Acknowledging appropriate credit for ideas and co-authorship
Video Script
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A senior and junior faculty member are collaborating on a new project. The senior faculty member, Dr. Hans Brockner has provided a specific protocol to investigate the transformation of Human Cells containing the SV40 tumor antigen which the junior faculty, Dr. James Rollins, has been strictly following. However, the research has been stymied for several months with very little progress made. During an informal meeting, Dr. Rollins confides with a colleague, Dr. Eunice Lee, about this lack of progress. Dr. Lee, familiar with this field of study, makes a suggestion about a novel approach to solving the problem. Dr. Rollins, considers this approach, but fails to mention it to Dr. Brockner. After several attempts to implement this new approach, and a number of modifications, there is an initial breakthrough which leads to significant progress in the research project. Because Dr. Rollins deviated from the planned protocol, an apt question might be who should be given the bulk of credit for the outcome? Dr. Hans Brockner or Dr. Rollins? Should Dr. Lee be given some degree of credit? Should Dr. Lee be invited to be a co-author? Taking the role of the researcher, decide to act on one of the following options:
|  | Dr. Brockner, the senior faculty and principal investigator, claims credit because he feels the protocol he established was what lead to the discovery.
|  | Dr. Brockner feels it is appropriate to acknowledge that Dr. Rollins’ breakthrough resulted from deviating from the established protocol. However, there is a question of whether the bulk of the credit should rest with Dr. Rollins.
|  | There is a question as to whether Dr. Lee should be invited to be a co-author with the other two researchers.