GRADUATE GROUP IN SOCIAL WELFARE
Policy on Joint Authorship
Overview of Policy
This policy is guided by a philosophy in the Graduate Group in Social Welfare that students should be encouraged (and are expected) to publish their research in the course of their doctoral education. The role of the mentor in this process is to assist the student in learning the craft of scholarly writing and to facilitate the student's career and his/her publishing record. Authorship is viewed as a nourishing experience for the academic environment of the Graduate Group.
In some instances, it is not expected that the issue of co-authorship will be relevant. For example, a student hired to photocopy articles, interview respondents, edit a text, or conduct an electronic search is not performing an intellectual task that merits co-authorship. The student can expect to be included as a co-author if s/he is asked to perform an exhaustive summary/review of the literature that necessitates an intellectual effort. The practical decision regarding co-authorship and order of authors, however, is very complex and discussed below.
Process
All doctoral students will be oriented regarding the general principles of authorship upon entry into the Ph.D. Program. University and Graduate Group policies and procedures will be included in the orientation program at the beginning of each academic year and incorporated into the Policies and Procedures Manual of the Program.
Faculty should discuss the issue of authorship with their graduate student collaborators when beginning a joint project. The faculty member should indicate whether the student is going to share authorship credit, what order of authorship is anticipated, and what division of labor on the project is expected. Since the relative contributions of authors often changes over the course of a project, the faculty member and student should agree on when these issues will be revisited - e.g., at the end of the semester of an independent study, at the end of a summer research assistantship, when a proposal is due for a conference, when a draft article is ready for submission to a journal, etc. If either the faculty member or student feel it is desirable, they may consider drafting a brief memorandum summarizing their verbal agreement regarding authorship and the division of labor. (See attached sample memorandum.)
Criteria for Authorship
A. General Principles (adapted from the Americans Psychological Association guidelines)
(1) Faculty and students take responsibility and credit. including authorship credit, only for work they have actually performed or to which they have contributed.
(2) Authorship credit for a particular project accurately reflects the relative scientific or professional contributions of the individuals involved, regardless of their relative status. Mere possession of an institutional position, such as a director of a research center, does not justify authorship credit. Minor contributions to the research or the writing for publication is appropriately acknowledged, such as in a footnote or in an introductory statement.
(3) A student is usually listed as principal author on any multiple-authored article that is based primarily on the student's dissertation or thesis. When the student works on a faculty member's funded or original research project, the student must obtain a priori permission to develop an independent project. Similarly, a paper developed by the student in an independent study will usually justify status of principal author. The intent is to avoid misunderstanding and hurt feelings.
(4) Data collection alone is not sufficient to obtain authorship credit. This is also the case with data entry or copy-editing. There must be a substantive intellectual contribution to the writing, conceptualization, or analysis of a collaborative effort in order to receive credit for authorship.
B. Specific Factors That May Serve as the Basis for Claims to Authorship
1.The Idea: An important consideration for authorship is based on an answer to the question "Whose idea was it?" Having the idea for the study is one basis for a claim to authorship, although most projects evolve over time and there are many revisions to the initial idea along the way. As a result, from time to time the relative intellectual contribution of joint authors may have to be reassessed.
2. The Literature Review: in some cases, a faculty mentor will ask a graduate student to conduct a literature review on the topic of a jointly authored paper. Literature reviews may be extensive or focused, and may be directed to a greater or lesser degree by the faculty advisor. In some projects, an extensive literature review forms the basis of the subsequent research, whereas in other cases it plays a more limited role. At the minimal end of the continuum, literature reviews may take the form of long memoranda about previous research in a field and go beyond summarizing individual papers to synthesize the findings in the field and the gaps in the literature. The more extensive and independent the literature review, and the more decisive with respect to the ideas developed in the paper, the more this contribution entitles one to authorship credit.
3. Data Collection: There are instances in which a faculty member may have spent years, even decades, collecting data on a particular topic, perhaps following a sample of individuals over time. Such data collection efforts can be extremely expensive and time consuming. There will also be cases where the data source is a third party. In these instances, agreements must be made with the third party regarding authorship.
In all collaborative research, "ownership" of the data can serve as the basis for a claim to authorship, yet there is much variation among faculty in this position. Some faculty members feel that ownership of the data under investigation entitles them to authorship of any paper that is based on these data. Some faculty may feel that they are required to be the first author in all such instances, while others may feel that second or third authorship is more appropriate. Still others vary authorship depending on the nature of the project. Conversations about authorship are particularly important in cases where graduate student research is based on data collection collected by their faculty advisor. In other instances, the graduate student may have collected his/her own data and the faculty member joins the student in shepherding the paper through the publication process. Here again, collecting the data would typically entitle the student to some form of authorship recognition.
