Abstract

The Photon Hadron and Electron in Nuclear Interaction eXperiment (PHENIX) Collaboration is an interesting case from the perspective of knowledge management and an innovative particle detector experiment that has operated for the past fifteen years. The collaboration comprises 500 scientists from seventy organizations across the globe. The design, engineering, construction, installation, operation, and maintenance of detector components, as well as the data analysis and writing of papers, are distributed across this worldwide collaborative network. The PHENIX Collaboration has set up a unique knowledge management style and has published over 140 papers between 2000 and 2014. From a knowledge management perspective, we discuss the development of a complex technological system, how it attracts scientists, and the way it handles a large volume of scientific data to enable collaborative publishing of scientific research. The PHENIX Collaboration has established a ten-step process for the creation of scientific papers, including internal review mechanisms. We investigate this process in detail to reveal the overall knowledge management system. The main finding of this case study is that this worldwide collaboration has succeeded despite cross-institutional boundaries and internal competition.