On Determination of Eligibility of Authorship and Co-Authorship for UTAT Space Systems Publications.

Authorship contribution should be determined in accordance with recommendations from well-respected academic institutions, as they are good models we ought to strive towards. My recommendation is in line with my experience, and the two articles from Yale University and Harvard University.

https://provost.yale.edu/policies/academic-integrity/guidance-authorship-scholarly-or-scientific-publications

https://hms.harvard.edu/sites/default/files/assets/Sites/Ombuds/files/AUTHORSHIP GUIDELINES.pdf

To cite the recommendations set out in the above resources:

1. Everyone who is listed as an author should have made a substantial, direct, intellectual contribution to the work. For example (in the case of a research report) they should have contributed to the conception, design, analysis and/or interpretation of data. Honorary or guest authorship is not acceptable.
2. Conversely, everyone who has made substantial intellectual contributions to the work should be an author. Everyone who has made other substantial contributions should be acknowledged.
3. All authors should participate in writing the manuscript by reviewing drafts and approving the final version. One author should take primary responsibility for the work as a whole.

Below I will present the criteria for “qualifying” for preliminary consideration for authorship.

A few months in advance of the paper deadline, we should circulate a Google form in a general-member viewable channel that inquires a) their name and contact information, b) the length of their participation in UTAT Space Systems, in months, c) which subsystem they are part of, and d) whether they believe they have made “substantial contributions”. On a subsequent page we will ask the member to describe, using a minimum of 100 words and a maximum of 250 words, what they believe their most important contributions are.

Separately, the leads will choose one primary author - either a lead or a general member - who has contributed a substantial portion to the work already and is ready to take responsibility for managing the publication submission. The primary author is responsible for defining the scope of the publication and preparing an abstract, potentially in collaboration with other subsystem leads who should be also then included as authors).

After the form finishes circulating and gathering replies, the primary author will review the responses and remove entries made in bad faith. For example, people who made false or unsubstantiated claims to contributions should not be included. The primary author must consult with the lead of the subsystem that the form respondee claimed to be part of to verify the veracity of their claims. People may be removed if they a) gave false information at any point during their submission, b) overstated the impact of their contribution, c) if their contribution is not relevant or not significant enough for the purposes of authorship. More about point c) later. People who are removed must be contacted by the method they specified in part a) of the form, with the message indicating they are removed from consideration of authorship; the message should indicate a reason and procedures to appeal the decision. Appeals should be conducted via meeting that involves the primary author and one lead, preferably from the subsystem with which the general member is involved.

What defines “meaningful” “relevance” and “significance” for (co-)authorship purposes? I propose the following set of criteria:

• That designs, calculations, simulations or analysis, measurements, literature review, or samples of written work produced entirely by the member will be discussed in the publication.
• That authors who contributed to “shared files”, such as the full mechanical CAD in SolidWorks, etc., must have been part of the team and the subsystem in which they for ≥ 12 months.

On the other hand, the following contributions are not sufficient to qualify for authorship and instead can be addressed by acknowledging the member in a dedicated section, citing a publication that the member (co-)authored, or neither of the two.

• Members that are part of the subsystems that are not included in the scope of the paper but have contributed key values that are cited in the paper, should be acknowledged. For example, if a paper deals with optical design and cites the expected temperature range of the payload, then the members within the thermal system responsible for determining this number should be acknowledged, inasmuch as thermal simulation and analysis is beyond the scope of the optical design paper. Thermal simulation and analysis can be published separately.
• Members that were involved with the design, calculations, simulations, measurements, and literature review, but have not produced any results of value to the publication itself; or if inferences drawn by that member in samples of written work from any of the aforementioned activities did not materially influence the discussions of the processes of decision-making, design, supplier management, fabrication and testing, and assembly; then, those members should not be included in authorship. This concerns the vast number of general members that participate but do not make meaningful contributions and protects primary authors from diluting their credit towards the publication.