Ask Courtney Karmelita, the University’s research integrity officer, when colleagues should discuss authorship for a research project, her answer is emphatic: “Before they start the collaboration!”
For the last 18 years, Josh Stapleton has seen firsthand that this is not always happening. As director of the Materials Characterization Lab (MCL), the largest shared research facility on campus, Stapleton is at the hub of many research collaborations. MCL is a core facility that sees a thousand users from more than 45 departments each year, and he’s discovered over the years that many researchers find it difficult to understand or discuss how MCL scientists should be acknowledged in publications resulting from work at the MCL. “ Given the wide range of interdisciplinary research supported at the MCL, we felt well-positioned to initiate conversations and raise awareness around authorship. While standards for authorship exist, we saw a need for more practical guidance tailored to core facility users and staff.”
Last year Stapleton was introduced to authorship guidance from the Office for Research Protections (ORP), and he connected with Karmelita to see if it would be possible to develop guidance that covers the nuance of core facility contribution to determine appropriate credit. Working with Tawanda (TJ) Zimudzi, an associate research professor in the molecular spectroscopy group at MCL, the three started a collaboration and formed a small working group to develop acknowledgement and authorship guidance for all the OSVPR core research facilities at Penn State. The result is now published and supported by senior vice president for research, Andrew Read. The document provides basic guiding principles along with appendices of specific examples for different facilities. Notes Stapleton, “Not everyone realizes that core staff should be considered for authorship as part of a research team, even if the staff aren’t in a researcher’s ‘home’ lab. We’re hoping this guidance can be a significant step in opening these conversations.”
Karmelita is also optimistic that this guidance will assist researchers and help them avoid authorship disputes, “Many of the cases that my office sees are actually authorship disputes. If people haven’t discussed who should receive credit in a research project, people can feel that their ideas and work have been ‘stolen’—this often comes to us as allegations of plagiarism when really it’s an authorship issue.” Karmelita encourages researchers to utilize the new core facilities guidance and other existing resources at the beginning of a collaboration. Authorship guidance is available on the ORP website.
Researchers interested in learning more about responsible conduct of research should refer to RPG01 The Responsible Conduct of Research; resources are also available on the ORP website, including the Scholarship and Research Integrity workshop series and two Provost Endorsements (Mentorship in Research and Setting Up Successful Research Environments).