1. It is to everyone's benefit if there is a clear understanding about potential joint authorship roles whenever there is research collaboration among faculty and students, whether the latter are assigned as apprentices, students in a class, hired assistants, or any other role. Initial arrangements can always be discussed again should circumstances change, for example if the student contributes more to the project than originally anticipated.
2. Authorship is not presumed to be a right obtained by association with a research project. Hence the need for prior understandings, as stated above.
3. In general authorship implies that the person made a major substantive contribution to the research being reported.
4. Data gathered for a research project or program of research under a Principal Investigator [under a grant or otherwise] are the property of that Investigator. It is an academic tradition that such data are not used without the PI's permission, unless they have been made part of a public archive. In either case, proper acknowledgements are expected.
5. It is the presumption that the person who conceptualized the project, secured the funding, developed the research instruments, etc., should review any publications or other public presentations from the project and give his or her permission if something from the project is to be published without his or her name on it.
6. A student is presumed to have authorship of his or her masters thesis and/or doctoral dissertation and is encouraged to publish any parts or all of the approved thesis or dissertation unless there have been some prior restrictions to which the student has agreed, e.g. that authorship must be shared with others contributing to the project or to wait for a jointly authored or edited book combining several theses.
7. Authorship Order. The order of names should be mutually agreed, preferably at the outset. The person making the greatest scientific contribution is the first author. Subsequent authors are listed in order of decreasing scientific contribution. If contributions are spread equally, the order of authors is usually alphabetical.
8. It is impossible to anticipate all potential problems. We believe that mutual respect, trust and clear communication will forestall difficulties. However, if disagreements about authorship do arise and cannot be resolved by the people involved, it is recommended that the matter be referred to the Chair of the Graduate Group for prompt consideration and suggested resolution.