If you mean the first time a project is strung together based on the script it can be called a few things -

first rough cut
rough assembly

Not as common but still used -

rough edit
first cut
"doing an experiment" (mainly when the footage is so far form what the scipt is the editor is making things up to attempt to put a story together from the footage)

Sometimes if a project is still shooting you can also just string together scenes in which case it could be called "first assembly".

It can be refered to as the "initial edit" however the most common term when it is first shown to anyone outside of the director or editors and a few other key people is probably "first rough cut". Normally it isn't a "rough cut" that is publicly screened until you are close to locking picture and have a temp mix.

The "fine cut"comes after your "rough cut" and it is close to "locked picture" but sometimes pople call a "fine cut" that same as "locked picture".

Thanks guys,
I've heard the term "offline" but don't know what that is either. If the person is not trying to put the clips in sequence but just say putting the best of clips (out of interviews and B-roll) into folders for me to assemble would that be an offline edit?
Thanks again,
Randy

Randy , whatI would call offline , is a rough assembled video, no effects, in and out points not perfect, all straight cuts ,but more that just picking the best shots. It is an shot order. Ok , tampa just scored gotta watch the game,, gettin ready for the game sunday STEELERS!!!!!

Thanks winrock,
They are not assembling anything so how about (for the credits) I list myself as editor and them as "assistant editors" or "contributing editors" (a recent term I've seen) ? Sorry to drag this out.
Enjoy your game and thanks again winrock,

Randy

"offline" is not really about a version, it is about the method. When you did an "offline" edit you were editing material that would be brought to an online house for the final assembly. This is where SMPTE timecode and EDL's come into play. You take your lower rez footage, this can be telecined film as well, and start to edit - mainly tape to tape in the old days. (We used either 3/4 dubs or VHS dubs with both window burns and TC for offline edits. When NLE came in we had 3/4 dubs made and brought those into D/Vision at "vhs quality" for offline edits.) The editing process was/is the same but it is called "offline" because of the quality and what you ended up with was not the final product, also the decks were not "online" or controling anything. (If you search posts you will see that Vegas/Vegas Video does/did not do "online" because it does/did not have real deck control - thusly Vegas/Vegas Video was (is still mainly) an "offline" NLE. To further clarify that comment - you can't dump out an EDL and take it, along with master tapes, to have your project "onlined" and by nature if you told older editors that Vegas was for doing "offline" edits they would feel, rightly so, that at the end of the day they could dump out an EDL. I tend to feel most comfortable calling Vegas a "finishing tool" because you can take footage and "finish it" - doing the mix or doing color correction or adding a film look - the idea is you can "finish" a project in Vegas and dump out a final master. Really the whole online/offline thing is blurred anymore when ti comes to NLE's and being able to edit HD material) When you got to locked picture you dumped out an EDL and took that, along with your master tapes - either one inch or betacam/digi betacam - to an online house to the assembly of the final master.

"offline" is not a term used to describe an edit, or the version of an edit. In other words saying to someone "here is the offline cut" would only mean it is a "work print" (if you will) of the project that was dumped off either a computer or off the tape to tape system. Doesn't mean it is a locked version, may not even mean it is a rough cut - just means it is an offline edit. (EDIT - The "offline" copy could be a locked version however in most cases the "offline" version is not the final master tape because of the method used - again when we used D/Vision and dumped out the locked picture it was only "VHS quality" and had windows burns and film edge numbers on it)

The assistant editor does what you describe - "putting the best of clips (out of interviews and B-roll) into folders for me to assemble". Traditionally the assistant editors do nothing more than log dailys. It is possivble they can pull the "best takes" but that decision is left to the main editor although on the set the script supervisor is making notes along with the sound person and the first AC who turn these over to the editing team. The notes will have things like "Good for sound" or "bad for picture". In film you get "print circled takes only", which means only the good takes get printed. I live by this for video as well because with video people shoot "everything" and tend to also "capture everything". If the production and post production team are working well together there should not be a need to capture everything and the main editor ends up with, as you say, "the best of clips (out of interviews and B-roll) into folders for me to assemble." Now once the locked picture goes over to the dialog editor they may need to recapture other takes because they may have better sound.

EDIT - in answer to your other question - credit given depends on a lot of things. An editor edits and most of the time the assistant editor does not even come close to doing anything creative. They sit there and do grunt work - sync up dailies, log dailies, capture tapes, pull shots/put them into bins and so on. When I was doing assistant stuff the main editors would come in, mark up the film and leave. I would make the physical cuts, splice the film and wait for them to come look at the film. It was not creative at all in terms of "editing". Having said that there was one film that I 99.9% edited because the editors we never there but the director was always there. I got credit as assitant editor because of contract reasons but the director joked that he thought I should have gotten "Edited by" at the head of the film in huge letters just to piss off the people that had been hired to edit. But they also knew the work I had done so they tried to give more other credits which, when I saw the film, suprised me - they gave me credit for ADR supervisor and I think dialog editor.