Rules of authorship
Minimum requirement for authorship should be in accord with the Vancouver Protocol, as reflected in the
Joint NHMRC/AV-CC Statement and Guidelines on Research Practice. According to this, authorship is substantial participation (contributing solely to the acquisition of funding or the collection of data does not justify authorship), and requires involvement in:
- conception and design, or analysis and interpretation of data; and
- drafting the article or revising it critically for important intellectual content; and
- final approval of the version to be published.
When creating
software a person's contribution is recognised in much the same way as authorship on a paper. The intellectual input may well arise not only from the actual writing of the software, but also at the conceptual stage of its development. As such, copyright in the software should be attributed to all those involved in its development.
Order of authors
The
University Code of Conduct for Research states that where there is more than one co-author of a research paper, the authors should discuss and reach agreement on the order in which the authors shall be listed. The order would normally follow the conventions of the particular discipline. If agreement cannot be reached, the Head of Department should be consulted in the first instance.