Who is Where on the Author List--Graduate Students?
Author(s):
based on a scenario by Gerald Saidel, Professor of Biomedical Engineering, Case
A manuscript submitted to a journal was returned to authors with the editor's letter stating that it would only be reconsidered if major changes were made to satisfy the comments of the reviewers. To accomplish this, all the data had to be re-analyzed using a new analysis.
On the original manuscript the first author was student, Origen, who was primarily responsible for gathering data and making the analysis. The second author was faculty member, Overview, who was primarily responsible for the method of analysis, supervising Origen, and writing the manuscript. For the revised manuscript, another student, Secundy, re-analyzed the data using another method developed by Overview, who then had the primary responsibility of revising the manuscript. Since student Origen had already graduated and was engaged in another career situation, he could not participate further and his contribution to the revised manuscript was the original data collection.
What, if any, changes can or should (as a matter of fairness) be made in the author list in the revised manuscript?
Who is Where on the Author List?--Postdocs
based on a scenario submitted by a member of Case's Pathology Department
Primo, a postdoc, initiates a research project to isolate microorganisms that show a particular enzymatic activity against a target molecule. Excellent progress is achieved with the isolation of the organism, but the supervising faculty member wants to speed the work and get a full characterization of the molecule published in a very prestigious journal, and so adds a second postdoc, Secundo, to the project. Secundo has extensive experience in protein purification and characterization. After a year of work, Primo prepares to leave for another position and writes up writes a paper based on existing data. It would be publishable but is not up to the standards of the supervisor's target journal and so it is not submitted.
In the paper that is finally submitted to the target journal, a paper that gives the full characterization of the molecule, most of the data is Secundo's. Secundo also wrote the bulk of the manuscript.
Who should be an author? Who should decide the order of the authors? What should that order be? What factors are relevant to determining the order of authors?
A scenario with comments from Duke University about authorship order. In the scenario, a student appears to have abandoned the project of publishing from her thesis. The advisor and another student take over the project and the issue of authorship order arises. The comments include links to suggested written agreements to help avoid future conflicts.