How/Shall core services be acknowledged in a manuscript?
Personnel in core facilities provide essential services for their users and it is important to recognize their contributions to the scientific advancement of the projects. The type of recognition that is most appropriate may be different for individual projects, depending on the contribution that core facility personnel provides. Under what conditions is co-authorship warranted? When is an acknowledgment most appropriate? What if a user/collaborator refuses to acknowledge core personnel? And more importantly, how to handle situations when you feel it is warranted, but not offered (or offered when you feel it is not warranted)?
Commonly Recommended Guidelines for Authorship of Core Facility personnel on Manuscripts are available in the current literature.
F.e.:
The following guidelines and recommendations were adapted from abrf.org. The ABRF recommendation was published in Angeletti et al. in 1999 (FASEB Journal, 13:595), “Intellectual interactions between resource and research scientists are essential to the success of each project. When this success results in publication, a citation in the acknowledgments section of a manuscript may be appropriate for routine analysis. However, contributions from resource scientists that involve novel resource laboratory work and insight, experimental design, or advanced data analysis that make a publication possible or significantly enhance its value require co-authorship as the appropriate acknowledgment.”
General aspect
Core facilities must charge for services rendered according to cost accounting practices set up at each institution. Charging for services does not preclude authorship on manuscripts provided the Core laboratory individual has contributed to the research in a substantial way. If authorship is anticipated, it is preferably established at the beginning of the project so that both the customer and the Core researcher are cognizant of each other’s criteria.
Important reasons for acknowledging contributions from core facilities in publications, by co-authorship or by formal mention in the acknowledgments section, include
Activities for which authorship are recommended:
1. Author should make substantial contributions to the project
2. Each author should have participated enough to accept responsibility for the content of the manuscript
The following activities do not represent intellectual contributions to a project and would not constitute authorship:
All contributors that do not meet the criteria of authorship should be recognized in the acknowledgements section, for example: