How do I decide if a co-authorship is justified, or whether a simple acknowledgment is sufficient?
Use the same criteria you would for other cases. If core personnel have contributed to the writing of the paper, provided a figure or table, or otherwise made essential contributions to the paper’s conclusions, co-authorship should be considered. If contributions are routine-e.g., downloading and running packaged software, providing routine statistical input-a simple acknowledgment would suffice. This is a matter that in general should be openly discussed with anyone involved on a project. • I don’t think I should have to include core personnel as coauthors, since they did not provide intellectual input, plan the experiments or write the paper. This is really a philosophical matter. However, most of us have included students or technicians as coauthors if they have invested much effort and obtained results (e.g. a figure or two) that are included in the manuscript. This is really no different. In any event, inclusion of personnel who have contributed substantially to a publication in g
