yes of course because the supervisor guide the researcher and he do a best for that

I do not know about any guidelines in this case but good supervisors definitely guides a student, particularly at the initial and final stage of the work and also helps the student in many other ways. Usually there exists a very good relationship between them and the supervisor also helps the student to get established in future.

I do not know what happens in social science but the supervisor's name as a co-author is quite justifiable to me.

In many cases, if not most, supervisors have a good quantity of contribution in the research of a student.

Leaving all other reasons, due to this reason only, supervisors may be a co-author.

In many universities, supervisors co-publish with students especially at PhD level: proponents claim that supervisors have by their very function made a substantial contribution to what document is the jointly published (and some even ascribe them a moral duty to help propagate the good work, hence the university's good name); opponents (presumably without having asked the students) argue that supervisors should not make PhD students part of their personal production process; either way, clear guidelines on such co-publication would probably help.

I personally think that the supervisors should be allowed to be a co-author of the research paper, as the work has been carried out under the able guidance and supervision of the guide. Besides, the research topic or idea may be a part of some ongoing projects of the supervisor. Nevertheless, the help and instruction of the guide (supervisor) is of immense importance for new researchers. All the above points should be considered. Thanks and regards.

If the supervisor does his/her work as expected (in the true sense of the word) and when s/he makes immense contributions to the work in question, then there is no argument about co-authorship.

But when one 'supervises' just in name, and virtually contributes nothing to a given work, it becomes unethical and possibly criminal (for the lack of a better word) to insist or even suggest a co-authorship.

We must bear in mind that the publication is an intellectual property and there are standards or guidance for authorship. All researchers will do ourselves a honor and ensure integrity in academia, research, and the intellectual community if we will follow the ethical guidelines; no gift authorship, no ghost authorship, and no guest authorship.

Whose idea the student translate into research.. Its supervisor, so he deserve a name in the article

My answer would be “yes”. The supervisor is always sought by the students even after they complete their studies and in most of the cases they are at consultations. In most cases, the supervisor helps the student while he/she is developing a paper. Co-authorship sometimes even helps the student in getting the paper published. About the norms, I do not think there are any common norms as the Universities are autonomous organizations.

It all depends on depth of investment or engagement by the supervisor, but it shouldn't be automatic just due to a formal title. I know of some institutions where to become co-author, someone should contribute substantially to at least 2 or 3 of the 4 steps in research: Research design, data collection, analysis, and write up. There are some journals that even require you to specify which co-authors participated in which steps. All, that being said, I know of other institutions where "supervisors" make virtually no meaningful contributions but still expect co-authorship.

Personally, as a supervisor, I try to be very explicit about my own expectations at the beginning of a collaboration. However, I also try to clearly outline what the student should expect from me in return.

Thank you all for the answers. I particularly agree with the comments by Thomas Prehi Botchway and Todd Andrew Crane . The problem is, regardless of the quality of supervision, there are quite some cases where supervisors simply expect co-authorship while students feel pressure to have them included. This, as you say, could be solved by both having clear guidelines at universities on these matters (there are many institutions where there are not such guidelines) and by journals asking to specify authors their contribution (see, for instance, PLOS journals). This is important as supervision translating into co-authorship has become a common, and often unregulated, practice. In some extreme cases, the whole committee expects (and gets) co-authorship of papers, which to me is a clear violation of authorship standards.

I will not chande whatever authorship policy you follow just because someone is supervising a thesis. That can mean a lot (often) or not much (hopefully not to often). Below some direccions from my mentor Colden Baxter thar i follow and work well:

I. To earn co-authorship on an empirical, data-paper, an individual should have made substantial contributions to two or more of the following 4 steps in the entire process: 1) idea generation, obtaining funds and designing study 2) field and/or laboratory sampling and data collection, 3) analysis and interpretation of results, and 4) writing of the manuscript itself.

II. To earn co-authorship on a paper such as a review, synthesis, or conceptual paper an individual should have made substantial contributions to two or more of the following 3 steps in the entire process: 1) idea generation, 2) review and synthesis of relevant literature and/or meta-analysis, and 3) writing of the manuscript itself.

III. In either type of paper, a lead author must be identified in advance of the writing stage, and the lead is only changed under special circumstances (e.g., loss of life, individual surrenders the lead, or, in particular cases in which such an agreement exists, owing to lack of progress). Overall, authors are listed in order of their relative contribution to the entire effort, typically as proposed by the lead author and vetted with the rest. If several coauthors are indistinguishable in their relative contributions, these are listed alphabetically.