4. Data Analysis: In many cases of statistical research, the faculty member supervises the data analysis, which is conducted primarily or exclusively by the graduate student. In some cases, the graduate student receives a wage as a research assistant, while Conducting tasks closely directed by the faculty advisor. Some faculty might feel that this situation entitles the graduate student to no authorship credit, while others might feel that it is appropriate for graduate students to receive junior authorship in such cases. At the other extreme is a case where the graduate student selects the variables to be examined, makes many substantive decisions about the data analysis, and shapes the statistical approach used in the research. In this case, the graduate assistant certainly should receive credit and possibly authorship, although the scope of this contribution must be determined relative to inputs.
5. Writing: Writing the text of a paper often involves much more than simply summarizing the results of the data at hand. This is certainly true for qualitative work, where the selection of appropriate material from the rich body of collected data is an essential part of the research process. Writing is no less of a creative undertaking in research based principally on quantitative data. Sometimes the writing of a paper is shared, but more often one author takes the lead in writing a portion or the entire text. Many involved in collaborative research feel that writing is the decisive contribution; whoever wrote the paper is entitled to be first author. Collaborators should keep in mind that writing is an important component of the final project, but that there may be other important contributions as well.
Confusion may also arise when a third party frequently shares authorship with a faculty member based on mutual contributions that evolve over the course of their careers. If the faculty member has such a relationship with a third party, this should be conveyed to the student since s/he may not know the third party and may feel the third party's status of co-authorship is otherwise unwarranted.
6. Editing: Editing can range in intensity from light copy-editing to a thorough reworking of the text. Often one partner in a collaboration writes and the other edits. There may be several rounds of editorial revisions before a paper is published. Situations where one author drafts the paper and the other "substantially revises" or "re-writes" it may well lead to disagreement about authorship credit. Here, as before, writing and editing are both potentially important contributions to the final product.
7. Financial Remuneration: In some cases, graduate students serve as paid research assistants working on faculty grants. In other cases, joint projects are conducted as part of an independent study course, while in still other situations joint projects emerge simply out of common interest outside the nexus of courses and wages. Some faculty members feel that only intellectual contribution and not salary should determine authorship. Students who work as paid research assistants for a faculty member are particularly dependent on that faculty member for both intellectual guidance and financial support. Consequently, it is particularly important for issues of authorship to be discussed in such cases at the earliest stages of work.
8. Turf Disputes: When a faculty member has collected a large data set, it is often the case that a series of papers and perhaps one or more books will be published from the project. One problem that can arise from this bounty is that there is a conflict over who is going to work on a given aspect of the project. Another problem from the graduate student's viewpoint is that the juiciest projects are reserved for the faculty member and other project members, and that s/he is "assigned" particularly barren terrain to plow. Other instances of turf disputes may result from papers written based on a field placement or for a particular course. Faculty should periodically discuss these issues with graduate students keeping the division of opportunities in mind.
Appeals
No policies or procedures can prevent the occurrence of all instances of actual or perceived unfair treatment. Although inequities can occur to either faculty or graduate students, graduate students are usually more vulnerable to faculty practices and less able to take action when they feel that fairness has been violated.
In cases of disagreements about authorship, the following steps should be taken:
1 . Faculty members should try to monitor the authorship process by keeping in mind the original discussion about expectations and discussing any changes with the student as they arise.
2. Students who feel that the arrangements are unfair should raise the issue with their mentor and the graduate group chair.
3. If the disagreement is not resolved to all participants' satisfaction, a written appeal can be made to the Dean of the School, who should convene the Student Grievance Committee to hear the disagreement and attempt to resolve it.
Implementation These policies and procedures will go into effect in the Fall 1998 semester. They will be made available to students at the beginning of the year, and follow-up will occur in the second semester. This proactive approach is anticipated to resolve confusion regarding authorship credit before it becomes a serious problem.
[S A M P L E]
MEMORANDUM
To: [Name of Faculty]
From: [Name of Student]
Date: [Date]
Re: [Authorship]
The purpose of this memorandum is clarify the nature of the relationship between faculty and student collaborators in the [Title] project funded by [Name of organization] for the period [beginning date] to [end date].
The nature of the work I understand will be expected from me is [. . . ]. As such, any papers or manuscripts that result from this project will list [name of faculty/student] as the primary author and [name of faculty/student] as the co-author. There [will/ will not] be collaboration from a third party in writing endeavors.