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Case 10c :

Supervisor First or Student First?

Dr Sara Jordan and Ellen are trying to determine who should be listed first in the order of authorship for a paper that Ellen wrote for Dr Jordan's "Public Administration Theory" course.

Sara, a faculty member, assigned her class a research paper project and Ellen's performance was so exceptional that Sara invited Ellen to consider working together with her to turn the course paper into an article for submission to a journal.

Ellen developed the idea to match Sara's assignment and she composed compiled all of the original data to draft the course paper. Sara reworked and extended the theoretical and discussion sections, rewrote a number of sections to improve flow and explanation to an international audience, and added necessary tables, charts, and analysis graphs.

Working together, the two potential co-authors drafted the final document for submission and decided which journal to submit to first. Because her institutional affiliation is stable, Sara was chosen to be the corresponding author.

When sitting down in Sara's office to submit the paper through the on-line submissions system, Ellen insisted she believed that Sara should go first. Sara argued otherwise. Ultimately, the two decided to flip a coin to determine authorship order.

Thinking through the ICJME definition of authorship as having made a substantial contribution to the published work:

• Do both individuals rise to the standard of author as described?
• What substantial contributions to the final version did each make?
• Did either make a "more" substantial contribution than the other?

 

Using what you have learned from your own experience as a student,

• Make a case for Ellen to be listed first.
• Make a case for Sara to be listed first.