IV. An important corollary to I and II is that anyone who contributes substantially to step 1 should be given the opportunity to become engaged in each of the following steps so that they may earn co-authorship.

Dear Antonio J. Castro , that as a great answer and very clear (and useful) guideline! I will surely consider it in my own work as supervisor. Do you know by any chance if some journals abide by such rules?

Hi Antonio Castellanos-Navarrete not sure about journals, but definitely about many scientists I collaborate with. Pretty fair and solid way to see who is in and who is not .. :) abrazo!

Dear Antonio,

as some of our colleagues already mentioned - and I agree with them - it depends on the range of assistance and help which is provided by the supervisor to the student. Some students are really smart and are able to write their thesis almost completely on their own, but while supervising others, sometimes we feel like the thesis will be more our work then theirs. On the second thing, the consent of the supervisor and the student - students don´t have many information on publishing possibilities (in Slovakia especially), so if the work is really good and innovative, the supervisor can be a guide for the student and helps him or her to publish the results in e.g. some international journal. I mean not only "giving advices" help, but real help with the text, formal and technical requirements, etc. Then it´s obvious for me that supervisor is a co-author of the article or work. Of course, it shouldn´t work in a way that he or she is a co-author without any contribution, only because of his or her supervisor position. But I´ve never heard about guidelines or something like this.

Best regards,

Barbara

Thanks Barbara for your comments! It seems to me that guidelines or some sort of standard would be important.

l tutor es coatutor en una publicación asi se presentan trabajos en congresos y en las revistas arbitradas.ersis

Dear Sabine, unfortunately, the COPE guidelines remain as ambiguous as many other guidelines. I am looking now for specific guidelines (some of which might be field-specific) as I consider this would help in preventing problems. And I am learning a lot on authorship on the process. It is interesting I was never trained in such issues, nor during my Masters or doctorate. I was just lucky, I had an extremely ethical and committed supervisor.

Antonio Castellanos-Navarrete As others said you are not the only one facing this concern. I think many PhD students (including myself), but also later in the academic career, we ask ourselves about the authorship. Now, I follow the Code of Conduct and Policy for authorship of different institutions that I like very much. I am here providing these resources in case they are helpful in your situation:

https://www.kuleuven.be/english/research/integrity/practices/authorship#section-1

https://www.councilscienceeditors.org/resource-library/editorial-policies/white-paper-on-publication-ethics/2-2-authorship-and-authorship-responsibilities/

And more resources can be found here: https://www.research-integrity.admin.cam.ac.uk/research-integrity/guidelines/guidelines-authorship

Hope this helps!

This is an important question that should be raised in all professional societies and their journals. I find Castro's response extremely helpful. It would be great if it could be codified.

As a PhD student one can either promote their supervisor's work or create their own independent body of work. The first one will get you co-authorship on recognized academic papers and consequent citations thanks to your supervisor's reputation. The second requires more work, maybe result in something substantial that will take long time to be recognized. Most students go for the first option, eager to secure an academic position and less concerned about original contribution. That way the Academia fills up with recycled ideas and re-confirmed theories. Conferences and journals also function based on familiarity, rarely taking in 'outsiders'. It's the most basic human nature that's reaffirmed even in an environment that is supposed to be progressive.

yes of course because the supervisor guide the researcher and he do a best for that

Thank you all for the answers. This is what I learnt:

To be a co-author in a scientific paper, you need to contribute substantially to the study conception and design AND/OR data collection AND/OR the analysis of data and interpretation PLUS participate in the drafting of the manuscript PLUS approve the final version (Elsevier, PLOS one, Taylor & Francis, KU Leuven Policy, University of Cambridge). The Council of Editors points, in their webpage, to the existence of some difficulties regarding these standards when differences between fields are taking into account.

To become a co-author is not sufficient to secure research funding, supervise researchers, collect data (PLOS One) and provide work space, equipment or materials (Council of Science Editors, KU Leuven Policy).

In other words, and for most guidelines, supervision should not grant co-authorship.

I did not ask this question as a student, but as a researcher supervising MSc and PhD students, and concerned about predatory practices. I did, however, learn a lot through this discussion, including the fact that this is not sufficiently discussed in academia (at least in my experience).

