A significant motivating factor for conducting research and moving it forward is receiving credit for the research and findings. Credit is given to those who play a significant role in shaping the research and/or interpretation of results. Authorship, either of papers, project proposals, architectural plans, etc., is a primary aspect of the distribution of one's work and a necessary aspect of moving a career forward in many fields. In academic research settings, authorship and credit provide the foundations by which a researcher is evaluated. The more prestigious the journal is, the higher the impact the research is likely to be perceived to have, the more prestige the researcher. In business and policy planning, credit and acknowledgment can depend on and be evaluated based more on team and leadership performance than in academic settings. Regardless of the context, "credit where credit is due" seems an apt phrase to describe what it takes to move a career forward.
Acknowledgment comes in many forms, again, depending on the context. In a commercial environment, acknowledgment may take the form of upholding patents, which may be licensed and put to use in other products. In an academic environment, acknowledgment comes in the form of citing previous works and findings upon which the current research is based. In a laboratory environment, acknowledgment may come in the form of providing credit to technicians either through co-authorship or in an acknowledgments section. Acknowledgment sections of books often cite specific examples of how certain individuals helped to shape the author's thinking around a particular point.
"The reward individual scientists seek is credit. That is, they seek recognition, to have their work cited as important and as necessary to further scientific progress. The scientific community seeks true theories or adequate models. Credit, or recognition, accrues to individuals to the extent they are perceived as having contributed to that community goal. Without strong community policing structures, there is a strong incentive to cheat, to try to obtain credit without necessarily having done the work. Communities and individuals are then faced with the question: when is it appropriate to trust and when not?"
Longino, Helen, "The Social Dimensions of Scientific Knowledge [3]," The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2013 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = <plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2013/entries/scientific-knowledge-social/>.
Authorship of a publication implies both taking credit as well as responsibility for what is published. This can sometimes be a challenge in interdisciplinary or large team contexts, where trust in others' work is an established necessity. Even though most fields and even different labs will have slightly, if not completely, different standards for deciding on the order of authorship, what constitutes a viable contribution is fairly similar across fields.
"The list of authors establishes accountability as well as credit. When a paper is found to contain errors, whether caused by mistakes or deceit, authors might wish to disavow responsibility, saying that they were not involved in the part of the paper containing the errors or that they had very little to do with the paper in general. However, an author who is willing to take credit for a paper must also bear responsibility for its errors or explain why he or she had no professional responsibility for the material in question."
(pg. 37) National Research Council. On Being a Scientist: A Guide to Responsible Conduct in Research: Third Edition. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press, 2009.
John Hardwig (1985) articulated one philosophical dilemma posed by such large teams of researchers. Each member or subgroup participating in such a project is required because each has a crucial bit of expertise not possessed by any other member or subgroup. This may be knowledge of a part of the instrumentation, the ability to perform a certain kind of calculation, the ability to make a certain kind of measurement or observation. The other members are not in a position to evaluate the results of other members' work, and hence, all must take one anothers' results on trust. The consequence is an experimental result, (for example, the measurement of a property such as the decay rate or spin of a given particle) the evidence for which is not fully understood by any single participant in the experiment."
Agree on the order of authorship beforehand, if at all possible. Sometimes authors get pulled into a publication later in the process, but even then some agreement on the order of authorship ought to be arrived at before sending off a manuscript for review.
Contribution. Authorship is generally limited to individuals who make significant contributions to the work that is reported. This includes anyone who:
Steneck, Nicholas H. 2007. ORI Introduction to the Responsible Conduct of Research [4]. [Rockville, Md.]: Dept. of Health and Human Services.
When credit as a co-author is not appropriate for a given publication, extended collaborators and external advisors will often be given credit in an acknowledgment section, usually at the beginning of a paper and at the end of a book. Robert Day provides a helpful description here which provides some excellent rules of thumb for how to approach an acknowledgments section in a publication. These rules of thumb are proper to consider for a variety of contexts which require extending the social courtesy of acknowledging the contribution of another's input.
