Biostatistics Analysis Center Policy on Authorship
All BAC staff members who contribute substantially to a manuscript are expected to qualify for authorship with the following guidelines in mind. These guidelines are from the Biomedical Graduate Studies Authorship Policy, which in turn draws from the International Council of Medical Journal Editors Requirements (Annals of Internal Medicine 1977;126:36-47).
- Each author should have participated sufficiently in the work to take public responsibility for the content.
- Authorship credit should be based only on substantial contributions to each of the following areas:
- conception and design, or analysis and interpretation of data,
- drafting the article or revising it critically for important intellectual content,
- final approval of the version to be published.
- Conditions a, b, and c in item 2 must all be met by one or more of the named authors.
- Participation solely in the acquisition of funding or the collection of data does not justify authorship.
- General supervision of the research group is not sufficient for authorship.
- Appropriate credit for the contributions of other individuals to the work described in the publication should be made as an acknowledgment.
- Any part of an article critical to its main conclusions must be the responsibility of at least one author. If the author is a student, then the faculty mentor shares the responsibility.
Under these guidelines, authorship for a BAC staff person should always be considered, and is often warranted in at least one of three ways: 1) the amount of time spent on contributing to the manuscript; 2) the nature of the contribution; and 3) reviewing the manuscript for submission.
Decisions on authorship are not dictated solely by the fact that some time was spent on a project. Rather, the quantity of time and nature of the contribution are relevant. For instance, it would not be reasonable to expect authorship for a one-hour session in which a BAC biostatistician suggests a simple analysis that the investigator performs on his/her own. However, if a BAC staff biostatistician member spends a considerable amount of time conducting analyses that contribute to the manuscript, co-authorship is warranted. There are cases in which an important intellectual contribution arises from even a brief consultation with a BAC staff member. In these cases, the nature of the consultation, not necessarily the amount of time contributed, should qualify a BAC staff member for co-authorship.
Authorship is often indicated because of the imperative that the BAC staff member review manuscripts prior to submission. This careful review includes checking tables and other numbers in the text for errors as well as assessing the methods and results sections for accuracy and appropriateness. Given the level and criticality of review of the manuscript, it is appropriate to consider the BAC staff member for co-authorship.