Here, the authorship policy sources used for this summary (some of these contain additional materials):

Council of Science Editors: https://goo.gl/KjE7gy

Elsevier policy: https://goo.gl/HAqYwQ

KU Leuven Policy: https://goo.gl/egk6QU

PLOS One policy: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/authorship

Taylor & Francis: https://goo.gl/WFpPu8

University of Cambridge: https://goo.gl/HDnTBR

I am particularly grateful to Todd Andrew Crane, Antonio J. Castro and Berta Martín-López for their comments.

Thanks for sharing this useful synthesis of information regarding this important question. I'm glad you raised the issue of differences in co-authorship norms between disciplines. It can be an especially tricky thing to navigate in interdisciplinary collaborations. Again, I find it useful to be very transparent about the principles through which co-authorship will be addressed at the beginning of any collaboration.

this is a very interesting debate and i agree that without active intellectual contribution an automatic authorship is unfair! however i am now in a position where i help conceptualize, review, write, edit and analyze student theses at both masters and phd level and feel that joint authorship is fair and helps both the mentee and mentor. Based in Africa, my experience is that a lot of researchers come into the field to 'own' the data- i have learnt to become wary of highly monopolistic and colonizing type of mindset - that the research belongs only to the handful who directly interact with the data. so i now involve varied stakeholders and parties whose thinking impacts research and what research aims to achieve- a change in praxis. i know this is a bit removed from the purview of the question being flagged off!

research should neither become a solipsistic nor an exploitative process - it should be reasonably open to accommodate wide views, perspectives and in that spirit - collaborators too!

Dear Manasi, I found your answers to be extremely interesting (as well as challenging!). It calls for flexibility and the critique of 'data ownership' is definitively in order. So, we have on one hand some need on standards given predatory practices within academia, and on the other the need to go beyond standards with their implicit assumptions of how research should take place (driven by western perspectives on how science should be carried out). How to proceed?

To be honest, I cannot imagine a main supervisor excluded from co-authorship in a paper which is related with the PhD or Master. Simply because I think is impossible that a supervisor would not participate in developing the research ideas, editing the manuscript, helping to get the funding to develop the research, etc. If a supervisor does not participate in these aspects of the research, than he/she should not be a supervisor at all.

It's hard to imagine any supervision that does not involved subtantial contribution to ideas, insights, and methodological strength to the student's own efforts. What then would make such a student want to dismiss such supervisor contribution as undeserving of a place as a collaborator at the point of co-authorship?

Co -authorships should depend on the symbiosis relationship. Some time small contribution makes a great difference in quality of the paper which can be appreciated only after few years of experience.

I think its fair to be included, especially because often the success lies in a smart supervision. However, in Romania there is still common that supervisors are not actually supervisors (in the good academic sense of the word) but rather passengers. Students fight to find their own ways in science, and then they add the supervisor to coauthors because they feel intimidated or simply they think that this is 'right'.

Yes of course, the supervisor should be co-author in the publication of M.Sc and PhD students. Whatever work the students do or publish is the idea of the supervisor, in short students are the brain child of their supervisors.

What a fascinating and valuable discussion! It has never occurred to me to expect being listed as a co-author with my MA and PhD students. The work is theirs! I have contributed time, attention, feedback, recommended readings, etc. But the student has done the actual work. As an Indigenous Studies scholar and cultural anthropologist, I haven't provided funding for graduate students directly but have worked hard to find what I can in bursaries and scholarships. I agree with Manasi Kumar that "ownership" of knowledge and work in academia can be a highly western concept. I urge my students, many of whom are Indigenous, to recognize and acknowledge the role of the community etc. in their "solo" publications. And they do so! But my role? I am the teacher, facilitator, encourager, hard-talker, and general subject expert. The student is the expert of their own work.

There are no clear guidelines. I think it really depends on the situation. I am of the opinion that we should be generous with co-authorship and include anyone who made significant contributions to the project. No research is really the work of a single person-- we all stand on the shoulders of others.

If funding for a student's research comes from an advisor's project, I think they should definitely be included as a co-author. The research could not be carried out without the advisor's contribution and their ability to fund further students depends on their publication rates.

Most of my research involves multidisciplinary teams and we are quite generous in including persons as authors. Our rule of thumb is that person who writes the first draft is the first author and if a person only contributed to the funding they are the last author.

However, if a student designed their research themselves, self-funded the research and did not involve me in the editing and revising of an article, I would not want to be listed as a co-author.

