In order to track our impact and productivity, the Field Research Site appreciates acknowledgment in your publications and poster presentations as follows:
Generic Acknowledgment
”We wish to thank (staff name here) from the Field Research Site at the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center for support with (support provided)…”.
If contributions go beyond our standard fee-for-service support, including significant intellectual contribution and/or manuscript preparation, Field Research Site staff should be considered for co-authorship.
Core facilities must charge for services rendered according to cost accounting practices set up at each institution. Charging for services does not preclude authorship on manuscripts provided the Core laboratory individual has contributed to the research in a substantial way. If authorship is anticipated, it is preferably established at the beginning of the project so that both the customer and the Core researcher are cognizant of each other’s criteria.
Important reasons for acknowledging contributions from core facilities in publications, by co-authorship or by formal mention in the acknowledgments section, include:
- Core facility personnel are scientists. When they make a substantial intellectual and/or experimental contribution to a publication they deserve to be acknowledged just as any other co-author.
- The existence of core facilities depends in part on proper acknowledgment in publications. This is an important metric of the value of most core facilities. Proper acknowledgment of core facilities enables them to obtain financial and other support so that they may continue to provide their essential services in the best ways possible. It also helps core personnel to advance in their careers, adding to the overall health of the core facility.
Activities for which authorship are recommended:
- Author should make substantive contributions to the project
- Conception, design of project, critical input, or original ideas
- Acquisition of data, analysis and interpretation, beyond routine practices
- Draft the article or revise it critically for intellectual content
- Write a portion of the paper (not just materials and methods section)
- Intellectual contribution
- Final authority for the approval of article
- Each author should have participated enough to accept responsibility for the content of the manuscript
The following activities do not represent intellectual contributions to a project and would not constitute authorship:
- Providing funding (department chair who has no intellectual input)
- Collection of data (technical skill but not involved in interpretation of data)
- General supervision of research group, but no intellectual input into the project
All contributors that do not meet the criteria of authorship should be recognized in the acknowledgments section, for example:
- Paid technical help
- Writing assistance
- Financial and material support
- Scientific advice
Two examples are pertinent: (from Robert A. Day: How to Write and Publish a Scientific Paper, 5th Edition)
Example 1: Scientist A designs the experiments, and tells Technician B exactly how to do the experiments. If the experiments work and a new discovery is made and a manuscript results, Scientist A is the sole author and Technician B is recognized in the acknowledgments section.
Example 2: Scientist A designs the experiments, Technician B carries them out but they do not work. Technician B suggests some changes to the protocol, the experiments then work because of the changes and a discovery results. Scientist A and Technician B are now both authors.
