Here are the responses that I have received so far (names and identifiers
hopefully removed):
>Our philosophy (although not always adheared to by the other side) has been
>when we make an intellectual contribution we should be authors. We could
>never get a university to codify this, however. If you do manage to get
>guidelines broadcast your success. We have never traded services (without
>fees) for coauthorship on collaborative projects. It is possible to provide
>an intellecutal contribution and a service. I should point out that we not
>always received the acknowledgement.
If members of the facility had extensive involvement in a project then the
expecation was that they would be co-authors in resulting publication(s) in
which the data were discussed, otherwise the authors of the publication
would acknowledge the facility and would mention the numbers of the NIH
grants that supported it. Obviously, what constitutes extensive
involvement in a project is somewhat subjective, but typically this would
involve more than the acquisition and rudimentary interpretation of the
data. For example, obtaining a couple of molecular weight measurements for
a protein (in the early days of MALDI, before everyone and his brother was
able to afford an instrument) would not necessarily be considered enough of
a contribution to merit co-authorship in a biology paper in which the mass
measurement was a secondary point. On the other hand, receiving a protein,
cleaning it up by HPLC, measuring its mass, and then digesting it and
matching the data with the expected peptides noting any abnoramilities
would certainly have constituted significant involvement.
Often, the understanding we had with facility users (and we tried to be
very upfront and clear about this from the beginning in order to avoid
later misunderstandings) was that we would use data generated from their
samples, along with data from other inverstigators' samples and data from
commercial compounds, all with proper acknowledgements, of course) in mass
spectrometric publications (e.g. when we were working on determining the
fragmentation patterns of peptides for which we needed to generate a lot of
data) and the facility users would use the data in biological papeprs. In
such instances we might use samples to generate more data than the
investigator might have deemed sufficient for his/her particular requirements.
I hope this helps.
>
>Dear Deb: Our policy here has essentially been one of leaving this
>decision to the discretion of the investigators. However, our university
>policy is that if significant intellectual input has been offered and
>utilized in the development of the experiment and manuscript, it normally
>warrants authorship. Obviously, "significant intellectual input" is open
>to interpretation. In the context of a core facility I believe that the
>design, execution and interpretation of non-standard, complex experiments
>by a core staff member should warrant authorship. As you can see, this
>approach clearly downplays the importance of technical expertise, but so
>it goes in this business. Typically, investigators are quite pleased to
>acknowledge the facility and individual staff members. Occasionally they
>actually offer authorship, but it is less common, particularly with the
>more common technologies we offer (ms/ms is still sexy enough that we are
>getting a few authorships from these efforts).
>
>Deb:
>
>1. For routine services that can be easily purchased from outside, we ask
>for no acknowledgement. This includes DNA synthesis, HPLC analyses and
>purification, protein purification, AA, and routine MS. We are paid employees.
>
>2. For the use of facility equipment by the PI's and post-docs, for the
>training of such outside operators, we insist on acknowledgments of the
>equipment donors and of the facility. The NIH CORE grants
>are required
>acknowledgments on all papers that uses any shared facilities, which
>encompasses almost all papers.
>
>3. For services that contribute in a major way to research programs, either
>in terms of weeks of services or intellectual input, we are granted
>co-authorships on papers. Examples include synthesis of kilobase genes,
>fermentation optimization for protein production, optimization of difficult
>protein purification, exploration of new applications with novel
>chemistries, and solving of research puzzles by mass-spectrometry.
>
>4. For long term interactive participation or as a driving force behind the
>feasibility of a grant project, we ask for 10% to 20% salary coverage of
>the key operators on the PI's grants, as co-investigators or essential
>helpers, in addition to co-authorships. Examples are phosphorylation
>pattern analysis of a regulation system, to provide long term metabolite
>analysis by HPLC in a project, and elucidation of an enzyme mechanism using
>chemistry and MS. Such arrangements simplify long range planning. This
>category covers facility personnel only, and does not include my own
>participation as co-PI on RO1's of other laboratories on non-facility
>related projects.
>
>On a related point, we devote discretionary time to exploratory projects
>that generate co-authorships and coinvestigatorships, but co-authorships do
>not substitute for the service fees.
My guide:
If we provide routine services at a cost, it is normal to be cited in the
Materials and Methods section for the purposes of reproducing an experiment.
We usually work with the investigator on the wording to get the machines
right.
"Oligonucleotides were synthesized by the Biopolymer Facility of..."
If we provide routine services free (rare) or heroic extra service (but
routine procedures) against tight deadlines or such, it is an appropriate
courtesy to mention the heroic technician or staff member in acknowledgments.
"We would like to thank Ms. Jane Jones for her special efforts to
meet..."
Only in the cases where we develop original procedures or protocols of
significant importance to the experiments (and without our input the
experiment would be _CONCEPTUALLY_ impossible) is co-authorship expected.
"A New Method of Selenium Incorporation in Peptides..."
At least, that's the way we do it.