I think that Jere's reply is very timely, it calls us to the good practices of research, logic and professional courtesy.

This further enriches the work and opens the way for the authors.

It is important to know how to be generous and know how to thank in a timely manner.

NO. In good (spanish or international) economic departments, a researcher become co-author of a paper IF and ONLY IF is the author of the idea implemented in the paper by the student. Otherwise, the supervisor is, as her/his name indicate, only a supervisor. Moreover, market paper must be papers not coauthorated.

Jose raises a good point there are differences in authorship across nations and disciplines. In general the biological and physical sciences have more authors per article than the social sciences. However, I think multiple authorship is the wave of the future and single authorship is a holdover from another time.

However Jose may not be accurately characterizing international economics journals as the average article has more than 2.5 authors. This suggests that 3 author papers are very common in economics. FYI: I looked at average number of authors in 2014 for the 30 top journals in the web of science (as measured by impact factor). This is what I found.

Economics 2.59 authors per article

Psychology 4.29 authors per article

Sociology 1.95 authors per article

Education 3.05 authors per article

History 1.58 authors per article

Plant Science 5.80 authors per article

Chem. Engineering 4.44 authors per article

Oncology 9. 80 authors per article

Dear Gere, you are right ! In my opinion, the number of authors per paper is related with the existence (or not) of "labs". However, I think that the number of authors per paper is no related with our question ("Does thesis supervision qualifies a researcher to become co-author of a paper?")

Dear all,

the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) published some guidelines a couple of years ago regarding what contributions should qualify someone as an author. These guidelines are in my opinion very good and can be found here (scroll down for English version):

http://www.dfg.de/download/pdf/dfg_im_profil/reden_stellungnahmen/download/empfehlung_wiss_praxis_1310.pdf

Now, whether these guidelines are actually respected and practiced is something else. Hope this helps.

NO, the contribution to the manuscript only qualifies a researcher to become co-author.

Dear Antonio, the question you raise is an interesting one, and difficult to answer. For one reason, there are many different situations under the common concept of thsesis supervision. People who limit their task to advice and manuscript corrections, others who assume part of laboratory tasks (this is common in experimental sciences, e.g., on biodiversity, in which supervisors take part in planings and designs, field and lab works, etc..). In this later case,

Dear Antonio

Before going to write whether a supervisor should be a co-author or not, first you must be clear about the need and role of a supervisor....for what he has been given this honor or mentor ship....Look, a supervisor is the one who plan your research, who thoroughly look into your overall research, who provides you the space to work, who gives you advice what to do and what not,,,,,,a supervisor is the one who knows much better than any other about a research conducted under his/her supervision.....if you got my point, then there is no doubt that a supervisor is the only person who can be your co-author rather than anyone else....

Yes off-course supervisor / mentor qualify as co-author of any publication , which carried out under his or supervision.

Thank You

The authorship is depending upon the supervisor, so before submitting an article the student must concern to his supervisor.

I like the way you have put it guillermo!

In too many cases the person or persons whom contributed substantially to the hypotheses and/or experimental, treatment, and/or data collections designs are not given the opportunity to become engaged in the data analyses and/or writing.

Claro como siempre Guillermo. Saludos y buen 2019!!

The substantial contribution ( mostly guidance and mentorship) should quality a supervisor as author. Protocol dictates that thesis/ dissertation first author should be the student.

Being a supervisor should not automatically result in authorship. This is an important topic that supervisors and students should discuss early (and often) to ensure that expectations are managed and that responsibilities are clear. For example, if as a supervisor I make a substantial contribution to the article (in developing the research, guiding the analysis, etc.) then it would be appropriate. But if I am acting more as an internal reviewer and adviser I would personally consider it rude and inappropriate to list myself as an author.

Only when a supervisor is really really bad he/she should not be co-author. But in this case he /she should not be a supervisor at all, right? Best.

Some journals provide guidance on this in their instructions for authors, but in general I think it is up to the student and the supervisor or adviser to come to an agreement that works for everyone, and this should be discussed before a student ever accepts a position.

I think that supervision conducts to become a person with a special reference in publication. However, if the work was carried out by the student, then the author must be he or she.

