POLICY STATEMENT ON JOINT AUTHORSHIP

AT THE UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS AT AMHERST

Approved by the Graduate Council of the Faculty Senate on 2 April 1990

Introduction

In early fall, 1989, the Graduate Council was informed by the Graduate Dean that the University has no policy in force at present concerning the joint authorship of research and publication --- how to define areas of responsibility and claims of authorship on jointly conducted research and/or writing --- although new federal legislation requires that such a policy be established. An earlier attempt of the Graduate Council in 1987 to prepare such a policy statement failed to gain support by the Faculty Senate and was returned to the Council for further action.

On 27 September 1989 the Academic Standards Committee began its work by discussing various possible areas of conflict. On 1 November the Committee met with Professor Howard Gadlin, the University Ombudsperson, and learned that there was a sharply rising number of complaints about violations of agreements, or assumed agreements, concerning joint authorship, usually on the part of students, but that few complaints were ever pressed. He felt a policy was long overdue. On 2 November, the Committee sent a request to all Graduate Program Directors on campus for copies of their own particular policies on joint authorship. Few replies were received, and it appears from them that presently only five programs have such a policy while three other programs are now debating one.

Statement

Research can be divided into five areas: conception, design (procedures, method), collection of data, analysis-of data, and manuscript preparation and publication of results. The relative importance of each area varies considerably among various disciplines and some areas may not exist at all in certain disciplines. Some investigations are innovative and emphasize an original idea rather than the extensive collection of data; in other investigations, the idea of the research is not new and most of the effort is in the collection and/or analysis of data. In some studies, intricate research design or the establishment of sophisticated research procedures of measurement requires the major effort. In any given research project, however, each participant should be aware of the emphasis, and every research participant should be aware of the work involved in writing up the project and/or its results. In this last instance, the determination of authors and the sequence of listing authorship of any manuscript or publication should be based on contributions in each facet of the research and in representative proportions of the efforts in the overall project. All authors should have made some significant contribution to the research and their responsibilities should determine the way they are listed in any resulting manuscript of publication; the determination of such responsibility or listing should be agreed to by all parties at whatever juncture it is clear eventual authorship will need to be announced.

This is generally true of all research at an institution of higher learning, but here especially much research involves a professor-student relationship with varying contributions possible from each. In fact, it can be argued that publication or circulation of scholarly work is integral to graduate education, in addition to being one of the most effective means of demonstrating a University's scholarly quality and reputation to the outside world. Therefore, graduate students should be vigorously encouraged to participate in the research process.

It is taken for granted that whenever a scholarly work is distributed or published, its authorship truly reflects the contribution of all who deserve to be included, and it is the responsibility of the faculty member in charge, or any other person in such a position, to guarantee that fairness is exercised in listing the authors. Some general guidelines should prevail. If the student is given and accepts primary responsibility for all areas of a research project, (s)he 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, (s)he should be first author. If the student is conducting original research, the situation should be discouraged where the student achieves his/her main goal (i.e., the degree) but the professor becomes the sole author: if the student has not contributed sufficiently to merit authorship, he or she probably has not fulfilled the degree requirements or original research.

These are general conditions, but special ones may also obtain. Directors of research units or laboratories should not automatically be authors on research publications from their research organization, nor should authorship be automatically tied to providing funding for research. Instead, all authors should be active participants in the actual workings of a project or conducting of research. A second special condition occurs when a principal investigator uses his/her own funds to hire students to help conduct research. If such research simply executes a job, for which pay is taken, then the researcher (usually a student) has no claim on authorship, which rests with the principal investigator/employer. A third situation may occur where the person contributing most to a research study has no intention of publishing the results, for any number of reasons. In that case, any person involved in the research should have the right to assume responsibility for authorship.

Since each scholarly work has its unique features and history, no set of objective criteria can address every conceivable type of joint authorship circumstance. Nonetheless, the proper and fair acknowledgment of the actual contributions of colleagues, students, and staff remains the duty of the person circulating the work or submitting it for publication. In making the decision on authorship only professional considerations should be taken into account; under no circumstances should authorship be used for a purpose other than to reflect on the contribution of the collaborators to the work in question. In cases of doubt about proper credit, consultation among the collaborators and with colleagues, the Department Head, and/or the Dean is encouraged. In such discussions, the following specific guidelines may be useful, although they are not intended to be in any way binding:

1. If a contribution is of a clearly technical nature (such as performing routine chemical analyses, transcribing interview records, or tabulating raw data), an acknowledgment could be sufficient. The same applies to nonroutine professional help such as material preparation and instrument construction, drafting, statistical or computer assistance, and so forth.
2. If, however, the central topic of the publication is a technique (e.g., a new preparation to detect cell wall damage) or the performance of an instrument (e.g., study of the reliability or validity of a scale) or a new software (e.g., a program to calculate the factual dimension of the contour of a particle silhouette), then the technical contribution may be of sufficient importance to merit authorship.
3. lf an individual suggested an idea that had an impact on the work development but did not actively participate in its implementation, acknowledgment of the contribution will be sufficient.
4. If an individual contributed a key idea or ideas, and/or made other substantial creative contribution to the work in its design, execution, interpretation, and/or summary, then (s)he is entitled to authorship.
5. A graduate student whose thesis work is used as the major source of material for a publication is entitled to authorship. However, (s)he is not automatically entitled to authorship if some material from the thesis is used in a review paper, proposal, progress or final report written by the advisor or project director- in such a case, a reference to the material's origin is sufficient.
6. And finally, administrative or financial responsibility by itself does not merit authorship.

Despite these guidelines, coauthorship is often difficult to allocate; in the case of professor and student, it should be allocated generously to the student in doubtful cases. In every case, however, the important thing is a discussion of coauthorship with all possible collaborators before and at each step during the project so that misunderstandings will be less likely to arise at the time of publication.

Discussing such situations and guidelines as these, the Academic Standards Committee of the Graduate Council notes the extreme complexity of the issue of joint authorship and notes also that each case may be unique and that, in any event, each case should be handled separately by the researchers --- faculty and students alike --- who are involved. Clear prior agreements would help to preclude later differences of opinion concerning reconstructions of events and would often serve to help prevent authorship credit from coming to issue.

On occasion, authorship credit may come to issue. In such a situation, any or all of the involved parties are entitled to use the services of the University Ombudsperson, without threat or fear of reprisal. Of course, if any party believes that an instance of misconduct has occurred, the University's policy regarding Charges of Misconduct in Research and Scholarly Activities may be invoked.

The Academic Standards Committee therefore recommends to the Faculty Senate a motion as follows:

MOVED: That in all instances of joint research, and consistent with the spirit of the criteria noted above, collaborators should acknowledge in print any substantive assistance (including that of other faculty or students) used in their publication; faculty should give appropriate credit (including coauthorship) when student research is used in publication; faculty should encourage and assist where possible in publication of worthy student research. To minimize the likelihood of subsequent misunderstanding, discussion of coauthorship, at the initiation of the faculty member or other senior professional staff most heavily involved with the research, is encouraged both before and during the work.

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