Authorship   Case Study - Examining Criteria for Authorship
      A graduate student is invited to join a team of faculty members and postdoctoral fellows from his faculty advisor’s laboratory in an ongoing study of poverty in the state’s three largest cities. The faculty advisor will not be actively involved in this study due to an imminent sabbatical.

Although the student’s work will constitute a large part of his dissertation, within the study itself, his contribution is not considered significant enough to merit the student being listed as an author on manuscripts resulting from the study. Accordingly, the faculty advisor and student verbally agree upon the student’s role in the study, and the faculty advisor does not amend the written authorship agreement that exists among the other team members.

After the faculty advisor leaves for sabbatical, the senior researcher in the laboratory takes the student aside and asks the student if he will assume most of her data collection and analysis responsibilities for the study due to her busy schedule. Seeing this as an opportunity to gain valuable experience, the student agrees.

Near the end of the study, the senior researcher asks the student to help a postdoctoral fellow to draft major portions of the study’s first manuscript. Although the senior researcher originally agreed to prepare the first manuscript and to be the corresponding author, she states that she is too busy preparing a grant proposal to prepare the manuscript. The student assists the postdoctoral fellow with the manuscript preparation and subsequently the student makes all the revisions submitted by the other team members.

When the student reads the final manuscript and the accompanying letter from the senior researcher (in her role as corresponding author) to the journal editor, he notes the following:
  • The faculty advisor is listed as first author.
  • The senior researcher is listed as second author.
  • The senior researcher states that her own contributions to the study include data collection and analysis, and manuscript preparation.
  • The graduate student is listed in the acknowledgements section for his technical assistance.
  • The postdoctoral fellow is not credited with preparing the manuscript.