A glance at ICMJE guidelines (www.icmje.org) gives a clear view into how to handle conflict resulting from authorship. Each contributing author should be be accounted for including alternatively being acknowledged for those with minimal contribution. Decisions in this respect should be led by the supervisor as part of mentorship not harassment or under coercion, duress etc

I think looking at professional society guidelines or codes of ethics is good as there are differences between disciplines. However, I want to remind people that the question discussed here is whether or not the supervisor should be included in an article-- the student would definitely be an author--probably the first author in this case.

In agreement...the student should be the lead author..this is a non negotiable

The only exception I would make to the student as always being first author is when the student can't get around to writing a draft of the article. If more than two years has past since the completion of a thesis and the student is unable to write a draft, I think whoever (the advisor) writes the first draft should be the first author or communicating author. The publish-ability of a lot of research declines after 3 years. In this case it is in the student's interest to get a publication whether they are the first author or not.

Agreed.....It is a situation of the student lacking the capacity/ competence ...but through such mentorship they should eventually pick up for future publications.

In my opinion, if the supervisor has contributed significantly to the paper (proposing a methodology, providing the data, reviewing every step of the paper and participating in the writing of the paper), the supervisor has to appear as a co-author.

Another interesting point is the order of authors. The student in this case is in the beginning of his research career and being the first author of a paper can help him/her in his/her career in order to get a post-doct/TA or RA position in the future. But without losing the point of view of Jere L. Gilles says, the student has to show its habilities and be able to write a draft, otherwise, it is completely understood that the first author is the one who contributed the most (the supervisor, in this case).

well said!

I teach, supervise, give guidelines, even write at times sections to student's papers, but I do not put my name into their articles IF I have not contributed substantially to the text and IF we have not jointly agreed to prepare a coauthored paper already during the first steps of the writing process. I have seen too much misconduct were professors simply expect their name to appear in the list of authors if they have been involved in the grant application, giving minor advice etc (a model seemingly used in many natural science fields and medicine, I suppose....). I think that this misuse is also related to the over-competitive nature of the contemporary academia..

An outrageous and pointless question. Anssi Paasi's position is completely correct. To sign the text and do not contribute substantially/significantly is a classical intellectual/academic fraud. Nota bene: Forget Foucault, let's get back to Baudrillard. This "return" would replace the position of power with the politics of the "spectacle". What is worse: a supervisor who takes student work; or an disinterested supervisor; or a professor who fulfills the supervision quota to provide academic/tenure status? In all cases, academic power has been replaced with the promotion of a scientific spectacle. Is there science at all? What is Western science in toto?

This is a recurring situation in many areas of science, not only in the social sciences. I know cases of master's and doctoral students who do the whole article and that the supervisor only reads the developed text and is often the first author of the work without even having contributed substantially to the study. It is a bad habit possibly used by the requirement of scientific production. Most of the time students do not even know the guidelines for being a co-author or author. And at other times, the journals put the teachers as authors without communicating to the students (who should be the authors), saying that the one with the highest degree is the author of the work. It is certainly necessary to be clearer on this subject so that one does not make mistakes like this simply to sign as author or co-author without even contributing to the research. It's a matter of research ethics.

There should be no question as to whether supervisor could be a co-author of an article based on a dissertation. Nothing could justify that. The roles have been clearly identified beforehand; a supervisor is expected to guide the whole process and the student is expected to complete a dissertation. If the supervisor is mentioned in the text as co-author, then this means either he/she made substantial contribution or it is done out of courtesy or fear. Either is a sign of ethical violation; in the first case, the student breaches the academic code because a dissertation has to be a product of his/her own; in the second, the supervisor is the violator because, without substantial contribution, your name cannot appear as co-author in an article.

I think that it depends on the discipline. In many of the sciences the supervisor writes the grant that funds the research and pays the stipend of the student while they do the research and that grant defines the research problem as well--it would foolish/unethical to not recognize the supervisor's intellectual contribution. In other disciplines, the student does all of these things and the supervisor oversees the editing and little else. In this latter case, of course the student should be the sole author but in the former the supervisor should be. Where it is difficult to say, is when the situation is between this extreme. Also there are disciplinary differences. According to the Web of Science in Sociology the average number of authors per article is less than 2 (1.95) and single authored papers are highly valued. At the other extreme are the medical sciences where in Oncology the average number of authors per article is nearly 10 (9.8). In general single authored papers are more common in the social sciences (except psychology) and in the humanities and rare in the natural and biological sciences. Within the social sciences there are regional differences as single authored papers are more highly valued in Europe than in say the U.S.

