and three more giving part-time to the project.
Additionally, throughout any particular week, there are a total of 3*2*7 =
42 shifts that need to be taken. If we count all 8 full-time grad
students as 8 full-time shift takers and if we count two part-time
students together as 1 full-time shift taker (the remaining one shall be
lumped together with the "professor" group to equal 1 full-time shift
taker), then we have a total of 10 full-time shift takers. Now 42/10 =
4.2 shifts / per person / week on average.
Now the proposed shift schedule (I know it's not the best, but no one
else seems to be talking... ):
1. First off, the following proposed schedule is only for commissioning.
For the actual experiments, a different schedule would probably make
more sense.
2. We place two grad students on shift for morning and evening
shift, seven days a week.
3. Only 1 grad student is placed on shift during the weekday
afternoon shift, as there are always people who can cover if that
student needs to go to the South Hall or whatever.
4. One grad student and one non-grad student are placed on the weekend
afternoon shift.
5. Each grad student taking shifts does so for seven consecutive days at
the same-time shift (e.g. Aaron takes 7 consecutive morning shifts).
This way, each student will have every other week off of shift-taking
so that he can pursue other tasks. Plus, we'll all become "experts"
at the same rate. Plus, by taking the same shift for seven days in a
row, your sleep schedule doesn't become too screwed up.
6. Week by week the shifts shuffle upwards. That is to say, if Aaron has
the morning shift for week 1, then he is off week 2, and has the
afternoon shift for week 3.
An example of this grad student schedule might look like that below (using
grad students A, B, C, ... J):
Week1
MON TUE WED THU FRI SAT SUN
Morning A A A A A A A
B B B B B B B
Afternoon C C C C C C C
Evening D D D D D D D
E E E E E E E
Week2
MON TUE WED THU FRI SAT SUN
Morning F F F F F F F
G G G G G G G
Afternoon H H H H H H H
Evening I I I I I I I
J J J J J J J
Week3
MON TUE WED THU FRI SAT SUN
Morning C C C C C C C
D D D D D D D
Afternoon E E E E E E E
Evening A A A A A A A
B B B B B B B
Week4
MON TUE WED THU FRI SAT SUN
Morning H H H H H H H
I I I I I I I
Afternoon J J J J J J J
Evening F F F F F F F
G G G G G G G
.
.
.
Once again, this plan is probably not the ideal one. Someone else should
speak up, too. Once we get realistic about who is actually doing the
commissioning, things will go a lot smoother.
And if, in some way, this e-mail offended someone, then I am truly sorrow;
it was not my intention. However, we need to stop side-stepping this
issue and settle it once and for all.
Aaron
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