Hi Eddie. No - not as far as i see it. It's not a given - but should be negotiated at least. I'm assuming here that you mean - should they be acknowledged in any publications etc from the thesis? Supervisors, at a minimum, should be mentioned in the acknowledgements of the thesis itself. Beyond that, it depends how much they contribute to any resulting publications, conference proceedings etc. Generally, I draw up a contract with my supervision students that they should publish at least one article from their thesis. Part of that contract is that i will assist with editing, finding the appropriate journal, dealing with reviewers and editors etc. For that contribution, I request that I am second-named author. Students are usually very happy to accommodate this contract - and often quite motivated to achieve the contract.

Thanks a lot Dean. Your suggestion will be a big input to our future discussions on the matter.

No problem Eddie!!

Thanks, Pat. Suggestion well taken. I am sure Dean's and your opinions will be influential when we deliberate on this matter at our Research Center. Ed

I agree with Patrick

Yes Pat - you add the point that it is flexible as it evolves. That said, a personal ethic of my own (and it has happened quite a few times) is that, even if I do most of the editing etc for a manuscript submission, the original data belongs to the student, so I'm always second author. On the other hand, I have had a few instances whereby the students are using at least some of my collected data to build their thesis (usually at the Masterate level). In this case, it may be negotiated that i am first author.

This is a really interesting discussion - thanks for raising the question, which is clearly relevant to many of us. I think having an agreement at the outset, as Dean suggests, is very important and may pre-empt a dispute. As Pat noted, authorship should reflect the contributions each author has made. In my experience, Honours students who write dissertations are often not interested in writing up their research for publication (they've graduated, got jobs and feel there are few benefits in spending time writing up their findings for public dissemination). Further, these students are often research apprentices - they fit into a wider research programme by doing a small project and often didn't generate the research question they go on to investigate. In these cases, I think it's quite appropriate for the supervisor(s) to be lead authors. However, Masterate and PhD students often have more input into the questions asked and work more independently. They are often interested in an academic career and so have stronger motivation to publish their findings. In these cases, it seems proper that students are first authors. Because it's not always easy to predict how motivated students will be to publish their work, I believe some universities put a time clause in their agreements. That is, the supervisor can write up the work and put her or himself as first author of outputs if the student has not begun preparing the thesis for publication within, say, six months of submission. I haven't used this approach myself, but would be interested in feedback from those who have.

Good response Janet. Personally, I've never co-authored with an honours student - for all the reasons that you suggest. Like you - I've never put myself as first author for a masterate or doctoral student. For me, I'm second author if they are willing to engage - even if I have to do a lot of the manuscript work. If they do not want to engage then, while it is a shame that the findings may not see the light of day, I would currently not feel it morally or ethically correct that I could claim main credit for their work. On the other hand - it is good that you raise the question and, in the future as publishing arenas change, who knows?

Thanks for your comments, Dean. I think the debate has at least two points that merit discussion. The first revolves around how we interpret "their work"; obviously students have an important role in writing their dissertation, but if I have provided the research question, had substantial input into the research design and data collection, and undertaken a new literature review and re-analysed the data, I think it's reasonable to say there's a fair amount of my work involved as well. If students don't want to write up the findings and I do, then first authorship seems easily justifiable to me.

The second point is a more general one. While students' education is largely funded by taxpayers (as it is in NZ), I feel I have a moral and ethical responsibility to ensure findings from their research are available to the public or, in my case, to policy makers who can draw on it to inform decisions that have implications for the wider public.

It's hard to establish rules regarding the their-my continuum, but I try to imagine how I'd respond if my VC called and asked me how the heck I justified what I'd done. If I feel I can offer her a good explanation, that's a reasonable touchstone I'm doing the right thing!