Although it’s now some time since I supervised PhD students, I can onlyremembering co-authoring papers with 2 of them (oir of around 50 - so a rare event). But unless there has been sognificant collaborative research, then supervisors should NOT be claiming co-authorship on the basis of simply supervising a student - this should be seen as unacceptable. Not least for a PhD a candidate needs to certify that the thesis is their own original work.

One further thought: some institutions have changed their regulations to allow a PhD to be awarded on the basis of a compilation of published papers, some of which may have been co-authored (though not necessarily with the supervisor(s)). This may raise other ethical issues and also can cause difficulties for those examining such theses in deciding whether they represent the original research of the candidate.

Well this is clearly a Hot Issue...... I have been on all sides of this issue such as being First Author on a book and doing over 75% of the work only to have the Editor who invited me to be the author of the book then AFTER it was sent to publisher change it to alphabetical ordering for his own Tenure Issues..... I have strong feelings about Authorship perhaps due to that and other situations.... First as some have pointed out the authorship should be decided before the paper is written and not changed unless as someone mentioned Death or other life altering positions.... I have supervised many a student and don't put my name on their papers.... unless it was a collaborative piece which I initiated and then asked the students to join me in that particular publication. I don't think as a supervisor, one should be an author on the paper.... unless as mentioned above it is the Supervisor's Grant and they invited the students to join them.... Very Misused practices unfortunately continue in this area.... So Bravo for asking this question!

Of course, merely supervising a thesis is not sufficient to merit co-authorship but in my experience supervisors do a lot more. In my case almost everything I have published has been with a former student (though less than 20% of the cases were based on thesis/dissertation data. I agree with Patricia, criteria for authorship should be decided before an an article is written. Our professional society actually has guidelines for authorship as part of our ethical standards.

Teaching students how to write is part of the supervision duties as far as I am concerned and co-authoring publications with my students is therefore a big part of my supervisory style and practice, with the student usually being the first author unless they didn't really contribute much. But I would also like to note that supervisor requirements/levels of involvement vary significantly across countries (and disciplines). Often supervisors are just "examiners" and come in after the fact. Another thing to consider is that in many models, the publication is the ONLY incentive the supervisor gets to keep supervising. They invest 3-6 years of their time, ideas and emotions into a PhD student. It is not part of their workload model. They might get a small institutional nod for a PhD completion but the only reward is the publications that come out. I also had situations where I had conceptualized a study, paid for the data collection, involved students in the data analysis and then suddenly heard from the students that it was "their" data. So, often it is the students who are naive to think that everything was "their" intellectual contribution. And I had a PhD student for which I conceptualized whole chapters of their dissertation. They asked me not to be a co-author for institutional reasons (they get more credits the less authors are on a paper in certain countries) - I said ok under one condition: I would like my contribution to be mentioned in the acknowledgements. The paper was published in the Annals of Tourism and the acknowledgement deal was conveniently forgotten.

Well stated.

I was surprised to read Ulrike’s answer - much of what she descibes looks to me to be her research, for which she involved research assistants funded by grants that she’s obtained to carry out part of the research. That’s fine and I was involved in many projects that employed research assistants on that basis and this led to jointly authored publications. What I find difficult to understand is how being involved on this basis allowed a student to gain a PhD on the basis of their original research. As a matter of fact, the colleagues that were involved in this way on my projects already had their PhD.

Quite another angle introduced: how original will the research be for a PhD? Who conceived the research idea in the above scenario? Supervisors should clearly draw the line between mentoring and 'spoon feeding'! . Otherwise creating an enabling environment for students to clearly come up with their research topics should be encouraged.

This is very discipline specific. In much of the biological and physical sciences the initial PhD research problem is almost always conceived by the professor or the head of a lab-- the student is usually asked to choose between 2-3 problems that are already defined. In these disciplines the students are expected to learn to conceive problems during their post doctoral fellowship. In other disciplines like many of the social sciences and humanities learning to conceive a problem is a normal part of the dissertation process.

Yes I agree that there are discipline specific cultures and that the accepted approach differs in lab based biological and physical sciences. However, I think that accepting such an approach in the humanities and social sciences, in effect normalizing the approach of lab based disciplines, should be resisted and the distinctive approach of the humanities and social sciences should be preserved. Not least it leads to qualitatively different PhDs that require a deeper engagement of the student in the culture and literature of their discipline.

