Hi Jorge and all, I had the recent experience of being included on a paper without my knowledge, but found out before it went out for review and was able to stop it in time. I had never seen the data or manuscript before, nor had I been involved in the study in any way, except maybe asking a couple of questions once on a visit to their lab. But the senior authors and I are active collaborators on several projects, they are from a different culture where such things (honorary authorships…) are not so frowned upon, and it was an over-enthusiastic grad student who put me on there and submitted prematurely without his mentor’s knowledge. So it can happen, I would guess under quirky circumstances like that most of the time, but your case is obviously different.
About 20 years ago, I included a suddenly deceased colleague as author on a paper I wrote on a study that he collected much of the data for. I took over the study to bring it to conclusion and write up the results. I included him as author based on my intuition of what I thought he would want and what seemed most fair – I even listed him as lead author, with me as corresponding author. It seemed to me a matter of doing the honorable thing, and maybe it mattered to his family, who knows. To put myself as lead author would have been taking more credit than deserved, and I couldn’t do it even though I was advised to (I was still young when building a publication record as fast as possible was important for my career). Anyway, your “lost” former student did give verbal permission years ago. I think that tilts the decision in the direction of including that person. Based on your knowledge of the person and what they wanted at the time, if there is no reason for you to suspect that he/she would object, then my advice is to err on the side of generosity and fairness. If the person is that hard to find, then chances are he/she is not publishing in journals (unless the last name may have changed…), and would be happy to see their past work acknowledged in this way. You have made a good-faith effort to locate the person, had a verbal assent to the principle of inclusion in the past, have no reason to suspect an objection (I assume), and are willing to take responsibility if the person surfaces later and objects. I’d say it is very likely not a problem, and if it is, it can be corrected via an erratum (your option b). Erring on the side of too much caution seems less likely to match the presumed desires or be in the interest of the person involved, and more likely to be hurtful if they are left off and discover it. When in doubt, be generous…. Best Wishes, --Tom From: Ecological Society of America: grants, jobs, news [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Loretta Fisher Sent: Sunday, August 21, 2016 6:44 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [ECOLOG-L] Query on authorship I'm glad this discussion was started. I'm learning a lot from everyone's thoughtful answers. -Loretta, MS student On Sun, Aug 21, 2016 at 6:21 AM, Malcolm McCallum <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: In all my life, I have met dozens if not dozens of dozens of people who were left off papers and felt they belonged on the manuscript. In every case the situation caused problems. In all my life, I have NEVER, NOT ONE SINGLE TIME EVER, met someone who got irate because they were included as an author on a manuscript, period. In fact, I cannot recall a single time that someone held a grudge or was upset because they were included on a paper. It is well understood that a manuscript's authorship is distributed in regard to effort, but it is also distributed according to responsiblity. Anyone thing the 200th author on the Human Genome Project is remembered or targeted anymore than the 199th author? I doubt most people will see those names beyond the first author, maybe the last. When a paper goes to press, easily 90% of the responsiblity is born by the lead author. I get the distinct feeling there is nothing political or otherwise warranting concern about protecting anyone in this case. I personally feel that most people are over-whelmingly selfish/stingy with distribution of effort, and most guidelines are simply provided by people who are more concerned about other people's activity than there own. Further, they put way to much weight on being 10th author on a 20 author manuscript. IF more people concerned themselves with publishing their own papers, producing their own results, and actually contributing to science, then this entire issue would be mute. Do what you think is fair. On Sat, Aug 20, 2016 at 11:19 PM, Jeff Houlahan <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: Hi Gary and all, this one's an interesting one. Your position is one I have a lot of sympathy for - it's generous and gives credit where it's due. What makes this tricky is that it also gives responsibility that somebody might not want to accept. I know it's unlikely and not that common but there may be instances where somebody would prefer not to have their name on a paper where they've done enough work to warrant authorship. If my name showed up on a paper without me ever being aware that it had been submitted I would be a little bothered. If I read the paper and didn't agree with the interpretation I would be very unhappy. That said, the idea of not giving credit to somebody who deserves it just seems wrong. This is a rock and a hard place. Best, Jeff Houlahan ________________________________ From: Ecological Society of America: grants, jobs, news <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> on behalf of Gary Grossman <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> Sent: August 20, 2016 12:04 PM To: [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> Subject: Re: [ECOLOG-L] Query on authorship Querido Jorge, this is a murky area of co-authorship except for one point. Coauthorship is *earned* and should not be taken away because of some other circumstance outside of the project responsibilities. Given that the second student completed the work while they were at your institution, the simple solution, given that they did indeed earn coauthorship, is to put them on the paper with your institutional address. If you're worried about someone contacting them then just asterisk their name and in the footnote put "current address unknown". !Eso! g2 On Fri, Aug 19, 2016 at 3:24 PM, Jorge A. Santiago-Blay <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: Query on authorship Dear Colleagues: I am writing a small paper resulting from research done with two undergraduates many years ago (and, later on, involving several other colleagues using cutting-edge technology). As the results became obvious, both of the students agreed (orally, in person) with me that we should get the research published. As far as I remember, there was no email or letter documenting that and, there was no manuscript, only the data and the methods we were using. The problem: I have located one of the former students (now a researcher at a major research institution), who is excited about getting the research published, but not the second student. Question: How to handle the contribution (including authorship) of the other person? Here are some options I see. a. Omit the name of the person that has not been located and indicate that another person was involved in the data collection but we were hot able to locate him/her to get his/her approval to use his/her name as an author. Under these circumstances, would it be OK to name the person in the Acknowledgments? Lately, I am asking permission to do that because sometimes some people prefer to remain anonymous. b. Include the name of the person I cannot locate as an author, an act of fairness and good faith on my part. If the person does not like the idea (and the paper is published) retract the name of the person in an erratum, later on, and assume responsibility for my error. A kind colleague did that to me once and, subsequently, it has resulted a long standing collaboration (and co-authorship in many papers, with my knowledge) :) c. Nor use the data garnered by the person I cannot locate. Although I am pretty sure I am authorized by the institution to use the data, as a general personal; preference, I like to ask permission. If you have something constructive to comment, kindly direct your comments to me, [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> , Apologies for potential duplicate emails. Sincerely, Jorge Jorge A. Santiago-Blay, PhD blaypublishers.com<http://blaypublishers.com> 1. Positive experiences for authors of papers published in LEB http://blaypublishers.com/testimonials/ 2. Free examples of papers published in LEB: http://blaypublishers.com/category/previous-issues/. 3. Guidelines for Authors and page charges of LEB: http://blaypublishers.com/archives/ . 4. Want to subscribe to LEB? http://blaypublishers.com/subscriptions/ http://blayjorge.wordpress.com/ http://paleobiology.si.edu/staff/individuals/santiagoblay.cfm -- Gary D. Grossman, PhD Fellow, American Fisheries Soc. Professor of Animal Ecology Warnell School of Forestry & Natural Resources University of Georgia Athens, GA, USA 30602 Website - Science, Art (G. Grossman Fine Art) and Music www.garygrossman.net<http://www.garygrossman.net> Blog - https://medium.com/@garydavidgrossman Board of Editors - Animal Biodiversity and Conservation Editorial Board - Freshwater Biology Editorial Board - Ecology Freshwater Fish Hutson Gallery Provincetown, MA - www.hutsongallery.net/artists.html<http://www.hutsongallery.net/artists.html> -- Malcolm L. 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