Authorship issues

[BrainStormer]

I’m in a clinically oriented PhD program in the midst of my dissertation. I have my PI and 2 other committee members from my university working with me on this project. Ideally, my goal is to publish my dissertation, but I would like to reach out to my other faculty contacts from a research oriented PhD program for their contribution to the manuscript once it’s defended.

My committee members, including my PI, have done little to nothing for this project. I have received close to no comments on the entire literature review section, so it’s hard to gage if I’m actually doing this well or not. My other contacts from a different university (who have shown interest in my research) are willing to make revisions and contribute to the manuscript. They’re more research oriented than my committee and have extensive experience publishing and being on editorial boards for journals. The issue is authorship. How would I approach this without burning bridges with faculty from my university? Wouldn’t it be unethical to have my committee as 2nd, 3rd, and 4th author when the other university faculty members contributed more? If we decide authorship on the basis of the amount of work one puts in, the other faculty would most likely get bumped ahead of my committee. How do I gage this as a graduate student? My other option is to just not have any other faculty outside of my university contribute to my work to avoid this issue in general, but I don’t think that I’m receiving proper support from my committee for this to be publishable, which is why I want to branch out.

Authorship seems so political at times…. Any advice welcomed!

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[Ollie123]

Normally you'd defer to your mentor on these issues, but it sounds like they aren't that heavily engaged. I will say that "most" universities (at least R1s) now recognize senior authorship. So your mentor is likely expecting/wanting to be last author as that "counts" for more than middle authorship. I'd probably put the other faculty as 2/3/4th and the committee as 5th/6th/7th (last being mentor) or whatever. Just to set expectations, I will say it is <generally> not expected that a committee will be heavily involved. They are there to evaluate you, not to help you extensively prior to that evaluation - especially at the dissertation level. Certainly sometimes they play a more substantive role, but it absolutely isn't the norm. I think most times the mentor will be on the publication, but the other committee members it can be very hit or miss (though you should follow the norm at your university).

I will add that <probably> this feels like a bigger deal to you as a student than it is to them. Number of publications on your CV has a pretty strong negative correlation with the number of ****s you give about whether you are 3rd vs 7th author in my experience. And frankly, there is a probably even a bit of a floor effect once you get past 10-15. Many of us collectively roll our eyes at anyone past the first few years of graduate school who worries deeply about being 4th vs 3rd author. A faculty member upset about it - especially for a student project - is likely someone no one wants to collaborate with again (or frankly - even be around).

 

[PsyDr]

By convention, PI always goes last. Im assuming you go first. Let the rest of them argue about the order in between, or put it alphabetically. If they balk at some issue of order, then discuss. They won’t care.

After publication, reach out to one of them, compliment them on their specific contribution, and ask if they would like to use that technique in another application.

 

[jdawg2017]

I had two mentors at two institutions during my training so I get the confusion. Fortunately both my mentors knew each other and have collaborated for 15+ years together, so I wasn’t charting the new path like it sounds like you’re doing.

Definitely talk with your mentor directly about this first, even if they aren’t that involved. There are a lot of politics about these things that correspond highly with their career stage and nature of their job. If pubs play little-to-nothing into considerations for tenure or promotion or if you’re mentor is quite senior, they may truly not care. If they are more junior or pubs are important, they will probably care more, and I agree that convention if shifting toward the medical model where first (usually junior person) and last (the main PI) matter the most, and everything else in the middle is important but not even remotely as much.

Talking about author order up front makes the most sense and will save a lot of pain. IMO, you be first, your Mentor should be the last, and everyone else should be in the middle. If an outside mentor(s) provides some technical or specific assistance, I would probably ask to list them as second author, third author, and so on in terms of how much they helped.

 

[Dazen]

Agree with all that’s been said above. There’s also likely a decent amount of work that’ll be needed to streamline your dissertation so it’s ready to submit to journals. Since the thesis/dissertation are used to demonstrate knowledge of the research process, they’re often more thorough than a paper or of a larger scope. For my thesis, I ended up talking with committee members after I defended about whether they wanted to be included in the subsequent paper and we all discussed what independent contribution each could make. It ended up that one is on the paper and one isn’t and that was agreeable all around.

 

[BrainStormer]

There are a lot of politics about these things that correspond highly with their career stage and nature of their job. If pubs play little-to-nothing into considerations for tenure or promotion or if you’re mentor is quite senior, they may truly not care. If they are more junior or pubs are important, they will probably care more, and I agree that convention if shifting toward the medical model where first (usually junior person) and last (the main PI) matter the most, and everything else in the middle is important but not even remotely as much.

All of my committee members are about middle career, and pubs play an important role in promotion for them. I don't think they would be particularly fond me forgoing their name, but it's really hard for me to gage this as a graduate student. That would be quite an awkward conversation with my mentor if they say that the committee should go on when I think they should not... but it seems like the right thing to do is just ask my mentor.

