Thomas Heinbockel, Ph.D.

1
Authorship and Publications in a Changing
Research Environment
Thomas Heinbockel, Ph.D. Assistant Professor
Director of Graduate Studies Department of
Anatomy Howard University College of
Medicine N.P.G. Adams Bldg. 1106-A, 520 W St.,
N.W. Washington, DC 20059 Tel [phone],
theinbockel_at_howard.edu
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• Philosophy of Authorship and Publications
• mission of the university
• seek disseminate knowledge,
• conduct research in open, fair morally
  responsible manner
• guarantee originality of work, provide credit
  receive credit
• scholarly activity as measure for professional
  decisions
• authorship responsibility, authority,
  academic success

3

• Credit in a Multidisciplinary Environment
• allocation of credit for scholarly work
• list of authors, acknowledgments, list of
  references
• science as a collaborative enterprise
• one author, multiple authors, 1925 vs. 2006
• the new research environment (NIH Roadmap)
• multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary research
  centers
• network of excellence, network of research
  universities
• national consortium

4

• Authorship, Who Why
• authorship credit, authorship order
• supervision and mentoring of trainees
• discussion of the division of credit among all
  collaborators
• who is an author? Substantial intellectual
  contribution
• authorship credit only for work you have
  actually performed or
• to which you have contributed ?
  responsibility credit
• multi-author output all authors are
  responsible for accuracy
• fairness and culpable until proven
  otherwise
• special responsibility of first author

5

• The Call to Order
• order of authors names reflects relative
  contribution
• graduate student as first author if work is
  based on the thesis
• first author creative, intellectual
  contribution, integral to work
• first author - develop research design, carry
  out experiments,
• - analyze data, interpret results, write
  manuscript

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• Authorship Dilemmas
• faculty student relationship
• early agreement on authorship credit order
• make it your project, it is your thesis project
• notion of informed consent
• renegotiation of authorship credit order
• unexpected turns in your research
• moving on to new horizons

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• When it is Not Authorship
• possession of institutional or supervisory
  position
• minor contribution to research or writing,
  minor editorial work
• providing lab space, funding for students
  dissertation
• providing equipment, reagents, collection of
  data, typing, data
• analyses specified by PI or you, purely
  technical help
• spending lots of time effort
• authorship based on scholarly importance of
  professional
• contribution
• ? acknowledgments include persons listed above

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• Practical Tips for New Trainess
• research abstract ? poster presentation ?
• original peer reviewed publication
• multi-authorship, multi-PI research, small labs
  vs. big labs
• author sequence first, last or middle author
• quality vs. quantity, your 5 best papers, the
  complete story
• publish or perish - before graduation?
• publication and rejection (more rejection than
  publication)
• role of pubs for graduation, promotion, job
  hunting

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• More Tips for New Trainees
• your dissertation committee, put them to work
• discuss with your mentor, where are the limits
  of my project,
• who else is involved in the project
  (postdocs, graduate students,
• collaborators)
• disclosure of contributions of (co-)authors as
  effort
• (idea, experiments, writing)
• you do the writing, at least the first draft
  it is part of your
• dissertation
• original publication vs. review

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References http//www.apastyle.org/authorship.ht
ml http//www.yorku.ca/grads/policies/intellectual
property http//www.hms.harvard.edu/integrity/scie
ntif.html http//www.councilscienceeditors.org/se
rvices/atf_whitepaper.cfm http//www.icmje.org/ ht
tp//hermes.wits.ac.za/www/Academic/Research/autho
rship.html http//www.mcgill.ca/researchoffice/pol
icies/sponsored/policies/training/ http//www.stan
ford.edu/dept/DoR/rph/2-8.html http//www.stanford
.edu/dept/DoR/GSH/Sec3i.html http//newton.nap.edu
/html/obas/contents/publication.html