I strongly agree with Ray Hudson. It is important to avoid and resist a situation where all fields are put gradually into the same format. Current evaluation cultures in many countries may lead to this direction. Another important thing is to encourage students towards independence in their PhD work, especially is they have plans/intentions to become academic scholars.

I totally agree but the way this question was phrased initially suggests that the person wanted a universal answer.

Yes, if the article is derived from the thesis.

yes, because of supervisor has great contribution on the quality of thesis. of course it depend on the agreement between student and supervisor

Yes, if they produce one or more articles from the students thesis.

Supervisors participate in the writing of articles with students and that qualifies them to be a co-author.

En el medio académico donde me desenvuelvo, el tutor que tiene experiencia en la escritura de artículos académicos de acuerdo a la potencialidad del articulo puede con la participación del tesista, enviarlo a arbitrar en una revista especializada. por ejemplo tesis que son calificadas con mención publicación

Supervisor frequently are co-author in papers of their students

Yes, I agree with Castro and many others, that supervisors can become co-authors. However, supervisors should have contributed substantially to the work. Even turning the thesis (monograph) into a publish manuscript involves lot of work and the and the supervisors might have invested a lot intellectually. In all these, what strikes me most is where supervisors become lead authors, even in journals which do arrange authors' name alphabetically.

That’s a good point!

Good question and interesting answers. My concern is the extent of engagement/commitment needed to publish a paper in the context of a publication-based PhD. Accessing well cited journals with all the editing and revision processes can be too time consuming and more exhausting than writing the paper itself. Would a thesis supervisor facilitate this process in any way as part of the journey that is concluded with the writing of the thesis? and would that justify co-authorship of the paper? Food for thought

It is a common practice. This is something complcated because somtimes supervisor abbandon the PhD candidate.

There are no standard guidelines that research supervisor becomes co author of research article but they are followed. This clearly indicates that the student has worked under the research supervisor. The other aspect is the research supervisor for a long duration worked with student giving information, recommending for experimental facilities, guiding for theoretical modelling, certain programs and give the student a proper direction.

Hi Antonio, I agree with your anslysis and conclusion and you raise an important point regarding the existence - or not - of agreed criteria. I’m not aware of such agreed criteria in the socal sciences but I’d imagine that any such criteria would vary by discipline within the social sciences and by the culture of disciplines in different countries. Best wishes. Ray

I think to the extent to which the supervisor guided the researcher, met regularly with the supervisee and prevented the researcher from getting into pitfalls, the advisor should be a co-author of the research publication. In some institutions it is also a matter of protocol especially for funding reasons.

Supervisor or not a co-author should be co-contributing to the paper on hand. Did he contribute and does he agree with conclusions etc If he does, then he can become co-author. I have met some ridiculous "co-authors" who had nothing to do with the publication, but they had an institution email, whereas the author did not!

Research communities restrict and induce research work to be presented in common agreement between the tutor who conducts the work and the student

Yes, but just in case when supervisor does valuable contribution. Sometimes the advisor only gives the name, and that's the case when he/she couldn't be co-author.

It depends... Does the supervisor give a relevant feedback to the student? From who the idea comes from? That's an ethical point. Sometimes, even the supervisor writes more than the student... In my opinion, the supervisor could co-authored the paper when her/his help is relevant to finish the paper succesfully and, depending on each one contribution, the authors order could be different. Anyway, it will be quite unusual if the student is not the first author of at least one paper of his/her PhD (this could reveal or a lack of student's initiative or a lack of supervisor ethics).

The supervisor should be a major co-author. if the supervisor doesn't matter then why appoint them in the first place. otherwise the candidate should go ahead and supervise the work. the role supervisors provide should be recognized. sometimes the supervisors read through the work about four to five times to get the thesis in shape and you think he shouldn't be a co-author then who qualifies to be a co-author

Supervisors should, by default be Co authors to any paper emanating from the supervised project. In fact, at time especially for MSc, the supervisor may own the scientific ideas in the project, and just for the student to carry out the study. Supervisor is a very important integral of any Msc or PhD project and must earn a referred and significant position in emanating scientific papers.

Yes, to the extent that the supervisor makes significant contributions to the work not only in terms of its form but content. The supervisor is usually involved in all aspects of the paper from problem formulation to conclusion. The ideas expressed in the paper are usually influenced by the supervisor. It is however important for the supervisor to approve the final version of the paper for publication since the format and structure of a thesis is different from an article.