First, you should acknowledge any significant technical help that you received from any individual, whether in your laboratory or elsewhere. You should also acknowledge the source of special equipment, cultures, or other materials. You might, for example, say something like "Thanks are due to J. Jones for assistance with the experiments and to R. Smith for valuable discussion."
Second, it is usually in the Acknowledgments wherein you should acknowledge any outside financial assistance, such as grants, contracts, or fellowships.
A word of caution is in order. Often, it is wise to show the proposed wording of the Acknowledgment to the person whose help you are acknowledging. He or she might well believe that your acknowledgment is insufficient or (worse) that it is too effusive. If you have been working so closely with an individual that you borrowed either equipment or ideas, that person is most likely to be a friend or a valued colleague. It would be silly to risk either your friendship or the opportunities for future collaboration by placing in public print a thoughtless word that might be offensive. An inappropriate thank you can be worse than none at all, and if you value the advice and help of friends and colleagues, you should be careful to thank them in a way that pleases rather than displeases.
Furthermore, if your acknowledgment relates to an idea, suggestion, or interpretation, be very specific about it. If your colleague’s input is too broadly stated, he or she could well be placed in the sensitive and embarrassing position of having to defend the entire paper. Certainly, if your colleague is not a coauthor, you make them a responsible party to the basic considerations treated in your paper. Indeed, your colleague may not agree with some of your central points, and it is not good science and not good ethics for you to phrase the Acknowledgments in a way that seemingly denotes endorsement." Day, Robert. “How to Write and Publish a Scientific Paper: 5th Edition” Oryx Press, 1998.
Remember, there is nothing really scientific about the Acknowledgments section, it is simply about courtesy.
The motivation for credit and acknowledgment is a significant driver behind the push to publish or patent from research. With rapid communications that support the dissemination of research, new findings can propagate quickly. Digital communications combined with increasingly competitive environments create further pressure to disseminate findings quickly. In circumstances of urgency, such as with an infectious disease, timing is critical, but so is accuracy in data and interpretation. In most cases, research and development occurs within a predictable cycle, perhaps dictated in the terms of the grant or business cycle. Research findings ought to be submitted in a timely manner and, for federally funded research, made available along with the data. Different funders have different expectations for what to do with findings. For companies, much is often not shared due to what they may argue is protection of trade secrets, which makes it more difficult to review certain claims.
Submitting research findings for peer review is one way journals and researchers check the work of their colleagues. While the peer review process is a quality check of the work, it is not a foolproof process, and errors can get through. For multidisciplinary teams, the lead author may not be able to evaluate the validity of certain sections of a paper, in which case the lead author ought to find a colleague capable of giving feedback on such content.
"Investigators are expected to promptly prepare and submit for publication, with authorship that accurately reflects the contributions of those involved, all significant findings from work conducted under NSF grants. Grantees are expected to permit and encourage such publication by those actually performing that work, unless a grantee intends to publish or disseminate such findings itself.... Investigators are expected to share with other researchers, at no more than incremental cost and within a reasonable time, the primary data, samples, physical collections and other supporting materials created or gathered in the course of work under NSF grants. Grantees are expected to encourage and facilitate such sharing. Privileged or confidential information should be released only in a form that protects the privacy of individuals and subjects involved. General adjustments and, where essential, exceptions to this sharing expectation may be specified by the funding NSF Program or Division/Office for a particular field or discipline to safeguard the rights of individuals and subjects, the validity of results, or the integrity of collections or to accommodate the legitimate interest of investigators."
National Science Foundation Award and Administration Guide [5]
Links
[1] https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Webcomic_xkcd_-_Wikipedian_protester.png
[2] https://commons.wikimedia.org
[3] http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2013/entries/scientific-knowledge-social/
[4] http://purl.access.gpo.gov/GPO/LPS105130
[5] http://www.nsf.gov/pubs/policydocs/pappguide/nsf13001/aag_6.jsp#VID4