Determination of Authorship Credit in Published Dissertations

Abstract

Assignment of publication credit in student—faculty collaborations was examined using vignettes. Three levels of advisor input into developing and conducting the research and two objectives (dissertation vs. nondegree research) were systematically varied to create six scenarios. As hypothesized, authorship credit increased with input, as it should; students were given more credit by faculty on published dissertations than on nondegree research; and second authorship for dissertation advisors was largely automatic, with more credit given to faculty than available guidelines recommend. Contrary to expectation, comparison of faculty and graduate student responses indicated that students were more generous to advisors than advisors were to themselves. Post hoc analyses suggested a cohort effect, with senior faculty giving greater credit to graduate students than did junior faculty.