Senate adapts policy on joint authorship
By Daniel J. Fitzgibbons
Changes aimed at updating and clarifying the 16-year-old campus policy on joint authorship were approved May 18 by the Faculty Senate.
The revised policy states, “The authorship of any published scholarly work must reflect the contribution of all who deserve to be included. It is the responsibility of the faculty member or other person in charge to guarantee that fairness and accuracy are exercised in listing the authors.”
Under the revised policy, all authors should have made a “significant contribution to the research and their responsibilities should determine the way they are listed in any resulting manuscript.” The policy also states that all parties involved in the research should jointly determine authorship when it is clear that a decision about eventual authorship must be made.
The updated policy also seeks to clarify the relationship between faculty and their students when research is published:
• If the student is given and accepts primary responsibility for all areas of a research project, the student should be first author of manuscripts, or sole author if the professor has not made substantial contributions to the study.
• If the professor conceives and designs a project and is instrumental in other areas of research, the professor should be the first author. It is generally inappropriate for a professor to be sole author of the primary report of original research conducted by a student as part of the requirements of a degree.
Some special conditions also apply under the policy. Authorship should not automatically be credited to directors of research units or labs or be tied to funding for research. In addition, performing routine paid duties does not qualify someone for authorship.
As before, the policy cautions that co-authorship is often difficult to allocate and advises all parties to clarify their roles at each step of a project to avoid misunderstandings at the time of publication.
Disputes over authorship may be referred to the University ombudsperson, or if misconduct is alleged, the campus’s policy on charges of misconduct may be invoked.
May 23, 2006.
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