Valid points Janet - just slightly differing views. Yes - I often 'steer' students work to the extent that it is more mine than theirs - but I am personally not that 'precious' about my contribution. It's often research that I wouldn't be doing myself so, to me, it's the student's 'baby' - even if I have done a large proportion of the ground work and beyond. I agree that it is 'morally' wrong if the student has no plans or desire to formally publish their results; but that is their choice at the end of the day. Not sure about yours, but I'm pretty sure that my VC would support my position. There isn't always a 'result' with undergrad and post-grad students. That may well also depend on the quality of their research and their effort. In my experience, there are a number of students that I have supervised who have 'jumped through the hoops' - but, to be quite honest, the public nor policy-makers would benefit from the findings. It's a fact of life - and you can only try your best to encourage dissemination of good quality research.

I think we agree on several points, but I don't think publication should be students' "choice" - it should be an expectation, part of the return they owe the tax payers who funded their study. I agree that not all students' work merits publication, but think most does, particularly if it's been undertaken within a larger research programme where it's making a clearly defined contribution (and even null results make important contributions). Some of the work I've written up from my Honours students' projects has appeared in very highly ranked journals and been drawn on by policy makers, so the potential to do good work always exists. Whether the student realises this potential or the supervisor should determine who is first author, but the decision to try and publish should be an expectation, not an option.

I agree with your comments Janet. The problem with Master students is that to transform their dissertation of for example 15,000 words to a publishable journal article of 6000-8000 words needs quite some guidance. However, even though It often involves avgreat deal of work and resources, I prefer to have the student as first author but often takes care of crrespondence. But, I would like to read more views on whether the supervisor could justify going first and if so in which circumstances?

Agree with the last three recent threads. I take it that none of my comments resonate as no-one is voting them though - and that is fine. I'm not precious about that. Janet - I try within my formal contracts with students to get them all to publish. However, 'you can lead a horse to water - but you can't make it drink'. Expectation, without option, may well be in place - but it doesn't mean to say that outputs materialise. I suppose that how much one pursues a students work and then takes over if they are not committed also boils down to 'how much do you as a supervisor need that output'? Personally, I've more than enough of my own interests and outputs to pursue without taking up the mantle of others.

I think we all agree that it's best to negotiate arrangements with students at the outset of any supervision arrangement. Our differences might lie in whether students come to us with a topic they want to address, or whether they come to us with an interest in our research area and we provide a question that fits within our larger programme. I now only supervise students who want to work on questions relevant to my wider research programme, so there's no difference between my interests and their interests. I benefit from someone working on a topic I think needs attention and they benefit from working with someone who has expertise in the area. Students also benefit from joining a bigger research team where they join a small-scale research community and can see how what they're doing fits within a much bigger picture. Because research teams are usually only possible with external funding, publishing the findings is important to meet grant requirements as well as providing the more general return to tax-payer funders I've already mentioned. These dual responsibilities mean that, if outputs don't materialise via students (almost invariably the case with Honours students), I must take over their preparation. In these cases, I think it's quite appropriate to be first author given the student has slotted into a programme I developed. Where the student has developed the topic, or is working at a more advanced level, my approach does not fit as well and I don't have a clear response to how authorship should be determined (other than to discuss this question at the outset). My only disagreement is that I don't believe students should ever have the power of veto over publication (unless we give funders, including tax-payers, the power of veto over the questions students may address - a prospect that would destroy the academic freedom we all value).

Similar to the rest, order of authors does not matter to me, be the second or last author. Also, II agree with the following criteria for co-authorship: (a) conception, design, planning; (b) Field work/production of the data; (c) analysis and interpretation of data; and (d) drafting the article or revising it critically for important intellectual content and final approval of the version to be published.

The adviser of the thesis should serve as secondary author. Although has inputted something for the improvement and in the development of the study frameworks the student should be given the full credit and will be the first author if the paper is published or presented in the conference/s...

yes sir, and better if adviser be changed to "promoter" so that the adviser can be co-author of the manuscript.

It depends on the amount of work done by student and adviser. If idea of the thesis was conceived by the student, literature review, data collection, and analysis was also done by student, and adviser only guided the student, then obviously it should belong to “student” and vice versa.