A NodeJS application for XENON collaboration member management

Rice University, Houston, Texas, USA

Published online: 6 May 2024

Abstract

The Big Science projects common of multi-institute particle-physics collaborations generates unique needs for member management, including paper authorship tracking, shift assignments, subscription to mailing lists and access to 3rd party applications such as Github and Slack. For smaller collaborations under 200 people, often no facility for centralized member management is available and these needs are usually manually handled by long-term members despite the management becoming untenable as collaborations grow. To automate many of these tasks for the expanding XENON collaboration, we developed the XENONnT User Management Website, a web application that stores and updates data related to the collaboration members through the use of Node.js and MongoDB. We found that web frameworks are so mature and approachable such that a student can develop a good system to meet the unique needs of the collaboration. The application allows for the scheduling of shifts for members to coordinate between institutes. User manipulation of 3rd party applications are implemented using REST API integration. The XENONnT User Management Website is open source and is a show case of quick implementation of utility application using the web framework, which demonstrated the utility of web-based approaches for solving specific problems to aid the logistics of running Big Science collaborations.