Quantum Tinkerer handbook#
Preface and scope#
Quantum Tinkerer group is a close collaboration between the research groups of Anton Akhmerov and Michael Wimmer at TU Delft. In addition to the offline communication, we maintain a collaborative online environment with multiple guests and former group members.
This handbook summarizes how we organize ourselves and what we try to achieve. It aims to be a reflection of current practice and an introduction of ourselves to the new members, rather than a rulebook.
It applies both to the group members—Anton, Michael, TU Delft employees under their supervision, and students doing their projects in the group—as well as the participants of the online environment. Specifically, it applies to all interactions in the online environment, other work-related interactions of the group members, and finally to conduct of the group members in other professional settings.
Values#
Research groups are organized in wildly different ways and prioritise different outcomes. In deciding how to organize ourselves, we evaluate our options in terms of these key values.
Transparency We believe that being a global collaborative community is a key trait of academia, and we strive to participate in it by being open and transparent about the work we do. In doing so we don’t limit ourselves to the standard practice.
Well-being of group members We work to create an environment where every group member is included, supported, and encouraged by their peers. Academia can be stressful, but we do not think that it should.
Impact We aim to deliver outputs that are useful and relevant to our peers. In doing so, we interpret outputs broader than manuscripts-in-preferably-high-impact-factor-journals, and explicitly consider how our work will contribute to the community.
These values are sometimes at conflict: lying or concealing information by e.g. overselling a research result may benefit a researcher. We don’t consider this acceptable, and this is why transparency has the highest priority.
On the other hand, the priority of the values is not absolute: announcing every single thing that happens is definitely transparent, but it’s both pointless and does not create a productive environment.
That impact has a lower priority than well-being is a conscious choice. We believe that establishing a supportive environment is more impactful in the long run than prioritizing short term goals.
Policies#
We expect all group members and participants of the online environment to follow these policies.
Conduct and conflict resolution#
We maintain a friendly and inclusive environment, and we expect everyone to treat others with respect. We do not allow personal attacks, derogatory language, harassment, and any other hostile behavior.
If you witness hostile behavior, please report it to Anton and/or Michael by email, by a private message in chat, or in person, and they will respond as soon as they can. Anton and Michael will keep the report confidential, and pledge to stay as fair as they can. If you consider reporting to the university integrity complaints committee or any other relevant place appropriate or preferable, do so either in addition to or instead of reporting to Anton and Michael.
Anton and Michael will immediately acknowledge receving the report, review it, perform the necessary investigation, and make a decision on the appropriate response. This may range from no action if they conclude that no conduct violation has occurred, private feedback with request of corrective action, to ban from the online envronment and/or escalating the conflict to other authorities in case of a grave violation.
Decision making#
While Anton and Michael have the authority to take decisions on their own, they only use it in cases required by their or group’s external obligations, for example to fulfill grant agreements and TU Delft health, safety, financial regulations, or completion of PhD theses. They do their best to be timely, clear, and transparent about how and when they exercise this authority.
We take decisions using the lazy consensus principle: we support any initiative, unless someone has strong objections. If a member has an idea of something we should do, they announce it in chat, and if nobody objects we go for it.
Several group activities requiring constant attention are organized by curators. Curators decide how their domain should be organized, following the same lazy consensus principle. However this does not mean that they work alone on the corresponding topics—some of their activities are collaborative, and they will approach other group members.
In order for the group’s organization to be clear to everyone, we document all decisions and processes in the group wiki. If a member notices that the wiki becomes out of date, they should report the problem immediately, and/or the wiki should be updated as soon as possible.
Research organization#
Group projects#
We follow a standard way of how to organize projects that primarily involve our group. The guests are welcome to adopt the same workflow as much or as little as they like.
After initial brainstorming by the interested people, the project is pitched at a group meeting.
At the start of the project, a project gitlab repository is created in the group’s gitlab organization, and a public group chat channel for the project-related discussions.
Each project has one person that describes what is happening with the project and keeps the project readme up to date.
All project-related written communications should take place via the project channel.
Meetings should preferably be scheduled via the project channel, or if they happen ad hoc, the meeting summary as well as any ideas discussed outside of the project channel should be posted in the channel.
During the project, anyone is welcome to get involved in the project in coordination with others working on the project.
The project documents should not contain author listings. Instead, the authorship is decided as one of the very last steps before publication based on individual contributions. This decision is made by the responsible author (the de-facto project leader) in consultation with the other contributors.
Each publication should have a specific and detailed author contribution statement, its code and data should be published on Zenodo.
This approach is also partially documented in the group’s data management plan.
External projects#
Group members may engage in projects primarily taking outside of the group. Because other groups have different customs, our project organization rules don’t apply to these projects. Nevertheless, we recommend to follow the same principles as much as possible. This may require custom organization of the project resources like chat and repository mirroring, that we will do our best to accommodate.
In case of an external collaboration that takes place outside of the group’s environment, the group members involved should at least describe the project and tell about the other parties involved to Michael and Anton.
If a guest or a group member involved in an external project learns of a conflict of interest or a possible competition with one of the group’s projects, it is their duty to inform the people involved on both sides and work to resolve the conflict.
Projects by group guests#
The group’s guests are welcome to use the group’s environment to organize their projects also without sharing with the group. If the projects are shared with the group, we treat it as an invitation for anyone interested to engage with the project.
Confidentiality#
Sharing unpublished work is sensitive, and therefore if you talk about what you saw in the group’s environment with anyone outside, you should make sure that everyone involved does not object. If in any doubt you should ask.
Culture#
We encourage our members to follow the group’s customs and general advice.
Support#
Take care of yourself: if you feel stressed or demotivated, don’t ignore it. Take time off if you feel you need it; talk with others or approach the company doctor or the university social worker.
Michael and Anton are here to help and advice you: approach them if you want advice on anything or if you have any concerns.
Communication#
If you have a question—ask right away. In most cases if you have a problem or a question in your work, in taking care of university business, dealing with local bureaucracy, writing, programming, or anything else, your question will be relevant to someone around. Often someone else will be able to help you easily. This is why we welcome questions as soon as they arise, and don’t consider any question too boring or too simple.
More broadly, we strongly prefer public communication channels to private, except for personal matters. We support this by providing channels to accomodate any question, no matter how narrow or basic.
Following the same idea, we have a culture of making notes. If you were in a discussion where decisions are made: write the notes down and share in the appropriate chat channel as soon as possible. That way everyone involved will know what was discussed, and people will not forget the decisions.
Learning is most efficient with feedback, so let your peers know if you see something they could improve. If you see your colleagues do something well—even better—tell them as well! If you found something interesting: a manuscript, an idea, a trick—share it with others.
Informality#
We welcome discussions and interactions not related to work: join the group’s daily morning coffee at 10:30, share what’s on your mind in the random channel, find others with related hobbies. If you want to go out after work—frequently there will be a handful of people happy to join.