I think most times the mentor will be on the publication, but the other committee members it can be very hit or miss (though you should follow the norm at your university).

I will add that <probably> this feels like a bigger deal to you as a student than it is to them. Number of publications on your CV has a pretty strong negative correlation with the number of ****s you give about whether you are 3rd vs 7th author in my experience. And frankly, there is a probably even a bit of a floor effect once you get past 10-15. Many of us collectively roll our eyes at anyone past the first few years of graduate school who worries deeply about being 4th vs 3rd author. A faculty member upset about it - especially for a student project - is likely someone no one wants to collaborate with again (or frankly - even be around).

Interesting. I didn't know that that other committee members are hit or miss for being an author on the publication. I just assumed that they automatically go on because they read and signed off on the dissertation, even without making contributions. I thought it was an unspoken social rule that the committee goes on the paper. Seems like that might not be the case though? And you are right, I am probably thinking about this way more than they are hahah!

 

[BrainStormer]

My other question is do I need permission from my mentor to reach out to my other contacts for their contribution to my dissertation? Is this common for students to add other authors outside of their committee?

 

[AcronymAllergy]

My other question is do I need permission from my mentor to reach out to my other contacts for their contribution to my dissertation? Is this common for students to add other authors outside of their committee?

Personally, I'd run pretty much everything by your mentor/dissertation chair first. Especially if it's about another faculty member contributing to your dissertation.

As for committee members going on the subsequent pub: my experience was the same as Ollie's, sometimes they went on and sometimes they didn't. We had a non-psych dean's rep on our dissertation committees, for example, and I don't know if any of them ever went on any dissertation-related publications.

 

[Ollie123]

All of my committee members are about middle career, and pubs play an important role in promotion for them. I don't think they would be particularly fond me forgoing their name, but it's really hard for me to gage this as a graduate student. That would be quite an awkward conversation with my mentor if they say that the committee should go on when I think they should not... but it seems like the right thing to do is just ask my mentor.

Interesting. I didn't know that that other committee members are hit or miss for being an author on the publication. I just assumed that they automatically go on because they read and signed off on the dissertation, even without making contributions. I thought it was an unspoken social rule that the committee goes on the paper. Seems like that might not be the case though? And you are right, I am probably thinking about this way more than they are hahah!

I don't think it needs to be awkward at all, but it really depends on your relationship with them. Honestly, I'd always just draft up the author list as I thought it should be and insert a comment to my mentor "Add or rearrange authors as you see fit" when I was publishing off his data. Admittedly, you have to know/trust your mentor for that to work well. It also is almost necessary for that type of work because the paper is often the easiest part of the work and as a student I didn't necessarily know all the backstory (e.g., Co-Is who developed the methods used in the grant, consultant who resolved equipment issues, technician who really went above and beyond gathering the data enough to warrant authorship, fellow who managed the project, etc.). For my data I'd just ask "Hey, do you think so-and-so should be on this?"

Definitely not a universal unspoken rule the committee goes on the paper. It could be an unspoken rule at your institution though, which is worth figuring out. You could always look at old dissertations and see what has been done. It sounds like a clinical-heavy program but I assume at least some people have published their dissertations (at least I hope so!).

A lot of this is tough to answer as it really just depends on your school and your mentor. I wouldn't have hesitated to manage collaborations myself as a grad student, particularly for the dissertation. However, I'm getting the impression this is your first research project with your mentor. I was at a research heavy program and it was my umpteenth at that point so the nature of the relationship and expectations were well-established. I think you do need to figure it out at this point. It really doesn't need to be weird though.

 

[BrainStormer]

I don't think it needs to be awkward at all, but it really depends on your relationship with them. Honestly, I'd always just draft up the author list as I thought it should be and insert a comment to my mentor "Add or rearrange authors as you see fit" when I was publishing off his data. Admittedly, you have to know/trust your mentor for that to work well. It also is almost necessary for that type of work because the paper is often the easiest part of the work and as a student I didn't necessarily know all the backstory (e.g., Co-Is who developed the methods used in the grant, consultant who resolved equipment issues, technician who really went above and beyond gathering the data enough to warrant authorship, fellow who managed the project, etc.). For my data I'd just ask "Hey, do you think so-and-so should be on this?"

Definitely not a universal unspoken rule the committee goes on the paper. It could be an unspoken rule at your institution though, which is worth figuring out. You could always look at old dissertations and see what has been done. It sounds like a clinical-heavy program but I assume at least some people have published their dissertations (at least I hope so!).

A lot of this is tough to answer as it really just depends on your school and your mentor. I wouldn't have hesitated to manage collaborations myself as a grad student, particularly for the dissertation. However, I'm getting the impression this is your first research project with your mentor. I was at a research heavy program and it was my umpteenth at that point so the nature of the relationship and expectations were well-established. I think you do need to figure it out at this point. It really doesn't need to be weird though.

Thanks for your helpful feedback! I'll check out some of the dissertations that previous students have published.