Ok. So I need your help with a moral dilemma.
I have a colleague with whom I have done a good bit of research over the years since I came to New School (just about all of his research, and maybe 3/5 of mine) is up for tenure this fall.
New School is moving rapidly into the "wannabe R2" status, and as such, the requirements for scholarship are equally rapidly increasing, and being judged by senior faculty without research records. So one of the things that faculty in the tenure pipeline have heard is that co-authorship is suspect.
Colleague's work is all co-authored, nearly all of it with me. She has a background without formal research training, coming from the basket aesthetics side of the house.
She has asked me to develop a statement for her dossier, which she has to complete over the summer, that states what work each of us contributed to the co-authored works.
It is here that I have a problem.
Who came up with study ideas? Me.
Who planned the methodology? Me. (Colleague has no idea how to do this, and concepts like reliability and validity are foreign to her).
Who collected the data? Both of us.
Who analyzed the data? It's qualitative, so kind of both of us, but I came up with the analysis scheme.
Who wrote the lit reviews? Mostly me.
Who spent the last 3 spring breaks writing papers all day every day with maybe a 1/2 day consultation with colleague? Me.
Who figured out where to submit papers? Me.
Here's the question: How much should I disclose in this document?
Does it matter that I am, at present, quite irritated with colleague for blowing me off on other research work?
The kind thing to do seems to be to develop a joint statement that says that because of the nature of the work, it was a collaborative effort, and order of authorship was determined by who wrote the most words in the paper. This is even, pretty much true.
The unkind thing is to do a detailed, paper-by-paper laundry list.
Colleague could not do a paper independently at this point, I'm sure. But colleague does add a lot to the university in other ways, and despite the fact that I'm irritated at the moment, there are several elements of department life that would be impoverished if she goes.
So what would you do?
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I suppose it depends on how it will affect your own tenure dossier. I don't think a paper by paper laundry list is going to make either of you look particularly good. At the same time, though, I don't think you should down play your own work if you took the lead on all of the papers. I would talk about how the collaboration process worked for you two, and how even if you did the majority of the leg work, she still (hopefully) played a major role in each project.
hope that helps
Why is she asking you to do this? It's her tenure package and she should know what she contributed to each document. She should be able to write her own statement. I would offer to review what she writes just to make sure she doesn't over-inflate her claims.
It's a shame she hasn't been advised to have at least one non-coauthored paper during her stay. We've been pushing that on our junior faculty. Additionally, if there is mostly coauthored work, we care about the person having multiple coauthors. However, we're an R1, and it's hard to say what your school's minimum is going to be. One of my friends at a SLAC's colleague got tenure with just one coauthored paper (for which I did more work than the colleague in question, apparently, just by reading and making comments on the paper).
I think your joint statement about the authorship order determining effort is probably a good one. None of the statements we got from coauthors when my colleague went up went into any level of detail other than saying that my colleague did at least half the work or more than half the work, with the exception of one coauthor who admitted he had just provided the data and my colleague did everything else.
Another thing we looked for when my last colleague went up was if the coauthor would author with the person again.
In any case, if you're untenured, it sounds like time to stop working with this person! (But you don't have to say that.)
N and M, by multiple do you mean many people, or different people?
Different coauthors-- ideally lots of two-author papers with different second authors (maybe a few of the same second author to show the second author would repeat the experience). That's if there are no (or there's only one) single-authored papers.
The idea is for us to judge the value-added of the person. If the person's papers are have a specific person as a coauthor on all of them (regardless of the number of other authors on any paper) and doesn't have any single-authored papers, that's the worst case.
"Colleague could not do a paper independently at this point, I'm sure."
This seems pretty clearly below tenure threshold. So I'd probably suggest that I wrote a general letter in which I discuss the "add a lot to the university in other ways, and despite the fact that I'm irritated at the moment, there are several elements of department life that would be impoverished if she goes" bits, and try to duck the paper-by-paper assessment; if pushed, I'd go through the list yu give and suggest that it probably wouldn't in fact help their case.
Hi there, agree with the other comments. Not sure how a person that "could not do a paper independently at this point" can get tenure in a "research" avenue.
I would avoid the paper-by-paper assesment -- the truth is that if you do fair assesment, the letter will not help her tenure case, period. So, in good spirits and trying to help her, suggest to write a general letter.
I'm commenting b/c you said you want people to comment. But I don't think you meant me, since I have no idea what you're talking about. But I would not want to put all that work into something and have someone else take the credit. I don't think I would do well in a co-author situation b/c I hate people who don't pull their own weight.
Your fat and sugar post totally got me here. Can you consult with your dept head? My main concern would be that you not write something that will undermine your own case file when you go up. At my Uni we often estimate percent or I will list tasks we both did. But I am confused.... Your friend should be writing this for her file, not you.
Could you emphasize what colleague did contribute to the papers rather than pointing out that she should have contributed more/differently? And fill in with all the other, nonresearch stuff this person does?
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