Assignment of credit

All individuals making a major contribution to a publication should be acknowledged by the inclusion of the individual's name as an author. The OADC contact person designated with your OADC Data Request will help identify OADC personnel who have contributed to the data you request. A major contribution may include: formulating the problem or hypothesis, structuring the experimental design, recruiting and testing of subjects (or tissue), neurologic, neuropsychologic or neuropathologic diagnoses on subject samples, organizing and conducting data analyses, interpreting the results, or writing a major portion of the paper. A substantial contribution to one or more of these activities is generally considered sufficient for authorship.

An individual whose contribution consists solely of developing unique materials or techniques might also be listed as an author if those materials or techniques were developed specifically for the project and represent a major contribution to the overall project. In situations where several individuals make major contributions to a publication, the name of the individual who made the principal contribution should be listed as first author, with subsequent names listed in order of decreasing contribution. By convention, in certain disciplines, an individual who makes a major contribution to a publication may sometimes be listed as last author to identify the research group or unit in which the work was done even though that individual's overall contribution is not less than those of individuals listed earlier in the by-line. Other instances in which authorship order does not reflect relative contributions (e.g. alphabetical listing of author names) should be explained in a footnote.

Minor contributions do not necessarily warrant authorship, but should be acknowledged in the text or a footnote. These supportive contributions include: conducting literature searches, designing or building an apparatus, providing statistical advice, routine data collection, data tabulation or entry, designing a computer program, accessing data from the OADC database, providing laboratory space or equipment, general supervision of a research group or acquisition of funding. Although any one of these activities alone would not ordinarily be considered sufficient for authorship, authorship might be justified if the completion of a combination of these (and possibly other) tasks by an individual constituted a major contribution to the overall project.

In order to avoid potential conflicts regarding authorship, members of the research group should discuss authorship and authorship ranking order before beginning any specific research project. Primary responsibility for initiating such discussions rests with the individual who expects to make the principal contribution to the published work.

Acceptance of responsibility

By accepting credit for a publication, authors also accept responsibility for the content of the publication. All authors share responsibility for ensuring a) the factual accuracy of the content of the publication, b) that proper acknowledgement is given (via specific citations) for published or unpublished materials that directly influenced the writing or research, c) the publication contains no plagiarism, d) that institutional and other requirements were met for protecting human or animal subjects used in completing the published work, and e) that possible conflicts of interest (e.g., industry relationships) are acknowledged in the text or in a footnote. The designated responsible author has primary responsibility for addressing these issues.

Process for Assigning Authorship Credit and Responsibility

The process for assigning authorship credit and responsibility must take the following points into consideration. The responsible author must address each of these items.

1. Consent must be received from all individuals named as authors.

2. Authors are responsible for determining the order of authorship and must ensure that major and minor contributions are appropriately acknowledged.

3. All authors must be given a reasonable opportunity to examine the content of the manuscript and give their approval before it is submitted for publication. In addition, all authors must be notified about editorial decisions and, if revisions are required, must give their approval before the revised manuscript is submitted for publication. A copy of the manuscript and all editorial correspondence must be given to all authors.

4. When authorship concerns arise, authors are strongly encouraged to seek the advice of colleagues who have not participated in the scholarly activity.

5. Any paper submitted for publication that used OADC subjects, data, or tissue should include an acknowledgement to the OADC and a copy of the submitted manuscript should be sent to the OADC.

Consultation

Center personnel are often consulted by outside investigators regarding aspects of study design, methods, data analyses, etc. We encourage investigators to utilize the expertise of OADC personnel. However, if consultation extends beyond occasional advice, OADC personnel may request authorship and/or acknowledgement to the OADC on resulting publications.

Authorship Conflicts

Conflicts regarding authorship should be referred to the OADC Executive Committee (contact: Dr. Jeffrey Kaye, (503) 494-6976).